Contemporary Authors

• Inside Studio 54 - 2017 Rare Bird Books, A Vireo Book, https://smile.amazon.com/Inside-Studio-54-Mark-Fleischman/dp/1945572574/ref=sr_1_1_twi_har_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1524341432&sr=8-1&keywords=Fleischman%2C+Mark

• Amazon - https://smile.amazon.com/Inside-Studio-54-Mark-Fleischman/dp/1945572574/ref=sr_1_1_twi_har_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1524341432&sr=8-1&keywords=Fleischman%2C+Mark

  Entrepreneur Mark Fleischman is a graduate of The School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University and former Naval Officer who established himself resuscitating troubled hotel, restaurant, and club projects. He bought Studio 54, which had been closed for nearly two years after the former owners went to Federal Prison, and reestablished it as the hottest club in New York. He and his wife Mimi currently live in Los Angeles and co-owners of four Bar Method Exercise Studios in Los Angeles.

• Linked In - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-fleischman-6b9a1337/

  Mark Fleischman
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  Inside Studio 54
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  Company Name Inside Studio 54
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  In Inside Studio 54, the former owner takes you behind the scenes of the most famous nightclub in the world, through the crowd, to a place where celebrities, friends, and the beautiful people sip champagne and share lines of cocaine using rolled-up hundred-dollar bills. In the early eighties, Mark Fleischman reopened Studio 54, the world's most glamorous and notorious nightclub, after it was closed down by the State of New York. Ten thousand people showed up that night, ready to restart the party that abruptly ended after the raid in 1978 landed its former owners in jail.

  Inside Studio 54 invites you to revisit the happening scenes of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, the post-Pill, pre-AIDS era of free love, consequence-free sex, and seemingly endless partying. Following Fleischman as he built connections as a hotel, restaurant, and club owner that lead him to Studio 54. Inside Studio 54 takes the reader from Brazil to the heights of debauchery in the Virgin Islands and finally to New York City. A star-studded thrill ride through decadent and drug-fueled parties at the legendary Studio 54.

  Review
  "This unfettered tell-all will prove nostalgic for those who manage to remember being there and engrossing for readers wishing they were."
  ―Kirkus Reviews

  "Once upon a time in New York City, when the city finally went to sleep, a magical place opened it's doors and invited people in to have the time of their lives. Studio 54 was a magical place that made you forget all about your troubles, trials and tribulations. It was Heaven on Earth."
  ―Gene Simmons, Bass player for KISS

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Fleischman, Mark: INSIDE STUDIO 54
Kirkus Reviews.
(July 15, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Fleischman, Mark INSIDE STUDIO 54 Vireo/Rare Bird Books (Adult Nonfiction) $26.95 9, 19 ISBN: 978-1-945572-57-9
How drugs, sex, and celebrity shenanigans made 254 West 54th St. infamous on the 1980s Manhattan nightclub circuit.When entrepreneur and author Fleischman was 10, his parents took him to the Copacabana; from that point, he admits that everything "onward propelled me on a trajectory toward Studio 54." For four years, the author was the "ringleader" of the iconic disco, which quickly became known for its glitzy, star-studded clientele and nightly drug-addled debauchery. As owner and distinguished host, his job became his life and a great part of a heady journey "that nearly killed me." Fleischman also chronicles his life before Studio 54, which featured significant commercial property acquisitions and a first long-term relationship, all set against a backdrop of sexual revolution and the game-changing Stonewall Riots. The author notes that the process of purchasing the nightclub building came with a sketchy liquor license deal and a sale contingent on heeding the counsel of the former owners, imprisoned for tax evasion, from their jail cells. The club's reopening in 1981 featured a distinguished guest list, as well as 10,000 eager partiers and voracious young celebrities. With sharply drawn detail from an obvious insider's vantage point, Fleischman graphically brings to life seasons of provocative parties and notorious "Rubber Room" antics, all of which cemented the club's racy reputation as the premier destination in Manhattan. The stories of DJs, models, live performances, early Madonna, and scandal flow with the juiciness of a name-dropping gossip column. The hangover, however, proved a harsh reality check since, by the author's third year of operation, his swift decline into drug addiction and mental instability became a potentially fatal reality: "I'd take Valium to go to sleep, wake up around three in the afternoon, do several lines of coke to get myself going and repeat the routine of yet another day." This unfettered tell-all will prove nostalgic for those who manage to remember being there and engrossing for readers wishing they
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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Fleischman, Mark: INSIDE STUDIO 54." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2017. Book Review Index
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• NPR
  https://www.npr.org/2017/09/23/549453578/-inside-studio-54-takes-you-behind-the-velvet-rope-and-into-some-dark-corners
  Word count: 1333

