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Studio 54
There has never been--and will never be--another nightclub to rival the sheer glamour, energy, and wild creativity that was Studio 54. Now, in the first official book on the legendary club, co-owner Ian Schrager presents a spectacular volume brimming with star-studded photographs and personal stories from the greatest party of all time. From the moment it opened in 1977, Studio 54 celebrated spectacle and promised a never-ending parade of anything goes. Although it existed for only three years, it served as a catalyst that brought together some of the most famous and creative people in the world. It quickly became known for its celebrity guest list and uniquely chic clientele. From the cutting-edge lighting displays to its elaborate sets, it was the beginning of nightclub as performance art. Now, Studio 54 explores this cultural zeitgeist and gives us Schrager's personal firsthand account of what it was like to create and run the most famous nightclub of our age. With hundreds of photographs, many of which have never been seen before, of the celebrities and beautiful people and engaging stories and quotes from such cultural luminaries as Liza Minelli, David Geffen, Brooke Shields, Pat Cleveland, and Diane von Furstenberg, this exciting volume depicts the wild energy and glittering creativity of the era. One of the most important cultural landmarks of the twentieth century, Studio 54 continues to inspire with its legendary glamour. This exhilarating volume is a must-have for style and fashion aficionados today.
394 pages, Hardcover
Published September 5, 2017
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330 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 28, 2021
3.5, rounded up.
This is an oversize, very heavy coffee table book, primarily composed of (mainly b & w) photos taken at the iconic '70's disco. Aside from an interview with the author (co-owner Schrager), and some juicy quotes from the celebrity clientele, there isn't a lot of text. The final section contains newspaper clippings on various events and celeb sightings from Schrager's scrapbooks, but these are rather hard to read. Not the definitive history some would like, and virtually NO mention of the raids that led to its closure - but it's a heck of a lot of fun to page through for anyone (like me!) that was fascinated by the club back in its heyday. [PS ... I'd always heard rumors that Alec Baldwin worked there as a barback, and he DOES confirm that - so there's that too!]
This is an oversize, very heavy coffee table book, primarily composed of (mainly b & w) photos taken at the iconic '70's disco. Aside from an interview with the author (co-owner Schrager), and some juicy quotes from the celebrity clientele, there isn't a lot of text. The final section contains newspaper clippings on various events and celeb sightings from Schrager's scrapbooks, but these are rather hard to read. Not the definitive history some would like, and virtually NO mention of the raids that led to its closure - but it's a heck of a lot of fun to page through for anyone (like me!) that was fascinated by the club back in its heyday. [PS ... I'd always heard rumors that Alec Baldwin worked there as a barback, and he DOES confirm that - so there's that too!]
September 6, 2020
I struggle with writing this review leading with that I had hoped it would be an Ian Schrager memoir in addition to a rather large coffee table book and not what it actually is (just a rather large coffee table book)... but the review is owned by the reviewer, and I’m not likely to curtail any potential book deals Schrager might get because, quite frankly, the only semblance of literary prowess is in the too-brief opening essay on New York in the 70s written by Paul Goldberger.
Instead of just looking at the pretty pictures, I read the captions, the enclosed letters, the magazine and newspaper blurbs and full-length articles that were clipped “scrapbook style” within the pages. I read the interviews. Sadly, there wasn’t much substance within anything. The book is an anthology of the idolatry Schrager and Rubell had for themselves and for the celebrities that frequented Studio 54 in its heyday, but mostly for themselves. Schrager seems to want to pat himself on the back for his success, which, if you know the whole story, was one fraudulent scheme after the next. Ian Schrager does not debrief the instigating incident that led to Studio’s ultimate downfall, instead he skips over it almost entirely (except for one photo of he, Rubell and their attorney Roger Cohn reading a newspaper article about the raid.”)
Schrager missed an excellent opportunity to talk about his friendship with Rubell, which apparently went back to the days they were fraternity bros at Syracuse University. Heck, he could have even talked about the impact that his partnership in Studio had on his life or his career. There was none of that within. Instead the reader just gets photo captions (oh look, here’s another picture of Bianca Jagger dancing) and lots of blabber about “how great it all was.”
