The Filthy Magic of Studio 54

Studio 54 was a nightclub, but really much more than that. It became a symbol of the times as much as anything else in the 1970s. Strap on your platform heels and get down. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:10Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:19Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Boogie Down Josh and there's Disco Stu Chuck. And it's just the two of us because Diana Ross Jery is not here right now.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is one I'm surprised we didn't tackle shortly after our disco episode as like a two parter.

• 1:38Josh Clark?

  It is a little surprising, isn't it? But I hadn't heard of Studio 54 until you picked this, so I don't know how that would have been possible.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  That's funny.

• 1:46Josh Clark?

  I'm just kidding. I have, I've heard of it. I'm cool, man. I'm hip. Even though, I guess I was one, one year old to three years old when it was open. So as it was going on, I wasn't aware of it. But later in life, I kind of developed an awareness of it. What do you, what do you think about all that?

• 2:04Speaker 02

  I mean, I would have been six years old to nine, so I probably could have gotten into Studio 54.

• 2:10Josh Clark?

  I was gonna say the same thing. There's some shocking revelations about this stuff that anybody who knows about Studio 54 is probably like, yeah, and that's just how it was. And on the outside, it's, it's just nuts. It was just such a, they called it like the disco of Sodom and Gomorrah. It was just a, a complete bacchanal of like, just drugs and sex and like, in the club. And it was just absolutely nuts. But a, as you read about it, it's, it's this, it's just the same themes over and over again. People had sex in the club. Everybody was doing coke in the club. Everybody was on Quaaludes and this, Mick Jagger's wife Bianca was on a horse once. And it just kept getting like, it, it all just kind of melded together.

• 2:56Josh Clark?

  And I, I kind of felt like by the time I was done researching this, I get Studio 54.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a documentary on Netflix that's okay, called Studio 54.

• 3:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw it.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  From filmmaker Matt, I guess, Tierney Hour? There was a very bad movie about Studio 54, like a movie movie with Mike Myers, famous movie, playing Steve Rubell.

• 3:23Josh Clark?

  I thought that was the documentary. I was gonna say Steve Rubell is like the spinning image of Mike Myers, but now I got you.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  No, Mike, it turns out Mike Rubell, or I'm sorry, Steve Rubell, Mike Myers, young Billy Joel and Alex Edelman all sort of are the same person.

• 3:37Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  They all look alike, but it's interesting. When I was watching the documentary, Emily was floating through the room here and there. And people were just like, oh my God, and we would just do this and this and this and this. And she finally wandered through and just went, these people sound like idiots.

• 3:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it is. It's just basically another example of, and apologies, like this is a pretty blanket statement, but the boomer generation being like, we did this and had so much fun. And it's the coolest thing that could ever possibly happen.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, and it's sort of like, it, it reeked of a documentary on like the, you know, the, what was it? Ill-fated, doomed, island, music festival.

• 4:20Josh Clark?

  Fire festival.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was kinda like that, where she was just like, "These people are idiots." Like, how long can you just sit around and talk about doing cocaine every night and dancing until the sun came up?

• 4:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but the thing is, and Livia helps us with this, and I think she kinda captured it.

• 4:37Josh Clark?

  The reason it seems like that Studio 54 is still just so prominent in just the general cultural consciousness, especially in America, is because it was short-lived. It ended at its peak, so it didn't stick around long enough to like, really like, become passe. And in the very short, like, bursting lifespan that it had, less than three years, like 33 months, I think, it was just, it was the coolest of the cool. And when you put all that together, that's how 50 years later, people like us are doing a podcast on it still, you know what I mean? About a club. A club. That's what we're doing a podcast on.

• 5:19Josh Clark?

  One of 8,000 disco clubs that were open between 1974 and 1976 alone. That's how important this club was to that scene.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's, on one hand, there's a couple of ways to look at it. It was, it was a symbol of something more than probably anything was a symbol of that era.

• 5:38Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Of that excess and decadence and everything. And on one hand, like, my brain goes, "Yeah, but you know what? This is great because it was, uh, these nightclubs were, were havens for minorities and for, for gay people to, uh, for that community to get together in a safe place where they could be themselves." Because like, you literally, like, the documentary even says, like, "If you were a transgender person, you were taking your life in your hands, walking down the street some nights." You know, you could get just assaulted. You can still get assaulted for, for, uh, for that, but especially back then. So, part of my brain goes there, and part of it, of it goes to, um, like, kind of what Emily said, just like, what a vapid, uh, material, um, just...

• 6:24Speaker 02

  Sort of scene based on how you looked and who you knew and part of it, part of it was like, oh wow, what a cool time. And then part of me was like, geez, what an awful group of people.

• 6:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Okay, good. I'm glad that we pretty much arrived at the same place. And also, I find it comforting that I'm following the longstanding trend of agreeing with Emily.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, as we get older, I think I tend to look at things a little more with like, an eye like that rather than just like, yeah, man, what a cool party that was.

• 6:56Josh Clark?

  Exactly, for sure. But let's talk about what a cool party that was.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess we should get to the building first because it was a history building. It was located at 254 West 54th Street. It was originally an opera house in the 1920s. And then in the 1940s, kind of through the 50s and into the 60s and 70s, it was a CBS studio. They had $64,000 Question and Captain Kangaroo and What's My Line.

• 7:29Josh Clark?

  Oh, Captain Kangaroo.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  It was called Studio 52 weirdly at the time.

• 7:33Josh Clark?

  It's so square.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  But they all eventually moved their operations to Los Angeles with the CBS studios there in central Hollywood. And it sat there empty in 1977. So the guys that noticed that studio was sitting empty, or this, you know, large theater, I guess, were two guys named Steve Rubell and Ian Trager, who were Brooklyn guys from sort of working class to middle class Jewish families, who met each other at college at Syracuse.