  'Inside Studio 54' Takes You Behind The Velvet Rope, And Into Some Dark Corners
  September 23, 201710:00 AM ET

  Glen Weldon

  Clubgoers amid the light towers on the dance floor at Studio 54 in 1978.
  Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images

  This year, the 40th anniversary of the opening of Studio 54, a onetime Manhattan nightspot where very good-looking people danced to very good music while snorting very good drugs, has seen the publication of two memoirs by past owners.

  The first, called simply Studio 54, was written by Bob Colacello and original co-owner Ian Schrager (his business partner Steve Rubell died in 1989, at the age of 45). It's a handsome, expensive ($75!) coffee-table tome, filled with gorgeous photos of sozzled celebrities and selections from the scrapbooks Schrager kept throughout his stint running the club. It looks great, fittingly enough, and captures the place's glamour — the fantasy that kept people standing in line for hours, waiting (often in vain) to get inside.
  Inside Studio 54
  Inside Studio 54

  by Mark Fleischman, Denise Chatman and Mimi Fleischman

  Hardcover, 368 pages
  purchase

  The other book, called Inside Studio 54, is true to its title, taking us past the velvet rope, into the heat and sweat and coke and poppers of the dance floor where hundreds of bodies ground against each other, and into the dark alcoves and out-of-the way balconies, where a slightly smaller number of bodies ground against each other with greater assiduousness.

  Which is to say: It's a lot more fun than the coffee table book. Cheaper, too.

  Inside Studio 54 was written by Mark Fleischman, who took over in 1980, after the club had been raided and Schrager and Rubell jailed for tax evasion. Now, as then, he's an eager, garrulous host, gleefully sharing his love of the place, and the time, and the drugs. The drugs, especially.

  How best to convey to you, prospective reader, how well, how thoroughly, how ecstatically Fleischman knows exactly what you want out of his book? Chapter titles, perhaps?

  "Chapter Eleven: Cocaine and Quaaludes." "Chapter Twenty-Seven: Angel Dust Meets The Whippets(sic)." "Chapter Twenty: Roy Cohn Brings the Feds to My Door."

  Or perhaps it would be more useful to consult the book's index and report the number of times Fleischman drops a celebrity's name like it's just singed his fingerprints off:

  Grace Jones: 11

  Calvin Klein: 19

  Liza Minnelli: 14

  The Rolling Stones: 21

  Mick Jagger: 17(!)

  Barbra Streisand: 10

  And, perhaps most tellingly, Rick James: 27.

  You begin to get the idea.

  Not that the dirt Fleischman dishes on the many VIPs who've crossed his path seems particularly salubrious. On several occasions, he relates a tale of depravity but coyly withholds a name, and the stuff he does give up often strikes the reader as less-than-surprising.

  Model Janice Dickinson? Eccentric! Madonna? A diva, even as "a virtual unknown" in 1983! Robin Leach? Fond of champagne!

  (Having spent his career courting gossip pages, Fleischman has internalized their zeal for the superfluous explanatory parenthetical, an unintended source of much of the book's fun, to wit: Fabio gets described as "the actor/model/author known for his long flowing hair and six-foot-three perfectly chiseled body," Charlton Heston as the "star of The Ten Commandments and winner of the Oscar for Best Actor in Ben-Hur") and a passing mention of a party for model Margaux Hemingway reminds him, hilariously, of "her grandfather Ernest Hemingway, author, wildlife hunter, and big-game fisherman. In 1954, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for The Old Man and the Sea.")
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  Fleischman proves far more willing to dish about his own enthusiastic freefall into druggy decadence, and his candor does a lot of work to keep these tales of the very rich and very famous from becoming insufferable. He's happy to report, in minute detail, on his sexual escapades with hundreds of gorgeous women — he's just really, really happy to do that — but he's also up-front about a time when, as young-ish man in a serious relationship with a woman he loved, he experienced a prolonged bout of impotence. (Years later, as he's spiraling out of control, the impotence returns. One gets the sense that it's this, as much as the whole bottoming-out-on-whip-its-and-amyl-nitrate thing, that triggers his decision to enter rehab.)

