April 26, 1977: Studio 54 opens, at 254 West 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan. It became the defining discotheque of the "Disco Period."
Opened as the Gallo Opera House in 1927, it served as a CBS broadcast studio in the mid-20th Century. Real estate developers Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 as a nightclub, retaining much of the former theatrical and broadcasting equipment, at the theater in 1977.
Writer Truman Capote, not the only older person seeking to recapture a lost youth there, described it as "the nightclub of the future. It's very democratic. Boys with boys, girls with girls, girls with boys, blacks and whites, capitalists and Marxists, Chinese and everything else -- all one big mix."
He spent many nights watching from the D.J.'s crow's nest overlooking the dance floor, "the men running around in diapers, cocktail waiters in satin basketball shorts, often lured away by the customers"; or dancing madly by himself, laughing delightedly every time a giant man in the moon suspended over the dance floor brought a spoonful of white powder to its nose.
The club generally opened at 10:00 PM, with crowds peaking at 12:00 Midnight. The bar closed at 4:00 AM, and the rest of the club stayed open until 6:00 AM. According to Rubell, the vast majority of the club's guests were not celebrities but, rather, members of the public who just wanted to dance.
And yet, to be admitted to Studio 54 was a status symbol, even on nights when the club was open to the public. Admission generally cost $7.00 -- about $34 in 2022 money, so a little stiff, but hardly outrageous -- but guests could pay for an annual membership in exchange for discounted tickets. Tickets were more expensive on weekends, and all ticket prices were increased on nights with performances. Rubell made the final decisions over whether guests were allowed in the club.
Celebrities usually were allowed to enter immediately. According to a 1977 Wall Street Journal article, "very beautiful" members of the public were almost always admitted, while men entering alone were invariably rejected, to prevent predatory behavior. In a November 1977 interview with New York magazine, Rubell bragged about the club's exclusivity: "I turned away 1,400 people last Saturday."
Nobody, but nobody, was guaranteed entry. Spyros Kyprianou, the President of the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, was once rejected because the doormen thought he was the president of Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn. One of the sons of King Khalid of Saudi Arabia was rejected, and the Saudi embassy to the United States wrote Rubell a letter, asking that the Prince not be rejected again. He was. Singer Grace Jones was to perform on New Year's Eve 1977, and she had invited the members of the band Chic. This was known beforehand. The band were still denied entry, and wrote the song "Le Freak" about it.
But Bianca Jagger was a frequent guest, both with and without her husband, Mick, the lead singer of The Rolling Stones. So was model Jerry Hall, for whom Mick would eventually leave Bianca. Bianca, a Nicaragua-born socialite and peace activist, once rode onto the dance floor on a white horse.
No, I'm not making that up.
Former First Ladies Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Betty Ford were accepted; Betty's husband, Jerry, never tried. Margaret Trudeau, then the First Lady of Canada, got in; her husband, Pierre, never tried. The only major New York politicians who got in were Congresswoman Bella Abzug and Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton.
It wasn't just for the young and beautiful, like the aforementioned Grace Jones, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jacqueline Bisset, Gia Carangi, Faye Dunaway, Farrah Fawcett, Diane von Fürstenberg, Richard Gere, Anjelica Huston, actress-model sisters Margaux and Mariel Hemingway, Lauren Hutton, the person then known as Bruce Jenner, Gilda Radner, Brooke Shields (who, like Mariel Hemingway, should have been considered too young to get in), and the man who was about to become the King of Disco, John Travolta. Certainly, Woody Allen, John Belushi, Sylvester Stallone, Robin Williams TV reporter Geraldo Rivera and drag queen Divine were not beautiful, but they were let in.
Being a fashion designer helped: Halston, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and Karl Lagerfeld were let in. Being a rock star helped: In addition to Mick, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Cher, Elton John, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Tom Jones, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Rick James, Freddie Mercury of Queen, Bette Midler, Lou Reed, Paul Stanley of Kiss, and country singer Dolly Parton were seen there.
But even such establishment figures (even if they had once been world-shockers) as Capote, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Leonard Bernstein, Roy Cohn, Salvador Dali, Doris Duke, Martha Graham, Earth Kitt, Timothy Leary, Frank Lebowitz, Liza Minnelli and her sister Lorna Luft, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Paloma Picasso, Richard Pryor and Andy Warhol. Warhol described the place as "a dictatorship at the door, but a democracy on the dance floor."
(who did commercials for Klein's jeans), Steve Rubell.
Also known to have been there: A young real estate developer who was a client of Cohn's, and his wife at the time: Donald and Ivana Trump. Alec Baldwin, who would later impersonate Trump on Saturday Night Live, worked at Studio 54 as a waiter.
It had been half a century since the Algonquin Hotel, 13 blocks away, with its Algonquin Round Table of writers and journalists, had been the center of New York's social life. Now, the literati had been replaced by a "glitterati."
On December 16, 1978, Rubell and Schrager were arrested by the IRS, for skimming profits. The Manhattan District Attorney's office alleged they had taken $2.5 million (about $12 million in 2022 money), or as much as 60 percent of Studio 54's receipts over the past 2 years.
They hired Cohn to represent them. Threatened with further charges of drug trafficking, obstruction of justice and conspiracy, they pleaded guilty to tax evasion in November 1979. On March 31, 1980, Studio 54 closed. As country singer Willie Nelson (not known to have ever been a guest there) wrote in 1967, "Turn out the lights, the party's over."