• 8:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, apparently they became like friends for life. Ian Trager said that after they met and became friends, he thinks that he and Steve Rubell spoke every day for the rest of Steve Rubell's life. And Ian Trager also put it that because they were from Brooklyn, they had something to prove, especially, you know, going to Syracuse with probably some wealthier kids and then coming from working class families. I'm not gonna say they had a chip on their shoulder, but they were like, they were hustlers. They were ambitious. They were going to make a life for themselves rather than, you know, just end up joining their dad's firms because their dads didn't have a firm. One was a postman and the other one was named Max the Jew who ran illegal gambling operations. So that kind

• 8:48Josh Clark?

  of drive and then also just the creativity that those two guys had together. And then also like just the connection that they had. Like this was a genuine partnership that this came out of. It was, it just kind of, I think, inserted a little electricity that otherwise wouldn't have been there.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. So after they graduated, Ian Traeger went to law school at St. John's and started practicing along the early 70s. Rebel got into the steakhouse business and was apparently opening steakhouses a little too quickly because he overextended himself. Did you see the one ad for one of his restaurants?

• 9:33Josh Clark?

  No, they were called Steak Lofts, right?

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Well, this one was at least. Steak Loft, make love to your stomach. And in the subheading, it said, "All entrees include soup, salad bar, baked potato, and shrimp."

• 9:47Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Not a bad deal.

• 9:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, no, that is a pretty good deal. I'm kind of hungry for it now.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  But he had these steakhouses. He got into a little financial trouble and his old pal stepped in to help keep creditors at bay as his attorney. And then by this point though, in the early 70s, they were already sort of co-owners in two different discos, one in Queens and one in Boston.

• 10:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the one in Queens is the more important one. They actually gave up their share in the one in Boston so that they could get full ownership of the Queens one called Enchanted Garden. And it was kind of like the original template for what would become Studio 54. They would throw like theme parties where everybody would dress up and they would decorate it along with the theme. Like it was way more than just some club. And it's like, look at the mirrors on the wall and the disco ball up there. Like this was, there was theatrics to it, too. And so the other big thing that happened at Enchanted Garden is that they met a man named Jack Douchey or Dushy. Let's go with Dushy.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  Oh, I thought it was Doucher. Is it Douchey?

• 10:56Josh Clark?

  D U S H E Y, douchey is definitely a pronunciation of that. So you say douchey, huh?

• 11:03Speaker 02

  I thought it was, but I actually can't remember now from the documentary that I watched three hours ago.

• 11:07Josh Clark?

  Well, let's agree it's definitely not douchey, okay? His name was Jack D and he owned a store in Brooklyn, I think a discount store and was fairly wealthy and he threw either, depending on who you ask, his daughter's bat mitzvah or his son's bar mitzvah at Enchanted Garden and I guess like the cut of Steve and Ian's jib and went into business with them as a silent partner and he gave them the influx of cash that they needed to start Studio 54.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was about a half a million bucks. It was kind of a crazy idea at the time, even though discotheques were big. West 54th Street at this time was really, I guess the best way to say it is sleazy.

• 11:49Josh Clark?

  Is it near Times Square?

• 11:50Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I mean, that's all sort of in that theater district, but at the time it was just, it was dirty, it was dangerous. People thought like, if you're trying to open a high-end discotheque, like this is not the part of town where you want to be doing that.

• 12:04Josh Clark?

  Oh, I see.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  But they did it anyway.

• 12:06Josh Clark?

  Wow. Yeah, they formed a company called Broadway Catering Corporation, which will make a little more sense in a little while. And they leased that building at 254 West 54th Street and they got to work on turning it into a club. They did it in six weeks. They went from nothing to ready for people to come in six weeks without a construction license, I think.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they just kind of got to work. It was, you know, it was sort of a time where you could just get away with stuff until you didn't, kind of under the table style. And that's what they did. You said they started with nothing, but not quite because the theater was, it was an old theater. So they had a stage and they had a proscenium arch and they had a lighting rigging system.

• 12:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's big.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  That was there from the TV days and because they sort of got, not blocked, but their rivals and the other discotheques were basically saying like, hey, don't go work for these guys.

• 13:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  If you're a designer or a, or you know, someone who would help them open it. And so they went very smartly to Broadway and got people who worked in the theater to come in. And they were like, this place has got all the bones and this lighting rig's already set up. Like, this is not going to be too hard.

• 13:25Josh Clark?

  No, they had a lot to work with, in other words. So they hired one guy, a guy named Richard Long, who actually was the sole veteran of the club scene of like, like setting up clubs. He had set up the sound systems for most of the gay discos in New York. So he knew what he was doing. And that certainly came in handy because, I mean, one of the main things of Studio 54 was the music, right? Like in the dancing, to the music. So to have a pro creating the sound system was a big one. And then you also cannot overlook the role that Carmen D'Alessio did. She was a PR sorceress, I saw her described

• 14:04Josh Clark?

  as. And her role essentially was to basically go around to New York's glitterati and talk about how awesome this club is going to be. And it worked very well.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. There were other PR people that worked with them that literally got paid for placing story, placing stories in the newspaper. Like, you get $500 if there's a picture of Liza Bonelli and Truman Capote going into Studio 54 in the New York Post and you get this much if it's in this magazine. And that was, you know, it was a pretty smart way to do it. It was incentivizing these PR people to get the, you know, the biggest stars of the time very publicly through, usually the front door, but sometimes they would slip in through the stage door.

• 14:52Josh Clark?

  Right. There was also just a little bit more about the club, right? I see that it had 85 foot ceilings. Is that right?

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, it was super, super tall.

• 15:05Josh Clark?

  That's like a nine-story building inside.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:10Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, I just want to make sure, because my brain starts to boggle like 30 feet up.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, those big theater, old theaters in New York were huge and vast.

• 15:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  And still are.

• 15:22Josh Clark?

  Okay, so.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Like, that's what you gotta remember, is this was a performance theater turned into a nightclub.

• 15:28Josh Clark?

  Right, I got that. I still don't think I've ever been in a theater that was 85 feet up to the ceiling. Maybe.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  You should go to Carnegie Hall, my friend.

• 15:36Josh Clark?

  I'm a, I'm a bad judge of height and distance and all that, too. But, so I guess it makes sense, then, that it could hold a capacity of 2,000 people, because when they ran out of room on the floor, they'd just start stacking them on top of one another.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  On that 11,000-square-foot dance floor. And, you know, while there was a scene happening, anyway, a lot of it was really about the dancing there. There was a mezzanine lounge on the second story, a second-story bar, and a balcony that kind of looked down upon the whole thing, where you could go up and drink and do mountains of cocaine and have public sex.

• 16:14Josh Clark?

  What? How cool. Are you serious?

• 16:18Speaker 02

  It all sounds gross to me.

• 16:20Josh Clark?

  I mean, it was gross. At one point, they retrofitted the second-floor balcony, like, the, I guess, the whole area around it with, like, wash-off rubber coating.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  Gross.

• 16:35Josh Clark?

  It is gross. The whole thing's gross. Yes, and it was fairly gross, but I saw it, I saw it described as this. These people were living in the age after the invention of the pill, before the onset of AIDS. So they could just have public sex and do mounds of cocaine and take tons of Quaaludes with virtually no consequences whatsoever.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  The good old days.

• 17:02Josh Clark?

  I guess so. You wanna take a break?

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Should we take a break?

• 17:06Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Oh, look at us. Yeah, let's do that, and we'll talk about opening night right after this.

• 17:22Speaker 02

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• 19:03Speaker 04

  First thought is like, wow, how are we gonna do all this?

• 19:06Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fans' experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 19:25Speaker 04

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• 19:33Josh Clark?

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• 19:39Speaker 05

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• 19:45Speaker 02

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• 19:48Speaker 05

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• 19:52Speaker 04

  What the fans' experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 19:56Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 20:00Speaker 06

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 20:22Josh Clark?

  Okay, Chuck, so it's opening night. Six weeks after they started construction on Tuesday, April 26, 1977, AKA, the most important date in the history of humanity, according to some of the people who were there. That hype that Carmen De Lacio had been building up was really paying off. Apparently, there was an hours-long wait already. And it was so long that Frank Sinatra and Warren Beatty were like, "This is taking too long. I'm out of here." That's how long the wait was. Warren Beatty.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, they, I mean, the pre-hype was there in full because, well, because of the PR push for one. But also because they were selling memberships before it opened. They had 18,000 people apply to get a membership card. So here's how it worked. If you just showed up and you were lucky enough to get in and had to pay the cover, I think they landed on like 10 bucks, even though I saw everything from 7 to 14. 10 bucks is around close to 50 bucks today, so it wasn't cheap to get in for a cover charge. But if you bought a membership card for between 75 and 150, you were guaranteed,

• 21:37Speaker 02

  and that's in scare quotes, because nothing was really guaranteed as far as entry goes there. But you were supposedly guaranteed entry, but you had to pay with a $3 reduction in charge. 18,000 people applied for that card and only 3,000 got it pre-opening.

• 21:52Josh Clark?

  Wow. Pretty nuts.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:54Josh Clark?

  So, this, one of the other legends or stories about opening night is that wait was so long that they just basically broke out into a party on the sidewalk outside of the club, thanks in large part to a doctor who came by with a bunch of Quaaludes. Apparently Quaaludes went for like 10 cents a pop and everybody had them at all times. And I was looking up what it was like to take leudes, as they were called, and apparently there's not really any drug you can compare it to today. They were their own thing and they were a sedative, but they also had all sorts of other weird effects like, I saw it described like you'd sit on a couch and you weren't sitting on the couch, you were melting into the couch, but then at the same time, you

• 22:39Josh Clark?

  were also super randy and it made sex amazing and you were just relaxed and like ready to go along with whatever. And everybody loved leudes and they were super plentiful. So, when this, this doctor came along and handed out leudes, the, the pre-party broke out.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. The, the Quaaludes thing is weird because there were people in the documentary saying like, nobody was ever on a downer in that place and it was all uppers and so, I don't know, it's just very strange. Maybe it went well with cocaine and alcohol.

• 23:10Josh Clark?

  I get that impression for sure.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  All right. So, people are showing up. You mentioned, you mentioned Brooke Shields, right?

• 23:17Josh Clark?

  No.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Okay. Well, Brooke Shields is there. She was 11 years old. That's my opening joke there. And she was taken there by Robin Leach, who would later go on to host Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

• 23:30Josh Clark?

  I used to do a great Robin Leach.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Let's hear it.

• 23:33Josh Clark?

  No. In retrospect, it wasn't great at all, but at the time I thought it was pretty great. I also did a good Bartles and James impression. And then my other one was Larry of Larry, Daryl and Daryl from Newhart.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Uh, you did a Bart, you did an impression of a bottled drink?

• 23:51Josh Clark?

  Of the, remember the two guys who were like the spokesmen who were supposedly Bartles and James?

• 23:56Speaker 02

  And you did both?

• 23:57Josh Clark?

  No, one of them didn't speak. The other one was the kind of shorter, more rotund one with glasses. He spoke. I have no recollection of what he sounded like, but I would do those impressions.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  I love it. So you did, what was the first one?