Give it two more stars, I guess, if you wanted a collection of full-color celebrity photos from the late 70s and a well-organized collection of gossip column copy. I guess this comes in handy if you don’t have old copies of Star magazine somewhere in storage.
Instead of just looking at the pretty pictures, I read the captions, the enclosed letters, the magazine and newspaper blurbs and full-length articles that were clipped “scrapbook style” within the pages. I read the interviews. Sadly, there wasn’t much substance within anything. The book is an anthology of the idolatry Schrager and Rubell had for themselves and for the celebrities that frequented Studio 54 in its heyday, but mostly for themselves. Schrager seems to want to pat himself on the back for his success, which, if you know the whole story, was one fraudulent scheme after the next. Ian Schrager does not debrief the instigating incident that led to Studio’s ultimate downfall, instead he skips over it almost entirely (except for one photo of he, Rubell and their attorney Roger Cohn reading a newspaper article about the raid.”)
Schrager missed an excellent opportunity to talk about his friendship with Rubell, which apparently went back to the days they were fraternity bros at Syracuse University. Heck, he could have even talked about the impact that his partnership in Studio had on his life or his career. There was none of that within. Instead the reader just gets photo captions (oh look, here’s another picture of Bianca Jagger dancing) and lots of blabber about “how great it all was.”
Give it two more stars, I guess, if you wanted a collection of full-color celebrity photos from the late 70s and a well-organized collection of gossip column copy. I guess this comes in handy if you don’t have old copies of Star magazine somewhere in storage.
March 20, 2023
These days when we think about the 1970s, we’re assaulted with memories of the energy crisis, the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon’s resignation as President of the United States after the Watergate scandal, and, of course, disco. Many of us equate disco with the 1970s, a genre of dance music that emerged from nightlife scenes and subcultures in the United States. Disco was a kind of reaction to the dominance of rock music in the 1960s, when dance music was stigmatized. And thus, band names like Earth Wind & Fire, the Bee Gees, ABBA, KC and the Sunshine Band - just to name a few - are groups we often associate with disco anthems that defined an era, the age of disco, when life was best remembered on the dance floor becoming high with the hustle, or the disco finger, away from news stories of napalm bombs annihilating innocent lives on the valleys and mountains of Southeast Asia.
After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, it’s fair to say that the popularity of disco gained momentum and peaked, when the idea of having lost the war became irreversible. Indeed, it was time for Americans to decompress, itching to shake their troubles away in a disco club. Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager probably led the culture to the highest point of disco when they established Studio 54 in 1976, a disco club at the edge of New York City’s theater district. The long-time friends and business partners had an ambitious idea to create a concept disco club that injected elements of elaborate theater in its shows before a crowd handpicked by Rubell himself. Studio 54’s founders wanted the club to be inclusive, but were wary of those who might disrupt the very idea of inclusivity itself. And so, the dictatorship at the door paved the way to a democracy inside the club, that is once you’ve made it through the door. Rubell’s criteria for admission was often applied to non-celebrity patrons, from any economic status, who might disrupt the delicate equilibrium of diversity, fun, and freedom in the club; for example, straight men with unbuttoned polyester shirts and gold-chains were not allowed, because in Rubell’s assessment, they fit the profile of those who simply want to pick up girls, and harass them. On the other hand, admission to gay patrons was often guaranteed by virtue of their penchant to dance, not to mention famous personalities whose cultural capital is indelible to the club’s sense of identity as a hub for celebrities hanging out with ordinary people, every night. The drunk and happy faces of these luminaries grace the pages of Ian Schrager’s massive, 394-page coffee table book/photo album, Studio 54, which measures 23” x 14” when opened, and 1.55” thick when closed.
