Whatever went down in my office—it was never boring.
There was a method to my madness in managing it all. I always carried a leather card case holding three-by-five index cards in my pocket to jot down notes, ideas, and observations. Upon awakening each day, my assistants and I would review my notes and categorize them accordingly. People have told me that my note-taking inspired them to do the same. Denise Chatman told me that years later, when she was working for Logos and Promotions Inc., the three-by-five leather card case she designed and produced as a holiday gift for their VIP clients was inspired by me.
Shortly after reopening Studio 54, as proprietor of the nightclub, a typical evening for me would begin with a scotch on the rocks and a few glasses of champagne as I was out and about at dinner parties or various restaurants. By 10:00 p.m. it was time to begin adding cocaine to the combination as I was now entering that intense time period of about four hours of service to my special guests, some of the most interesting people in the world, and my mind needed to be razor-sharp. This served its purpose until around 2:00 a.m. when I would permit myself to relax and join the party with more cocaine, some cognac, and a Quaalude or two to level me out from all the coke and the adrenaline rush of the previous four hours. I was functioning at an insane level of intensity and loving it—I was the embodiment of the popular philosophy of the time: “better living through chemicals.”
By the end of our first few months, Studio 54 was often filled to capacity, with up to two thousand patrons on many evenings. Regulars from the “old” crowd were partying with members of the “new,” younger crowd and a fresh crop of even younger underage beauties were champing at the bit to get in. The drinking age was eighteen in New York, and many teenaged girls had excellent fake IDs. The whirlwind of guests from the old Studio crowd were there—Liza, Cher, Rod Stewart, Calvin Klein, Halston, Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, Farrah Fawcett with Ryan O’Neal, Truman Capote, Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, and everyone’s favorite Rolling Stones, Mick, Keith, and Ron Wood—otherwise known as The Regulars.
But now Studio was attracting the next generation of young celebrities, including Prince, Madonna, Ellen Barkin, Steven Tyler, Ben Stiller, Christie Brinkley, Tommy Hilfiger, Drew Barrymore, Heather Locklear, Chris Atkins, and other up-and-coming actors visiting from Hollywood. It also attracted most of New York’s top models, including Iman, Carol Alt, Stephanie Seymour, Paulina Porizkova, Kelly LeBrock, Linda Evangelista, Janice Dickinson, and a host of others. Most night people still wanted to be part of Studio 54. They felt safe and protected by everyone who worked there, especially the babes in the coatroom, who were a wild bunch that saw everything, and would never, ever tell.
The Harris Sisters—Jayne Anne, Eloise, and Mary Lou Harris—aka The Screaming Violets, were a welcome sight to Studio 54’s original crowd on the night of our reopening. Jayne Anne recently told me: “Back in 1978, as a young girl, I was fresh from the closing of our Harris families’ Off Broadway show Sky High, and needed, as actors call it, ‘a survival job.’ I applied for a job at Studio 54. I’d been hanging out there anyway and figured it would be a good fit as I was well-versed in society and celebrity from working at the very prestigious Park Avenue Antique Shows at the New York Armory. After making it through the scrutiny of the Studio 54 interview, I was told to show up later that night. The coatroom was run by Lisa, a tall, attractive blonde with hair down to her waist who liked to twirl to the music. The guys loved her and all the other girls in coat check who were beautiful, svelte, and liked to twirl to the music. Depending on the events of the evening, there could be as many as four or five coat check spaces running at once, in various locations throughout the club, which was great because a week or so later my sisters were hired as well, solving all of our financial and social problems. At some point Lisa decided to leave and my sisters and I took over the running of Studio 54’s coatrooms.
The Harris Sisters aka The Screaming Violets—Mary Lou Harris, Jayne Anne Harris, and Eloise Harris (center). They saw it all, but would never tell.
Photograph by Nancy Brown, courtesy of the Harris Family Archive.
“Some nights were an endless parade of celebrities. Some showed up to make an appearance for the cameras and then left, some came in to party and some to party hard. We checked hundreds of coats, stoles, mink, fox, and sable furs, and any unique possession one could ask us to care for including a few dogs and a baby for twenty minutes. We were union actors and singers as well, sometimes burning the candle at both ends, working in the club at night and spending our days on movie sets, commercial sets, modeling, and soap operas. A nap station was set up under one of the back coat check racks and we all took turns napping. Celebrities often used our coatroom to take a break from the crowds. Cher would come in and spruce up—she was cool. Francesco Scavullo was one of our favorites, such a nice guy. Way Bandy was another sweetheart.”
Steve Steckel, a member of Studio’s security team, recently told me that security always jumped to it whenever André the Giant, the professional wrestler and actor, arrived at the front door. André was huge, seven feet five inches tall, weighed 525 pounds, and he always showed up with three girls on each arm so they had to open all the doors at the same time that led to the main room. Jayne Anne Harris went on to say, “André was an excellent tipper and very friendly. Most celebrities were very nice to us coat check girls, polite, sweet, and generous in their tipping. The coat check was very lucrative and some girls were very smart with their money. Some paid for college and others bought Manhattan apartments. The hours were grueling and the work was extremely physical. We’re not sure how we did it.”
It was exhilarating to play host to some of the most famous people in the world whenever they felt like dropping in to have fun and be seen. It was thrilling for me, personally, when King Juan Carlos of Spain visited. The king ended up in the midst of a scene with Carmen D’Alessio and Steve Rubell. Steve, who craved the company of celebrities almost as much as he did Quaaludes, and Carmen, whose native language was Spanish and also loved rubbing elbows with famous people, fought for the King’s attention in front of his banquette. When I realized that the king was becoming uncomfortable, I was able to ease Steve and Carmen aside and engaged the King in a conversation about my studies at the Universities of Madrid and Santander. He was charismatic and appeared interested in my experiences in Spain. At one point in our conversations, he invited me to open a Studio 54 in Madrid—an offer I should have taken more seriously. Unfortunately, I was too caught up organizing each night at Studio 54 to think about anything else.
There was a lot of resentment about Studio 54 reopening so successfully, and we received several bomb threats, presumably from people who in the past had problems getting in. I hired a bodyguard as a police officer friend of mine suggested. I didn’t mess around: I secured the services of a former FBI agent. Then, one Saturday night, we received the most serious of threats because of its specificity—the New York Post was anonymously called and told a bomb would go off that night in Studio 54 at 1:00 a.m. The NYPD bomb squad came in with their big bomb-sniffing German Shepherd and swept the place—in the middle of the party. Of all the crazy and outlandish things I witnessed over the years at Studio 54, nothing struck me as more odd than the sight of a German Shepherd sniffing the seats in the dark balcony.
Thankfully, the dog didn’t find anything, and the cops gave me a choice: A) cause mass hysteria and possibly permanently damage the reputation of Studio by evacuating the club in a panic, or B) ride it out.
I decided not to tell the crowd, crossed my fingers, and let the revelry continue.
It was closing in on midnight, and my “brave” ex-FBI agent was sweating. He sheepishly came over to me after the cops left and gulped, “Mark, I have a wife and kids at home. I can’t stay here just hoping there’s no bomb.” I looked at my watch, saw that it was 12:05 a.m., and I let him go—permanently. I decided personal private security wasn�
��t for me and managed my life without it for the next three years. Rick James found it hard to believe that Mick Jagger bounced around New York City at night alone. I never saw any of the Stones with security. Whenever Rick was asked why he usually had somebody with him, he never failed to cite John Lennon. I couldn’t argue with him..
At 12:45 a.m., I moved through the crowd to the center of the dance floor and lost myself in the beat of the music and the energy of the crowd. A navy man to the end, if Studio was going down, I was going with it.
Chapter Thirteen:
It’s All About the Guest List
Within a few months or so of our reopening, I hired some of New York’s most attractive and socially-connected young women as assistants, which I did to cover both daytime and nighttime activities. Among those I hired was the charming Christina Oxenberg, sister of Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg (their mother: Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia). Another of these fabulous women was the very young, beautiful, cherub-faced blonde, Gwynne Rivers. If the truth is to be told, Gwynne was fourteen years old the first time she saw the inside of Studio 54. She danced the night away with a much older gay friend who carried a tambourine everywhere and worked for Gwynne’s father, artist Larry Rivers. One year later she met Mick Jagger for the first time at a Cut Drop Party at Studio while celebrating an exhibition of her father’s art at the very prestigious Marlborough Gallery, which had taken place earlier that evening. Gwynne worked with Myra Scheer to guarantee the success of the event, calling all the right people in her father’s circle of friends, ensuring a hot crowd and a fun time behind the scrim at Studio 54.
Gwynne’s godfather, Earl McGrath, president of Rolling Stones Records, walked into the party with Mick Jagger, and sparks began to fly. Mick was immediately smitten with Gwynne—who was dressed in a long taffeta gown—telling her she reminded him of the debutantes he dated in London. When he put his arm around her neck and hugged her, the photographers went crazy. From then on, in addition to being the daughter of famous artist Larry Rivers, Gwynne was now known as the sometime companion of Mick Jagger—much to the chagrin of Mick’s girlfriend (and later wife), supermodel Jerry Hall.
Gwynne had such good instincts about special events that I hired her to work for me at Studio. Gwynne recently reminded me of how sweet and protective she thought it was that, in spite of her being a streetwise kid, I made it a point to pick her up after school and take her to the office for her first day on the job. The rest of the week I sent my driver, Fred, and, after that, she made it on her own. She was smart and self-assured. Her fellow classmates were speechless when Gwynne told them, “I’m working at Studio 54.” Mick and Gwynne continued to see each other off and on in subsequent years. Things came to a head on the night of Gwynne’s eighteenth birthday party, which we hosted at Studio. While Larry Rivers played a short set with his jazz band, Mick and Gwynne ended up in an embrace that went on for quite a while until Jerry Hall managed to break it up—but not before a photographer for the New York Post captured Mick and Gwynne entwined. The picture made the front page of the Post the next day. Jerry later wrote of her irritation with Mick’s interludes with Gwynne and others in her book Tall Tales.
Gwynne proved to be a valuable asset to me at Studio. She knew a lot of really cool people. I met Henry Eshelman through Gwynne and hired him to work in our mailroom. She introduced me to David Wallis, a sure-shot young promoter with a phenomenal mailing list, who knew Clint Smith, a childhood friend of Eddie Murphy, and through Clint booked several SNL parties for us. David was sixteen but looked twelve. When he introduced himself to my partner, Stanley Tate, and requested his check for a party he had booked, Stanley was in disbelief. He then called Denise Chatman, in my office, to verify David’s claim, which Denise did. Stanley then screamed into the phone, “That’s impossible! He doesn’t even shave yet!”
Gwynne suggested I hire Victoria Leacock, daughter of the late film director Richard Leacock. I did and she proved to be one of my more serious daytime assistants. This is how Victoria remembers it: “I dropped out of Adelphi College when I was eighteen and had been going to Studio since I was fourteen. It was my home. Mark hired me to work as a daytime assistant at the Penthouse. There weren’t too many rules. Some of the girls were as high as he was. I arrived for my first day at work and remember seeing a part-time assistant, with her face pressed onto the floor snorting the carpet, muttering, “Is this dust or coke?”
Back in 1965, when I was running the Forest Hills Inn, my father introduced me to Denise Chatman, a beautiful young blonde model. She was renting a charming turret room at the Inn. Her grandmother and my father had met through Rabbi Abraham Hecht from Brooklyn, whose endorsement was sought by almost every Democratic politician running for statewide office in New York. Her great aunt, Bunny Isador, was in the Ziegfeld Follies, her father had been a road man for Decca Records, and her mother a Walter Thornton model and a June Taylor dancer. She was steeped in the blues and jazz and loved The Rolling Stones as much as I did. Denise and I bonded immediately. When I invited her to see the new club I was opening, The Candy Store, she jumped at the chance to be one of the Go-Go Girls that danced on the tables. She tired of that within a few months and went on to make her mark in the music industry with the Cayre Brothers. She was a partner to Ken Cayre in the launch of Salsoul Records working in production, marketing, radio, and club promotion. It was now 1982 and Denise came to see me seeking a job at Studio. Having partied at Studio 54 from the very beginning, she understood the scene, had amazing contacts in the music industry, and shared my love of R&B music. I hired her immediately, and she was responsible for producing some of our biggest music events and parties.
My office was a very pleasant environment to work in, day or night. Even though the cream carpeting had seen better days, the wall-to-wall mirrors behind the desk area and the mellow recessed lighting gave the small space a comfortable vibe. It had a glow about it. The moment our doors closed at Studio 54 each night (early morning, really), the cleaning crew went into action throughout the entire club area and all the executive offices. By 10:00 a.m. the offices were cleaned and ready for the day staff to arrive. There was always a vase of fresh Stargazer lilies on my desk, giving the room a pleasant floral scent mixed in with a fresh breeze from the window, which the girls usually kept open. They could count on a lot of activity below on West Fifty-Third Street, as the back stage door entrance to the Roseland Ballroom was just a few doors away.
Denise Chatman worked out of my office at Studio 54, arriving Monday through Friday at noon. Shelley Tupper, one of my original hires at the Virgin Isle Hotel, had proven to be so good with celebrities and special events that I rehired her just in time for the opening of Studio 54 in New York. Shelley descended from Thomas Tupper, one of the founding fathers of Sandwich, Massachusetts, which was settled in 1637. Shelley’s blood ran blue—but on the dance floor, she was all black. Shelley would join Denise at the office around 2:00 p.m. and Gwynne Rivers would arrive around 3:30 p.m.—right after school let out. The girls got along well and had many a laugh girl-talking about all the goings on at Studio. On more than one occasion Gwynne arrived with doodles drawn in black magic marker all over her legs—courtesy of Mick Jagger. Mick knew Gwynne’s parents and, living close by, he would stop by their apartment and hang out—doodling on Gwynne’s ankle as they all sat around the kitchen table.
One afternoon I called the office to speak with Gwynne and Denise picked up. I could hear a lot of laughing in the background and I asked her what was so funny. She said, “[One of the top models in the world whose name I am forbidden to mention] just arrived and she can barely walk. She just spent four days with Rick James at The Plaza Hotel—she said that his dick is the size of a Heineken bottle.” Another time when I called they were flipping coins over who could keep Richard Gere’s black sweater—left in the office the night before.
Hilary Clark, a very attractive teenager from England, with a mane of long blonde ri
nglets and an irresistible sense of personal style, became one of my key nighttime assistants. She was very sexy in an Edwardian way, short skirts, lace and epaulets on her jackets. Everyone loved her: she was so full of joy and always smiling. Shortly after I hired Hilary, she introduced me to her tweedy, straight-laced father, who asked me in his distinctive English accent for assurance that I would keep an eye on her. I promised him I would do my best to see to it that no harm came to her.
As my nighttime assistant, Hilary and I would entertain guests at the large square bar situated under the balcony adjacent to the dance floor, manned by the hunks behind the bar. It was always packed, sometimes with several hundred people, four deep, and served by some of New York’s hottest guys—the Studio 54 bartenders. They were young, chiseled, and gorgeous. They weren’t just eye candy—words often used to describe the head bartender L. J. Kirby, a Warren Beatty look-alike who was mesmerizing to watch. To our regulars, he could be a confidante at 4:00 a.m.; to a first-time guest he could be charming, seductive and flash the most welcoming smile. L. J. set the bar pretty high for the others. Bumping, grinding, taking orders, dancing, pouring drinks—you couldn’t take your eyes off him. Women loved him, models ogled him, the queens worshipped him, and guys trusted him. Other than the dance floor, it was the hottest show in town. Sal DeFalco, Scott Baird, Cort Brown, Steve and Jonathan Learn, and Oscar Lopez were all there—doing it every night.
Hilary and I gave out free drinks as we entertained, moving and dancing from group to group, partying with everyone, squirting people with the soda guns, sometimes doing a line or two off the bar or throwing back shots with folks. We’d grab people, hug and kiss, create a scene together. It doesn’t sound like work, but it was. It was imperative that Hilary be at my side so that when I needed a person on the spot to escort a VIP through the club to my office or the front door, or if I needed someone to clear out a banquette for a group of celebrities, someone could take care of it without interrupting the schmoozing.
Inside Studio 54 Page 11