• 24:11Josh Clark?

  Robin Leach.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Robin Leach, the last one?

• 24:14Josh Clark?

  Uh, Larry of Larry Daryl and Daryl from New York.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  And then the actor who played a commercial spokesperson?

• 24:22Josh Clark?

  For Bartles and James.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  For Bartles and James.

• 24:24Josh Clark?

  Wine coolers.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  That's pretty good.

• 24:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah. It was of a, of a moment, a specific moment in history.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I was doing like Wolfman Jack and John Travolta back then. So I was also at the time.

• 24:36Josh Clark?

  I got a John Travolta, you ready?

• 24:39Speaker 02

  I've heard your Travolta, let's hear it.

• 24:40Josh Clark?

  Why are you so weird?

• 24:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, there you go.

• 24:43Josh Clark?

  And it's not actually John Travolta. I'm doing Dana Carvey doing John Travolta.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  Dana Carvey?

• 24:49Josh Clark?

  Dana Carvey.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 24:51Josh Clark?

  Let's just move on.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  All right. So, um, we mentioned that they were called the, uh, Broadway Catering Corporation. And that would make sense later. And that moment comes right now, everybody. Because they didn't have a liquor license, uh, permanent liquor license, that is. So every day, if you're like a catering company in New York, or I guess a lot of other towns, you can get a temporary, like one day liquor permit to do your catered event. And they did that every single day for a year.

• 25:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I guess.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Pretty smart.

• 25:23Josh Clark?

  Based on the name, Broadway Catering Corporation, they'd be like, oh, okay. Here's your catering license to go cater this party at 254 West 54th Street. Yeah. The fact that they did it every day, whose job was it to go by and get that, um, that permit every single day? That's just so crazy. Then I saw one time, apparently the, um, whatever agency issued those got wise to it. And they denied them once. So at least one night, there was nothing but fruit juice and sodas. But guests were invited to drink as much of it as they liked for free.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Oh, so just, just mountains of drugs and then fruit juice and soda.

• 26:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so it was healthy.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  All right. The Monday after it opened, I think they were usually closed on Mondays, but they would have special parties on the Mondays, which became a very big thing there, like renting the place out for like a, you know, fifty to a hundred thousand dollar party, which at the time is, I mean, it's a lot of money now, but back then it was a ton of money.

• 26:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  But Halston, fashion designer Halston, threw Bianca Jagger a thirtieth birthday party there the Monday after it first opened, and they were like, basically kind of putting it together up until the minute that the doors opened.

• 26:37Josh Clark?

  Is it true that he, he approached them on the Monday that he wanted the party to be held?

• 26:43Speaker 02

  I mean, that's the legend. I don't know. I didn't verify it.

• 26:46Josh Clark?

  So this was a really important deal, that it was very smart of them to take his money and throw this party. This was the one where Bianca Jagger rode a white horse around, I guess in a circle, essentially, in the club. And then I'm sure somebody gave the horse some cocaine and everybody thought it was hilarious. But the reason that this was so important, by the way, is because the coverage of this party was, it just went everywhere. And this was like, where the people who hadn't yet heard of Studio 54, heard of it. So Halston helped put this thing on the map with that party.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And just five, six, seven years ago, Bianca Jagger, very forcefully, wanted to make it clear that she did not ride a horse around Studio 54 because she's a big animal rights activist now. And she really wanted that cleared up. So we would be remiss if we didn't say that that's a folk tale in that she claims she sat on it for like, two seconds and then got off of it. And she makes a distinction between that and riding a horse around a nightclub.

• 27:59Josh Clark?

  But there was definitely a horse at her birthday party at Studio 54.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Yes, there are photos and she admits it.

• 28:07Josh Clark?

  So, one of the other things too, as you said, like, some of these parties would cost fifty to a hundred thousand dollars. I saw, like, even on non, like, party nights, like, that were, like, reserved, um, private parties, they would often spend tens to up to a hundred thousand dollars just on, like, the themes and decorations and stuff, just for a regular night at Studio 54. Like, they were just pouring money into this and they were getting even more out. I would be really interested to know what their return on investment was, because they just, they put so much money into this place and they seem to have made buckets of it, so much so that, as we'll see, they would keep the, the cash in garbage bags sometimes around the club.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's, uh, not because there was so much of it, it was because they didn't want the, the bank and the IRS to find out about it.

• 28:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but I think if you have enough to fill a garbage bag, by definition, that's a lot, you know?

• 29:03Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I wouldn't say it was a ton of money, I'm just saying it was, uh, it was all in an effort to obfuscate, but-

• 29:09Josh Clark?

  Gotcha.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  We're spoiling the story.

• 29:10Josh Clark?

  Oh, sorry, sorry.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  So, Rubell was the, he was the guy who was, um, I guess, sort of, the host of the whole thing. He loved being out there, he loved hobnobbing with people, it was his biggest, sort of, dream in life to, to be a part of that crowd.

• 29:25Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah?

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Uh, whereas Schrager was kind of like, he was the guy behind the scenes, uh, seemed like, I mean, they were both smart guys, but he was definitely more of the brains behind the operation that would go there for a little while, then go home to his family.

• 29:38Josh Clark?

  I saw a picture of the two together, um, you can definitely tell Rubell's ready to party. He's wearing his famous padded coat, like, his kind of down coat that he wore because he could hide tons and tons of coke in it. And then, um, Ian Schrager's dressed like, um, Ron Burgundy.

• 29:56Josh Clark?

  I should say Ron Burgundy dressed like Ian Schrager, I guess, really. But I mean, just that same foggy London town gentleman look with like the blazer and the turtleneck.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:08Josh Clark?

  And all that. He looks cool, for sure, but he also looks like, yeah, I could see him going home early.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, and the good thing about the documentary is he's still with us and it was sort of the first time he had talked much about it. Cause he's, again, just sort of famously averse to attention, but he's, he's one of the main, you know, interviewees in the doc.

• 30:26Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, so you said that Rubell was the host, so much so that sometimes he would stand out front and say who could come in and who couldn't. And he was doing that because he put it that he was casting a play. So like the characters that he would pick out would all kind of come together and gel in a certain way inside to, to make the greatest possible party. From the greatest mix of people. And one of the really important things about that is you didn't have to be famous to get in to Studio 54. You could just be a cool disco club kid who had a cool look and was clearly a cool kid.

• 31:09Josh Clark?

  And you could get in, like, just from being you, essentially, and not having any connections whatsoever.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that was 90% of the crowd were just people, uh, cause in a room of 2,000 people, let's say 10 to 12 celebrities getting all the attention. That's a lot of other regular folks out there, uh, but they still had to get in. In order to get in, they had to pass whatever sort of secret test. Rubell and, uh, the other door people, I think the head doorman's name was Mark Bennecke. Uh, he was 19 years old, which is crazy.

• 31:43Josh Clark?

  The head doorman, right?

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he was a good looking guy and he had never done anything like that. And they were like, well, you're handsome, so you should be able to judge other people on their looks. Rebel famously said, "A year ago, I wouldn't have even let myself in." And this is another one of those things where of two minds, like on one hand, he was like, "You don't have to have money to get in. You can be gay, straight, black, white, Hispanic." Like, he didn't judge people on that. And so I'm like, "Oh, that's pretty cool." But he's like, "I'm really just judging you on how you look."

• 32:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  And if you seem to be cool.

• 32:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah. He said that it couldn't be too gay. It couldn't be too straight. It needed to be very, very, very bisexual.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:25Josh Clark?

  So that was a big part of the mix, too. But yeah, it was like, who would get along with who? And then the doorman kind of developed their own shorthand, too. Like, if you looked like you were like a midnight cowboy type, and you might go beat up some of the gay patrons inside, you weren't getting past the doorman. That was a big one right there. Like you said, it was a safe place for gay and trans people. And that started at the door. And also, one of the other things, too, was Mark Bennecke, again, 19 years old, the head doorman. He was the highest-paid staff member, in part, or I guess entirely, so that he wouldn't take bribes to let people in at the door.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Which I'm sure he never did.

• 33:06Josh Clark?

  Well, the thing is, is I was thinking about that. I'm like, "Well, yeah, I mean, can't you be like, 'I love this money, and I want some more, so I'm gonna take some bribes.'" But then you think about, if he's making enough money, that he would not want to lose that job, then it would keep him honest in and of itself, I think. Not just, like, he doesn't need the money, you know what I mean?

• 33:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. So-

• 33:28Josh Clark?

  Wait a minute, wait a minute. What was funny about that? Did I just explain the obvious? Is that what I was doing?

• 33:34Speaker 02

  No, I think it's funny that you sat around and thought about whether or not he would take money or not, because he had enough money.

• 33:42Josh Clark?

  Well, I was just looking for any flaws in that plan, and I actually found it was fairly foolproof. So I appreciated it and wanted to spotlight it here on Stuck Should Know.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  So Henry Winkler didn't get in. Some of the Kennedy kids didn't get in. There were a lot of people who didn't get in that were even famous because, you know, Henry Winkler's the Fonz, but he wasn't some cool guy in real life. They didn't want him in there.

• 34:06Josh Clark?

  No, no, he wasn't super cool. Supposedly super nice, but also not super cool. Two other guys didn't get in, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, who at the time, they were in the group Sheik, like "La Freak Secheek", and that song in particular was actually inspired by Studio 54, right?

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, supposedly when they didn't get in, because Grace Jones did not leave their name on the list, they wrote that song, but it was instead of "Aw Freak Out", it was "Aw F Off".

• 34:39Josh Clark?

  Right, and then they're like, "Guys, you can make so much more money with the song if you just change that to freak", and they're like, "Oh, okay", so they did, and it became like, I'm sure they played that song inside Studio 54 all the time, because one of the things that's worth mentioning too is, as cool as this place was, like you would hear essentially all the same disco hits that you would hear on the radio. It was just, again, an 11,000 square foot dance floor with tons of cocaine on it.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, if, they did have some criteria as far as, like not necessarily the person at the, on the street that they would look in, which one commentator from the time described as, "It was like the damned looking into paradise", like all these people on the street, like trying to look through the blacked out doors when they would open. But they had a list of like, you know, what kinds of designations people had. There were the no goods, which they designated as GN on the sheet instead of NG. They had regular guests who were pay guests who could get in, but they had to pay the whatever, 10 bucks. They had the comps list, who were the freebies, and then the NFUs, which were the no F-ups, and by that they mean like, you can't screw this one up.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  They're very important, you have to get them in and get them straight to Steve Rubell.

• 35:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Did you see how or who was on the GN list then? Like, who did you have to tick off? Or what did you have to do to have your name like on a list that you were not allowed into Studio 54, no matter what? Like, that wasn't just some schmo. Like, this was somebody who was specifically targeted to not be allowed in.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Maybe Famous Squares, or Narc's, or Competition, or something?

• 36:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Henry Winkler, yeah.

• 36:26Josh Clark?

  So, there was also just kind of a general rule, like, if somebody showed up looking like Disco Stu, or just like a cartoonish version of a cool disco person, they probably weren't going to make it in either. And there was a story where, I think, Marc Beneki was not going to let this one dude in, because he looked exactly like that. And then Steve Rubell was like, "No, he can come in. That's Barry Gibb from the Bee Gees."

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. Look in the park. They used to say polyester melts under the lights, so Rubell would chide people and say, "Go home and put on a cotton shirt." And then one guy, and this is from a 1978 New York Times piece, said, "The doorman told me to go home and read Freud's Essay on Rejection."

• 37:10Josh Clark?

  Wow. Wow. That's pretty great. So, there was like, a lot of desperation to get in. Like you said, the damned looking in on paradise. Some people were like, "I'm not going to be the damned any longer. I'm going to use this gun I have under my coat to make the doorman let me in." I did not see that that was successful. I don't see how it would be. It wouldn't be like, "Oh, you've got a gun on me? Sure, go ahead, go in with your gun."

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:36Josh Clark?

  I don't know how that played out, but this is kind of like the little thumbnail anecdotes that are completely surrounding Studio 54. There were some other ones, too, right?

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, there were reports of people climbing down ropes from other buildings into the courtyard, that had secret maps of the subway system supposedly to get them in there. And then, and this is confirmed, there was a gentleman who was dressed in a tuxedo, tried to sneak through an air vent, and was discovered dead.

• 38:08Josh Clark?

  Isn't that nuts? They didn't know that there was somebody in there until they started to smell the decomposition.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:15Josh Clark?

  So there's apparently, I didn't see it, a Netflix special on Halston, the designer, who figures big into this.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Does a show, yeah.

• 38:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And I guess that made it into it, too, but they changed the man to a woman for some reason.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Who played Halston in that? I meant to look that up.

• 38:34Josh Clark?

  Tommy Lee Jones, I think.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 38:39Josh Clark?

  Do you want to take a break?

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's take our second break and we'll be back with Act Three.

• 38:54Speaker 02

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• 41:09Josh Clark?

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• 41:42Speaker 02

  All right, so I don't know if we mentioned it. Yeah, I think I did, that it was closed on Monday. It was open Tuesday through Sunday from, they opened at 10:00 PM. They closed at 6:00 AM-ish, or whenever the party was over, really.

• 41:55Josh Clark?

  Those are basically the times that I'm asleep.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, 1,000%.

• 42:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  I mean, I may sleep until 7:00 here and there.

• 42:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  But the days of staying out all night are long in my past.

• 42:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I'm so Henry Winkler.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it was fun a little bit back in the day, but.

• 42:13Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. Like when you didn't feel like just total butt, like the next day afterward, you know? So, yeah, it used to be fun, for sure.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Speaking of total butt, if you want to see a picture of Tennessee Williams looking.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Really out of his mind. There's a fun picture of Tennessee Williams in his Studio 54 couch.

• 42:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, I wanted to see that.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's bloodshot eyes. He looks like he's, you know, been through it.

• 42:37Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, there was a, it was a murderer's row, a who's who of 70s famous, cool people who were there. Apparently Divine, the very famous, was Divine trans or was Divine considered a cross dresser? Or is that just what they called Divine back in the day before we called people trans?

• 42:56Speaker 02

  I mean, I think Divine went by the tag of drag queen back then, probably, but I'm not, I'm not really sure

• 43:04Speaker 02

  about these days. Is Divine still with us?

• 43:06Josh Clark?

  I don't think so. I don't think you can live that fast and hard and still be around this many years later.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, that'd probably be a good episode, actually.

• 43:15Josh Clark?

  Divine, for sure. For those of you who don't know who Divine is, she was a star, almost a muse to John Waters. And was in a bunch of John Waters movies and I think ate dog poop in one of them.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was in.

• 43:32Josh Clark?

  Pink Flamingos?

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, Pink Flamingos, I think.

• 43:36Josh Clark?

  But yeah, we'll do an episode on Divine, even though we just gave away the, the twist. Andy Warhol was a big one there. In fact, he brought his whole Factory crew and loved Studio 54 so much that he basically was like, he sicked the entire staff of Interview Magazine on it and started basically covering Studio 54 relentlessly in his magazine.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I saw that the, sort of the heartbeat of that crowd, like the real regulars, because, you know, Mick Jagger and, you know, Elton John and Robert De Niro, like everyone who was anyone would pop in there. But like the heartbeat of the regulars were Liza Minnelli, Halston, Bianca Jagger, and Andy Warhol. And I think Truman Capote was like the fifth.

• 44:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Of that foursome.

• 44:25Josh Clark?

  He seems to have been about as regular as any of them. Grace Jones was a big one, too.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:30Josh Clark?

  I don't know if she was super into that circle. She seems to have been kind of a lone wolf in a lot of ways. But one of the doormen said that she arrived naked so many times, it became boring. I can totally see that.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. So she just sort of, it's like, all right, Grace.

• 44:46Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  Maybe put on clothes, that would be the.

• 44:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  The big thing.

• 44:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah. There was also a woman named Disco Sally, right? Who just was a legend. She was, she also appeared in that Halston document, or not documentary, but that Halston mini-series. But they, I think they kind of didn't do her justice, from what I read.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 45:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So what about her?

• 45:10Speaker 02

  She was a, well, I think she was an attorney, or former attorney, and a widow who just like, this lady loved to dance. And in the documentary, they were like, at first, the doorman, Beniki was like, no, man, wait, this, this isn't, it's gonna be like a, what do you call it? Like a gimmick if we start letting people like this in. And he said Rebel was adamant and just said, no, she's exactly who we want in this place.

• 45:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think we left out a really key thing. She was 77 and looked like 1970's 77, so she looked like 110.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  She did.

• 45:47Josh Clark?

  And she would dance all night. She was, she was called Disco Sally for a reason. Like, she would get there and she would just start dancing for hours. And apparently she would stop to go pee and to do some coke and then would get right back out on the dance floor. And she became actually, from her stint at Studio 54, a fixture on the New York nightlife scene for

• 46:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:09Josh Clark?

  a long time to come.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I bet it kept her young and alive and also killed her somehow at the same time.

• 46:14Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Yeah, well put.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  I guess we could go over some of these parties. We mentioned that they would throw these huge, huge private parties. And they did everything from throw a country western party for Dolly Parton with more live animals, goats and sheep and pigs and stuff.

• 46:32Josh Clark?

  God knows what happened to those sheep.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't like the animal stuff in there. Like, nothing good is happening to those animals.

• 46:37Josh Clark?

  No, for sure. And you know, like, probably some bad stuff is happening to them, too, let alone just being scared.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, don't take your goat to a cocaine disco.

• 46:50Josh Clark?

  That's a, that's a, not just a t-shirt, that's an epitaph.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  What else? Liz Taylor had a big birthday party there with the Rockettes, among other things.

• 46:58Josh Clark?

  Yep, Valentino did. And then they, they had, like, Halloween apparently was like the big night. Where just if you were a normal person and you had a really great costume, there was a good chance you were gonna get in. The better the costume, the better your chances.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:15Josh Clark?

  And like, one year they did Hieronymus Bosch theme, which would have just been awesome. And I think that kind of shows like, just kind of the coolness of the people involved. Like,

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:28Josh Clark?

  You know, they didn't go with something trendy. They went with like a really dark, bizarre, weird, like, painter. Hieronymus Bosch's stuff is really cool. And I didn't see what all they did with it, but from, from what I read about it, it seems like it was pretty bizarre. So, pretty cool Halloween party, if you ask me.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, New York is always fun at Halloween. I imagine in 1978 and 79, Studio 54, it was crazy.

• 47:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah. You and I walked all over New York once, from basically Wall Street over to Greenpoint. And just spent the whole day doing that. And it just had like such a totally different vibe than it normally does. It was cool, cool day.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  When was this?

• 48:09Josh Clark?

  Oh, 2010, maybe, something like that, cuz she went as a Snuggie, I think.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Oh, on Halloween, okay, I got you.

• 48:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Halloween, Halloween.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had a couple of fun Halloweens in New York back when I was living in Jersey.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  I was the bridge and tunnel guy.

• 48:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's what they called the, basically, anybody who wasn't famous, right?

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Well, anybody from New Jersey.

• 48:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, I got you.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  One of the outer boroughs.

• 48:36Josh Clark?

  I got you.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Because you came in via bridge and tunnel.

• 48:40Josh Clark?

  Oh, I get it now. What about the end? Because, again, this thing was like a bright, shining meteoric star that lasted less than three years. And it went down hard, too. Like, it wasn't like a, eh, this has been fun, let's shut the thing down. Like, the government came in and said, you're gonna shut the thing down, essentially.

• 48:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, Steve Rebell was very mouthy about how much money they were making in the paper. He was quoted as saying, only the mafia does better. Not smart, to be sure, but at least according to the prosecutor in the documentary, who prosecuted the case, was like, it's not because Steve Rebell was mouthy. He said, we had a confidential informant on the inside that told us about the fact that they were skimming 80% of the money. And this guy was like, you know, if they were, like, businesses skimmed back then with this kind of business, like, skimmed 20%, and they would have gotten away with it. He said, they got greedy and were literally skimming like 80% off the books and keeping very, very, very detailed records about their skimming. So it was all

• 49:43Speaker 02

  there, and they had an informant kind of tell them where everything was hidden and where the books were. And I tried and tried to see if I could find anything about like who that might have been, and I came up completely empty.

• 49:54Josh Clark?

  It was Hieronymus Bosch.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  It might have been.

• 49:57Josh Clark?

  So, in 1978, December 1978, the place got raided, apparently with 30 agents. That's a big raid. And I guess as they were searching the place, Schreger showed up, was like, hey, what's going on, everybody? And he was carrying with him their cooked books. Or I guess the uncooked books, which is even worse, that in detail meticulously detailed all the money they were stealing. And one of the other things that it showed is that all the cocaine, because like, they weren't selling cocaine necessarily. I'm sure like if you were a nobody who got in, they weren't just giving you free cocaine, you could buy it. But if you were like a celeb or somebody they wanted to keep happy, they gave you

• 50:39Josh Clark?

  as much free cocaine as you possibly wanted. And they would expense that. All the cocaine they bought, they expensed it whenever they actually did pay taxes. So all of this was basically being carried in by Schrager. And then as a little cherry on top, on top of the pile, there were five ounces of cocaine. So he walks in with 30 IRS agents raiding the place with that on him. And they're like, why don't you put that down and come over here?

• 51:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, he disputes in the documentary that it was on him. He was like, this was stuff that they collected from around the club. But, you know, the prosecutor said that he had it with him. So either way, lots of cocaine, lots of cash, lots of skimming off the top. They would change the cash register tape midway through the night to have another set of books that were on the up and up. But they would eventually hire famous scumbag attorney Roy Cohn to come in and defend them. And he very poorly gave them the advice of like, hey, flip over a bunch of tables and stuff and make it look like worse than it is. And let's get these pictures out there.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  And that just bought more disdain and retribution from the state.

• 51:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, smart.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  Or the city, I guess.

• 51:56Josh Clark?

  There was one little point that I thought was kind of sad. During this raid, the IRS agents supposedly found a room. There were a lot of like secret rooms, like VIP rooms. But this one was so secret and so VIP that according to Andy Warhol, Halston hadn't even been told about it. And when he found out about it, it hurt his feelings. And I'm with him. I can totally understand that. He dropped so much cash there. And then don't forget that first birthday party that they hosted that he threw for Bianca Jagger, put Studio 54 on the map. And they didn't tell him about the most secret room. I feel bad for Halston.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  He should have had all access, huh?