Schrager invites the cultural archaeologist in the reader to experience Studio 54 again, through black & white and color photographs, interspersed with snapshots of articles from major east coast dailies that covered parties at 54. The photos compiled here were taken by a host of photographers, properly acknowledged in the book. In many ways, this is Schrager’s private scrapbook gone public. There’s Bianca Jagger (Mick Jagger’s first wife) riding a white horse at her birthday bash, led by a naked man, just two weeks after opening night in 1977. This was the kind of extravagant party that snowballed into other parties hosted by 54, including the premiere party of the film New York, New York, directed by Martin Scorcece. Then there’s Elizabeth Taylor’s 46th birthday in 1978, which Rubell called “an impromptu party,” according to The Washington Post, because, “Elizabeth needed an uplift. She’s been depressed lately. But she had a wonderful time tonight. She told [Rubell] it was the best thing that’s happened to her in two years”; and one of the guests in that party was the celebrated writer Truman Capote, who arrived in a horse-drawn carriage, and told the paper in his usual sardonic wit and humor that “[...Elizabeth’s] a little overweight. But if she lost 20 pounds she’d look great. [...] She’s the only girl I know who married every guy she ever slept with. So that’s not really bad, considering that if most girls did that, they’d have been married 50 times before the age of 30.” It’s not hard to imagine how Capote drank away his nights at 54 with ease and abandon, whose presence, along with Bianca Jagger and fashion designer Halston, was as ubiquitous as the shirtless male waiters who delivered alcohol to their famous guests.
In his introductory essay “New York in the 1970s,” cultural critic Paul Goldberger directly aligns Studio 54 to New York City’s “extraordinary hotbed of creativity [in the 1970s], the kind of creative energy that exists for its own sake, not to respond to the demands of a market,” despite its crime-infested streets that inspired movies like Taxi Driver and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. To Goldberger, out of the grit and danger that is New York City in the seventies, Studio 54 blazed like a comet, fearless and confident to express a concept in the name of creativity, no matter how costly its ambitions were. But Goldberger’s interview with Schrager is particularly illuminating, especially Schrager’s lamentations on the club’s downfall, which he blames on the elusive guidelines for admission employed at the door; high-volume rejection created a kind of elitist perception about 54, that, over time, accrued into institutional resentment. Soon, 54’s owners got into legal trouble for failing to procure a number of licenses, including liquor and cabaret licenses.
Some of my favorite images in this album includes 11-year-old Anderson Cooper and his brother Carter looking posh in suits, with their mother, Gloria Vanderbilt; President Carter’s mother, Lillian, hanging out with Andy Warhol during a UNICEF ball; and a quote on page 281 from Alec Baldwin assessing the glories of 54; Baldwin was a student at NYU when the club opened, and, for a few months, he used to be a favorite busboy for classy, gay men who patronized the club. Indeed, the photos in this book/photo album will make you long for a time and place where disco claimed its hottest inferno of freedom, uninhibitedness, and inclusivity. Please enjoy its pages like it's your personal scrapbook. Remember the photos can be scanned at any of LAPL's libraries for free. Let this book/photo album take your weekend apart with fantasies that you’re at one of the parties at 54, back in 1976 or 1977, dancing with Diana Ross; an unknown gay bodybuilder; the designer Valentino, or Liza Minnelli--all of them melting to a brand new start, every night, in a city that doesn’t sleep.
Reviewed by Michael C. Baradi, Librarian, Mid-Valley Regional Library
After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, it’s fair to say that the popularity of disco gained momentum and peaked, when the idea of having lost the war became irreversible. Indeed, it was time for Americans to decompress, itching to shake their troubles away in a disco club. Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager probably led the culture to the highest point of disco when they established Studio 54 in 1976, a disco club at the edge of New York City’s theater district. The long-time friends and business partners had an ambitious idea to create a concept disco club that injected elements of elaborate theater in its shows before a crowd handpicked by Rubell himself. Studio 54’s founders wanted the club to be inclusive, but were wary of those who might disrupt the very idea of inclusivity itself. And so, the dictatorship at the door paved the way to a democracy inside the club, that is once you’ve made it through the door. Rubell’s criteria for admission was often applied to non-celebrity patrons, from any economic status, who might disrupt the delicate equilibrium of diversity, fun, and freedom in the club; for example, straight men with unbuttoned polyester shirts and gold-chains were not allowed, because in Rubell’s assessment, they fit the profile of those who simply want to pick up girls, and harass them. On the other hand, admission to gay patrons was often guaranteed by virtue of their penchant to dance, not to mention famous personalities whose cultural capital is indelible to the club’s sense of identity as a hub for celebrities hanging out with ordinary people, every night. The drunk and happy faces of these luminaries grace the pages of Ian Schrager’s massive, 394-page coffee table book/photo album, Studio 54, which measures 23” x 14” when opened, and 1.55” thick when closed.