  Fleischman's tale of addiction and recovery is a familiar one. (Consulting the book's index finds 12 mentions of the Betty Ford Clinic and 12 for Rancho La Puerta, if that gives you any indication.) Less familiar, and more fascinating to process nerds like me, is how he relates the day-to-day (and night-to-night) experience of running Studio 54.

  Fleischman bought the club in 1980, when much of the nation had already taken up "Disco Sucks!" as an anthem. (Throughout the book, Fleischman keeps insisting that Studio 54 was a nightclub, not a disco.) He transitioned the club's music mix from disco to R & B, which endeared him to VIPs like The Rolling Stones and his good, personal friend, Rick James.

  He also instituted rules to manage the guest list:

  "A movie star could bring unlimited guests, a prince or princess could invite five or six guests, counts and countesses four, most other VIPs three, and so on."

  Come on, that's fascinating.

  He introduced some semblance of order to the chaos of the dance floor by instituting theme nights. Thursday was Beautiful People Night, favored by modeling agencies. Friday was Preppy Night, frequented by the offspring of various celebrities ("Rip Torn's son Tony") (Tony Torn, people.). Saturday was when the SNL cast would sneak in after the show by clambering up the fire escape to the fifth floor. They'd then be ushered into a balcony dubbed The Rubber Room, because its many exposed surfaces were easily (and frequently, and very necessarily) washable.

  If you do not find the study of celebrity logistics like this interesting, you will likely be unmoved by his description of Studio 54's vast and well-staffed mail room, or his daily practice of consulting the "Celebrity Bulletin" — a listing of what VIPs were in New York, where they were staying, for how long, and how to contact them — first thing in the morning. You will roll your eyes at Studio 54's nightly practice of dividing VIPs from the unwashed masses by hanging a scrim across the dance floor which dropped at midnight, allowing everyone to mingle (read: allowing the VIPs to bolt upstairs).

  If you harbor no fondness in celebrity culture, you will likely cluck your tongue at Fleischman's practice of greeting VIPs who stopped by his office "with a gold straw or a crisp rolled-up hundred-dollar bill" and inviting them to sample the thirty or forty rails of coke awaiting them on Fleischer's desk. (He delegated the task of divvying up the drug to his assistants, he says, because "I had no patience for such stuff." Given his raging coke habit at the time: Story checks out.)

  If none of the above details delight you in even the smallest ways, 1. You would do well to avoid this book, and 2. You are not me.

  Fleischman's solid, workmanlike prose, certainly, isn't much of a draw in and of itself, but it does reveal him to be a man of his era. Terms like "bimbo" and references to "hot-to-trot stewardesses" can't help but give the reader pause.

  I mean, you'd expect a book with this much cocaine in it to be more woke.

  Just on principle.

• Soul Tracks
  https://www.soultracks.com/book-review-inside-studio-54
  Word count: 854

  Book Review - "Inside Studio 54," by Mark Fleischman and Denise Chatman

  “One night at an SNL party in the Rubber Room, John Belushi complained to me that he was hot and needed some air. ……He showed up in my office and took over the scene dominating the room with his antics…..until Rick James walked up with two absolutely gorgeous black girls and threw a white bag of powder down on my desk and announced, ‘I’m Rick James….say hello to my b****es….LET’S PARTY.’ John was speechless.”

  Is the above recollection an outtake from the Chappelle Show? Not quite, but it was a typical evening at the infamous NY nightclub-turned-cultural-hallmark, Studio 54, and one of the many brow-raising and pearl-clutching moments within Mark Fleischman’s fascinating tell-all and biography, Inside Studio 54. An entrepreneur, promoter and club fiend, Fleischman bought 54 around 1980 when its two original owners found themselves behind bars for tax evasion. The journey that landed Mark at the world’s most famous nightclub is the same one that many of its attendees may likely remember…..a love of music, a penchant for drugs and a desire to see and be seen with the biggest and brightest names of art and entertainment.

  With his deft, yet vivid narrative flow, Fleischman describes how his well-to-do upbringing and pre-teen trips with his parents to the legendary Copacabana (circa 1960s) cemented his love of blues, R&B, and the swanky nightlife. At Cornell University, while many were either heading to full-time work and taking roles in the family business, he was quickly becoming known for the area’s hottest and hippest frat parties. By his mid-twenties, he ran a 300-room landmark inn with his father, and Frank Sinatra was the first famous patron to grace its Celebrity Walk.