Rubell and Schrager were each sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison, and each was released after a year and 3 months. In 1985, they renovated the former Academy of Music on East 14th Street, and turned it into a dance club called Palladium. That year, Rubell, a closeted gay man, discovered that he had contracted AIDS. He died in 1989.
In 1984, Rubell and Schrager went into the hotel business, pioneering the concepts of the small, but very attentive, "boutique hotel" and "urban resort." As of April 26, 2022, Schrager is still alive, and active in the hotel industry.
Speaking of hotels: In 1997, the MGM Grand Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas opened a Studio 54 replica. It lasted until 2012.
The Roundabout Theatre Company converted the Studio 54 space into a Broadway theater in 1998, retaining the Studio 54 name. The 1st show staged there was a revival of the musical Cabaret, with Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles and Alan Cumming as the Master of Ceremonies. This was an appropriate choice, given the show's its themes of escape, hiding, reinventing oneself, and impending doom. (Sadly, this proved all too true for Richardson, who died in a skiing accident in 2009.)
The building in 2017, with the infamous red door to the left
Also in 1998, the film 54 was released, filmed onsite, shortly before its conversion into a theater. Mike Myers played Rubell, and Louis Negin played Capote, but they were the only real people portrayed in the film. Lauren Hutton was in the film, playing an older clubgoer rather than pretending to be her then-36-year-old self. Ryan Phillippe, Salma Hayek, Breckin Meyer and Neve Campbell also starred, all as fictional characters.
UPDATE: In 2021, the producers of the FX TV series American Crime Story had announced that the show's 4th season would focus on Studio 54, but, as of early 2024, it had not yet begun production. At that point, Schrager was still alive, as was the Queen of Studio 54, Bianca Jagger.
And it took me until around that time to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There was too much overwrought music, including disco; and, at the same time, not enough of it.
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April 26, 1977 was a Tuesday. Japanese baseball star Kosuke Fukudome was born. So was Tom Welling, who played Clark Kent (but only briefly, in the show's final scene, Superman) on the 2001-11 WB/CW Network series Smallville.
These games were played in Major League Baseball:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Baltimore Orioles, 6-2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Once-and-future Yankee Rudy May outpitched Ken Holtzman. Eddie Murray, who would be named American League Rookie of the Year, hit the 3rd of what would turn out to be 504 career home runs. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-3 with a walk, but had an RBI on a groundout.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Atlanta Braves, 9-1 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Dan Driessen hit 2 home runs, and Johnny Bench hit 1. Pete Rose went 3-for-5.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-0 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. John Candelaria went 7 innings, allowing no runs on 3 hits. Rich Gossage, in his 1 seasons in Pittsburgh after 5 with the White Sox, before signing as a free agent with the Yankees, pitched 2 hitless innings the rest of the way, the Candy Man and the Goose combining on a 3-hit shutout. Willie Stargell appeared only as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 10-7 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Tigers led 6-1 after 4 innings, but the White Sox tied the game in the 8th. Each team scored a run in the 13th. Tiger reliever Steve Foucault came in to pitch the top of the 14th, and had nothing, allowing a double and a walk, getting a forceout, then allowing an RBI single to Richie Zisk, allowing an intentional walk, throwing a wild pitch that got a run home, walking another batter, and allowing a 3rd run on a groundout.
* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Bobby Murcer went 1-for-3 with a walk. Lou Brock went 1-for-4.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 3-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-5, but Carlton Fisk went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Robin Yount went 1-for-4.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-3 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Rod Carew went 0-for-4. That would be a rarity for him that season, as he ended up batting .388 and winning the AL's Most Valuable Player award.
* The Kansas City Royals beat the Texas Rangers, 6-3 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 2-for-4.
* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres, 4-1 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium).
* The Oakland Athletics beat the California Angels, 7-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). For the A's, Dick Allen hit his 350th career home run. He would only hit one more, playing both halves of a Sunday, doubleheader on June 19, left the A's, and never played again. He was only 35, but he was batting .240 for the season, and was probably done.
* The Houston Astros beat the San Francisco Giants, 4-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Joe Ferguson hit a home run to win the game in the top of the 13th inning.
* The Cleveland Indians and the Toronto Blue Jays were rained out at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The game was made up 2 days later, and the Indians won, 4-3.
* And the New York Mets and the Montreal Expos were rained out at Shea Stadium. The game was made up on May 30, as a Memorial Day matinee became a traditional holiday doubleheader. The Expos swept, 5-1 and 3-2.
Football was out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA Playoffs:
* The Houston Rockets beat the Washington Bullets, 107-103 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
* The Golden State Warriors beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 114-103 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Of course, the Warriors view the Lakers as their arch-rivals, but it's never been the other way around: The Lakers' rivals are the Boston Celtics. Despite the defeat, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 41 points and had 18 rebounds. This game tied up the series at 2-2, but the Lakers would win it in 7.
* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Denver Nuggets, 105-96 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.
There were 2 games played in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The New York Islanders lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 3-0 at the Montreal Forum. And the Boston Bruins beat the Philadelphia flyers, 5-4 at The Specturm in Philadelphia. Terry O'Reilly scored the winning goal, 10:07 into the 2nd overtime.
And there was 1 game played in the World Hockey Association Playoffs: The Winnipeg Jets beat the Houston Aeros, 4-3 in overtime at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has been converted into the "Central Campus" of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.)
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