Schrager invites the cultural archaeologist in the reader to experience Studio 54 again, through black & white and color photographs, interspersed with snapshots of articles from major east coast dailies that covered parties at 54. The photos compiled here were taken by a host of photographers, properly acknowledged in the book. In many ways, this is Schrager’s private scrapbook gone public. There’s Bianca Jagger (Mick Jagger’s first wife) riding a white horse at her birthday bash, led by a naked man, just two weeks after opening night in 1977. This was the kind of extravagant party that snowballed into other parties hosted by 54, including the premiere party of the film New York, New York, directed by Martin Scorcece. Then there’s Elizabeth Taylor’s 46th birthday in 1978, which Rubell called “an impromptu party,” according to The Washington Post, because, “Elizabeth needed an uplift. She’s been depressed lately. But she had a wonderful time tonight. She told [Rubell] it was the best thing that’s happened to her in two years”; and one of the guests in that party was the celebrated writer Truman Capote, who arrived in a horse-drawn carriage, and told the paper in his usual sardonic wit and humor that “[...Elizabeth’s] a little overweight. But if she lost 20 pounds she’d look great. [...] She’s the only girl I know who married every guy she ever slept with. So that’s not really bad, considering that if most girls did that, they’d have been married 50 times before the age of 30.” It’s not hard to imagine how Capote drank away his nights at 54 with ease and abandon, whose presence, along with Bianca Jagger and fashion designer Halston, was as ubiquitous as the shirtless male waiters who delivered alcohol to their famous guests.
In his introductory essay “New York in the 1970s,” cultural critic Paul Goldberger directly aligns Studio 54 to New York City’s “extraordinary hotbed of creativity [in the 1970s], the kind of creative energy that exists for its own sake, not to respond to the demands of a market,” despite its crime-infested streets that inspired movies like Taxi Driver and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. To Goldberger, out of the grit and danger that is New York City in the seventies, Studio 54 blazed like a comet, fearless and confident to express a concept in the name of creativity, no matter how costly its ambitions were. But Goldberger’s interview with Schrager is particularly illuminating, especially Schrager’s lamentations on the club’s downfall, which he blames on the elusive guidelines for admission employed at the door; high-volume rejection created a kind of elitist perception about 54, that, over time, accrued into institutional resentment. Soon, 54’s owners got into legal trouble for failing to procure a number of licenses, including liquor and cabaret licenses.
Some of my favorite images in this album includes 11-year-old Anderson Cooper and his brother Carter looking posh in suits, with their mother, Gloria Vanderbilt; President Carter’s mother, Lillian, hanging out with Andy Warhol during a UNICEF ball; and a quote on page 281 from Alec Baldwin assessing the glories of 54; Baldwin was a student at NYU when the club opened, and, for a few months, he used to be a favorite busboy for classy, gay men who patronized the club. Indeed, the photos in this book/photo album will make you long for a time and place where disco claimed its hottest inferno of freedom, uninhibitedness, and inclusivity. Please enjoy its pages like it's your personal scrapbook. Remember the photos can be scanned at any of LAPL's libraries for free. Let this book/photo album take your weekend apart with fantasies that you’re at one of the parties at 54, back in 1976 or 1977, dancing with Diana Ross; an unknown gay bodybuilder; the designer Valentino, or Liza Minnelli--all of them melting to a brand new start, every night, in a city that doesn’t sleep.
Reviewed by Michael C. Baradi, Librarian, Mid-Valley Regional Library
November 2, 2021
Studio 54
So I’ve been watching Halston on Netflix - I absolutely loved it.
All things fashion and a lot of partying.
It made me dig out my @rizzolibooks STUDIO 54
This is the most gorgeous glossy paged coffee table book. Risqué photos so not suitable for everyone’s eyes. The history of Studio 54 is well documented in here how it all began and ended.
We all know the stories that surround that club and I think after re-reading the book it was probably more full on then anyone could possibly imagine.
Oh to be a fly on the wall.
Have you read any good books from this period of partying, biographies etc? Give me a shout for any recommendations.
Time to D I S C O into Tuesday friends.
January 13, 2018
AMAZING. It's all so magical.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews