![\"\"](\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/09\/studio-54.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Disco was over-the-top, outrageous, and drug-drenched \u2014 and\u202f<\/span>Studio 54\u202fwas a disco like no other. Beyond the hallowed doors of the former TV soundstage on a dingy stretch of West 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan, legal and moral boundaries were shattered night after night by the most famous \u2014 and possibly most debauched \u2014 people on earth. Late 1970s superstars Elton John, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Bianca Jagger, and Diana Ross were just a few of the A-listers who counted themselves among the era-defining joint\u2019s elite regulars. None of them, or anyone else, could ever have imagined the way it all would come crashing down. Now, for the first time ever, the ones who share it firsthand speak to\u202f<\/span>The Grazia Gazette<\/span><\/i>\u202fexclusively about what they saw inside the most exclusive and legendary nightclub of all time.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Studio 54 was a phantasmagorical dreamscape, teetering always between a dream come true and a nightmare. Throughout the course of any given evening, a giant, anthropomorphized crescent moon, with a coke spoon pressed to its nose and eyes flashing red, hovered over the room like a Peruvian-flake deus ex machina. On the dance floor, revelers took their cues and engaged in snorts of their own \u2013 often hoovering so-called \u201cparty favors\u201d allegedly supplied by club owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. The costs and recipients of those favors were carefully noted in expense logs that were eventually confiscated by the IRS and scrutinized by the Southern District of New York\u2019s Assistant United States Attorney Peter Sudler.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was astonished at the [blatantly detailed] record keeping,\u201d he marveled, recalling evidence from a 1979 case against the club owners. \u201cI had never seen that before.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Prior to prosecutors snooping around, though, nocturnal escapades were over the top: Bianca Jagger riding a white horse across the dance floor, fashion designer Valentino Garavani presiding over his own three-ring circus, or Grace Jones doffing her clothes so often that a jaded employee described it as \u201cboring.\u201d\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As recalled by Myra Scheer, who served as assistant to both Rubell and Schrager, and worked the inner door as a \u201ctroubleshooter,\u201d near where people passed through what she called the \u201ccorridor of joy\u201d as admission to Studio was secured, \u201cEvery night was a great night. You were never left wondering where the people were. Nights [inside] started slowly, with tons of people waiting outside to be handpicked.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Once in the club, customers got so frisky that the balcony was eventually covered in rubber so that sexual fluids could be easily hosed off at night\u2019s end. To celebrate the 50th birthday of Andy Warhol, she says Rubell dumped 800 $1 bills over the lucre-obsessed artist\u2019s head. It would later turn out that the sum was recorded as an expense, attributed to Warhol.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As things later unraveled for the club and its owners \u2013 all of whom all wound up in jail under various pleas related to income tax evasion \u2013 Warhol told New York Magazine of the attribution, \u201cWhy would Steve [Rubell] do that? \u2026 No wonder people are afraid to go there now.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Just a year earlier, however, Big Apple scenesters were afraid to not go there. Crowds thronged to get in, pushing up against the famous velvet rope, originally placed at the club\u2019s entrance to keep the then-seedy neighborhood\u2019s hookers at bay. Later, of course, the plush barrier became a symbol of nightlife exclusivity.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Warren Beatty, Henry Winkler, and Nile Rodgers were all snubbed at the door. Quaaludes were allegedly handed out like breath mints by Rubell, and some used the chemical inspiration to start their own party outdoors. Supposedly, it was not unheard of for stoned, frustrated strivers to resign themselves to having sex while awaiting entry. \u201cSteve loved giving out Quaaludes; if you told him you didn\u2019t want one, he\u2019d say, \u2018Just take a half,\u2019\u201d said former Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello in the documentary Studio 54.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gatekeeper supreme was Marc Benecke, who said that he \u201cfell into the job when I was 18 years old, met Steve and he asked me what I was doing for the summer.\u201d\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n From 1977 until 1980 \u2013 the glory days of Studio\u2019s reign \u2013 Benecke ruled as one of the most powerful people in night life; so much so, that Benecke, who now co-hosts the Marc & Myra Show on the Studio54 channel of SiriusXM, along with Myra Scheer, sometimes would be walked home with a bodyguard so that he could be protected from disgruntled nobodies who nursed grudges over being rejected.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This year marks the 40th anniversary of Studio 54\u2019s last gasp \u2013 when nightclub aficionado and fan of 54 Mark Fleishman reopened the glitzy joint after it was shut down earlier in 1981.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cStudio 54 sucked people in, luring them back night after night,\u201d Fleishman wrote in Inside Studio 54, his memoir of those good old days. Fleishman described that allure as \u201caffecting their personalities and emboldening them to do things they might not otherwise have done.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Maybe the same can be said for the owners.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Back in the late 1970s, the party seemed like it would never end \u2013 until a rather anonymous, disgruntled ex-employee by the name of Donald Moon pulled the plug on the debauched proceedings. \u201cAs far as we knew he was good to work for,\u201d recalled Benecke. \u201cHe had a good temperament.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>Or maybe not. While a rumor swirls that Moon, now deceased, had tax problems, which led him to report Studio 54 owners Schrager and\u202fRubell to the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for leniency, Sudler makes it sound simpler than that: \u201cHe was angry about being passed over for a promotion.\u201d\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe contacted the IRS and alleged that skimming was going on [i.e. that Studio\u2019s proprietors were reporting only some of their revenues to the IRS as taxable income and keeping the rest without paying taxes],\u201d Sudler said. \u201cHe alleged that there was a second set of books\u201d \u2013 along with bags of money and drugs \u2013 \u201ckept in the ceiling tiles. Based on that, we got a search warrant.\u201d Amazingly, the obituary that marked Moon\u2019s 2015 death depicts him laughing and stated, \u201cHe loved to talk about his time at Studio 54 and all the amazing people he was fortunate enough to meet.\u201d\u202f According to Sudler, Moon wanted nothing in the way of compensation if those amazing people \u2013 including investor Jack Dushey, who earned his money in real estate \u2013 proved to be guilty of the charges and resulted in remuneration for the government. He only wanted placement in America\u2019s federal witness protection program.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Whatever Moon told the IRS must have been convincing. On the morning of December 14, 1978, a reported 31 agents pulled up to the club and banged on its door with a search warrant in hand. Though the raid time was earlier than when Studio 54 employees normally clocked in, somebody \u2013 probably a \u201ccleaning man,\u201d according to Sudler \u2013 was there to open up.\u202f \u201cWe tried to conduct the search at the best possible time: when it was closed and nobody was there,\u201d said Sudler. \u201cWe wanted to not go in there with a disco scene going on.\u201d\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Whatever the case, he added, efficiency was of the essence: \u201cWe had to move quickly. If you can\u2019t get the evidence, you don\u2019t have a case.\u201d Soon after agents made their way inside, employee Scott Nilsson arrived for his shift. He usually worked nights, manning a spot inside the front of the club, where patrons not lucky enough to be on the guest list \u2013 which had a pecking order, with those notated as NFU (No Fuck Ups) at the top \u2013 paid their admissions. But, on that day, he was there to help out in the office. An occasional job responsibility of his was counting cash from the previous night. Nilsson got to the club right after the raid began and, along with a dozen or so other employees, was told to wait outside.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/09\/GettyImages-579190712.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2022\/09\/GettyImages-579116106.jpg\")