• 52:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, if anybody should have, sure.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  Even Liza?

• 52:40Josh Clark?

  I don't know, definitely Halston.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  All right. So Jack Dee, the silent partner who invested to begin with, was indicted along with them in a grand jury in June of 79. That did not stop the club. They were still upgrading it and building new things. That's when that wipe-clean rubber came in. They pleaded guilty in 79, November 79, to tax evasion, with Jack Dee testifying against them. The two guys were sentenced to three and a half years, went to prison together, thankfully,

• 53:14Speaker 02

  and paid a guy for a year of protection, while they sold out their competition and turned state's evidence against them, informing on other discos, and they're skimming, and they got out after but a year.

• 53:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Never trust a disco owner.

• 53:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think Schreger felt bad about it. He was like, you know, my dad, he was in the gambling business and all this, but he was like, Max the Jew was a stand-up guy, and like, he was gone, and I'm glad, because he would have been ashamed of me for being a rat.

• 53:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I could see that.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:49Josh Clark?

  So the last, they closed down, you said the club kept going, but at least for this moment, it closed down on February 4th, 1980, with a sayonara party, farewell party. When, yeah, I think that's what they call them. When they sent Schreger and Rubel off to prison, so they just burned the place down, basically, one more night. And those two, they each served a year, did you say that, I think?

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:15Josh Clark?

  And after they got out, I guess they were in touch in prison, and they decided to get into the hotel business, and they started the boutique hotel trend, apparently, starting in 1984 with a hotel they opened as Morgan's.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, they sold the studio space to a guy named Mark Fleishman. He was a hotel guy, so they took over one of his hotels, rebranded it as, you know, this new concept of boutique hotels. And that's what, you know, Schreger did for a long time.

• 54:50Josh Clark?

  I feel like it's time for boutique hotels to be reinvented as something else, don't you?

• 54:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, but what is it even? Just not part of a big chain? Or some of them are even parts of big chains?

• 55:00Josh Clark?

  No, they've become very formulaic. I mean, like funky art in the rooms that are supposed to kind of feel like your house, but just remind you that you're not home. Sometimes there's record players. There's like a super cool bar where people not staying at the hotel come usually on the rooftop. And then there's the invariable restaurant, the house restaurant, that is new American cuisine every single time, all of the same stuff on the menus. And we're talking boutique hotels in totally different cities with totally different owners. And everything's outfitted in like copper fixtures.

• 55:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, copper.

• 55:39Josh Clark?

  You know what I'm talking about.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  Oh, I totally know what you're talking about.

• 55:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's a formula now. I mean, it's been around for 40 years. I think we need something new.

• 55:47Speaker 02

  What's the new thing?

• 55:48Josh Clark?

  There isn't. I'm calling for it.

• 55:50Speaker 02

  Oh, OK, I got you. I thought you had an idea or something. I was like, man, let's talk after we hang out here.

• 55:55Josh Clark?

  No, I'm the kind of person right now who has no ideas, just criticism.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  I got you. So they also opened a Palladium nightclub. That was their last foray into the nightclub business to sort of partially help finance their hotel aspirations. And very sadly, Steve Rebel died of complications from AIDS in 1989. And that left Ian Trigger alone and very sad because that was his bestie.

• 56:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it really was. Ian Trigger just kind of, he had this thing hanging over him, this felony conviction. Even when they opened the Palladium, they couldn't be owners on paper because they weren't allowed to hold a liquor license. And in 2017, he was pardoned by President Obama, and I think one of his last days, for the tax evasion conviction. And that meant a lot to Ian Trigger. I read an interview with him from after that. And he seemed to like really appreciate that. And he seemed to have kind of been the kind of guy who maybe deserved a pardon all this time later.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's like, does this mean I can stop paying protection to that guy from prison?

• 57:04Josh Clark?

  Right. You got anything else?

• 57:07Speaker 02

  I got nothing else.

• 57:08Josh Clark?

  Well, that means, of course, everybody, since neither one of us have anything else, and it's time for listener mail.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  I'm gonna call this cool email, an addendum. Hey, guys, the episode on widowhood just popped up. You mentioned federal elected officials and how often the widow is appointed. And it's quite common in my state of Kentucky in the past for the widow of a sheriff who dies in office, line of duty or not, to be appointed to that office, mainly because the sheriff's personal estate is wrapped up in his office. So letting her finish out the term gives him time to figure out if his tax books balance.

• 57:49Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  Isn't that crazy?

• 57:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  If they don't, the estate will owe more to the county. There have been several notable widowed sheriffs or widow sheriffs in my state. One being the first documentative one, Mary Roach, who served from 22 to 27 after her husband was murdered in office. And she was a real sheriff, went out with her deputies at work even. The other was a woman named Sheriff Florence Thompson, who took over after her husband died in 36. She oversaw the last public execution by hanging. Was apparently the first and probably last woman to be in the role of you, um, to be in that role in the United States just three months after she took office.

• 58:28Josh Clark?

  I wonder if this is what the sitcom She's the Sheriff was based on.

• 58:34Speaker 02

  Maybe. That's, by the way, from Sean Heron, attorney at law, Louisville.

• 58:39Josh Clark?

  Thanks a lot, Sean from Louisville. That was a great email. I definitely not heard that. Yeah, so thanks a lot. We love addendums and cool emails, especially when they're combined. And if you want to send us a cool email, you can send it off to [email protected].

• 58:59Speaker 03

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• 59:15Josh Clark?

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• 1:00:15Speaker 00

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