  After his first early nightclub success, The Candy Store, got leaned on too zealously by the Mob, Fleischman split his time running restaurants and hotels until seizing the opportunity to resurrect the floundering club’s fate (let’s just say that Steve Rubell and partner Ian Schrager didn’t win friends by reporting to the New York Daily that both “made more money than the Mafia.”). Fleischman renewed the liquor license, the nightclub re-opened and the infamous sex, drugs, rock & roll kept on keeping on.

  Depending on which era you were born in, what’s known about Studio 54 comes from a) first-hand experience, b) knowing somebody who knew somebody who _______ at Studio 54, c) the 1990s movie (which Fleischman considers far from accurate), or from d) memoirs and articles like this one. Inside Studio 54, in fact, is one of the most in-depth examinations of the phenomenon to date, from the behind-the-scenes machinations to the eye-popping and mind-bending accounts of over-the-top parties, superstars draped across sofas in VIP lounges, the drugs constantly-in-rotation and enough heterosexual and homosexual sex encounters to make the freakiest of orgies look tame. After all...it was the heady era following the invention of the pill, yet right before the explosion of the deadly AIDS virus. The decadence and depravity were unmatched.

  Inside Studio 54 is chock-full of less-than-sober adventures, stunning celebrity accounts, and illustrates an atmosphere too prestigious to ignore, too wild to sustain and ultimately, too over-the-top to believe; “It was a Thursday night and the club was packed. Yul Brenner, Michael Jackson… entered through the Fifty-Third stage into their private party behind the scrim. ...They were all having a good time and then Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis walked in. …Michael just sat there in his Royal military-style garb, just staring. Yes, he was the undisputed ‘King of Pop,’ but tonight he was in the presence of the ‘Chairman of the Board’ and comedy royalty.”

  Because SoulTracks is a family-oriented site, the racier and risqué-type stories will have to be investigated directly from the pages, but if you want to read about the performance bridge over the dance floor, cocaine-covered party favors, Bianca Jagger’s famous white horse entrance, Prince's visible feud with Rick James, MJ hanging out in the DJ booth, epic live performances that should have been recorded for posterity (!), A-list celebrities handcuffed to one another in plush offices (!!!) and Fleischman’s own debaucheries and personal addiction battles (including running into Andy Gibb while both were in treatment at the Betty Ford Center), all occurring before the invention and intrusiveness of social media…yeah. Gotta get the book.

  If you were there at the height of Studio 54’s popularity, Inside's photos and recollections give insight into the cultural hedonism that fueled it all and maybe, could help trigger memories lost in the haze (Mark, a friend and party partner of the late Rick James, freely admits to forgetting plenty -- he didn't include the two co-authors for nothing). Otherwise, if you were a tot back then (like me) or were born decades after its legendary reign, consider Inside Studio 54 a detailed road map to a fabled place and time that shouldn’t be forgotten...or repeated.

  By Melody Charles

• Paper
  http://www.papermag.com/studio-54-drugs-mark-fleischman-2476614712.html
  Word count: 1220

  Ex-Studio 54 Owner Mark Fleischman on the Disco Era's Worst Drugs
  Michael Musto
  24 August 2017

  The ultimate disco, Studio 54, had a second wind after it was closed down in 1980 and owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were sent to jail for tax evasion. A year later, naval-officer-turned-entrepreneur Mark Fleischman bravely reopened the place and tried to restart the party. Fleischman has written a book, Inside Studio 54 (with his wife, Mimi Fleischman Denise Chatman) about his incredibly vivid experience there. (The book is currently available for pre-order via Amazon and Barnes & Noble and out September 17th.)

  Fleischman takes you through the hedonistic, denial-prone era of drugs, booze, and sex till you dropped--literally. Today, Mark and Mimi live in California where they own the Bar Method Exercise Studios. Yes, it's a long way from designer drugs and smashing glitter balls. I asked him for his take on the various drugs that most prominently affected the disco era (and his own life), and he soberly obliged.

  Hi, Mark. Congrats on the book. It looks terrific. What would you say were the most damaging drugs of the disco era? Coke, 'ludes…?

  I did it all! I ended up at Betty Ford. And then I stopped everything.

  Did that happen on your own or was it an intervention?

  An intervention, in a way. My girlfriend, and ultimately she became my wife, intervened with a good friend of mine, who was a specialist in drug addiction at Cornell Medical Center. They saw me and they said, "Betty Ford." It wasn't the cure-all for me. Ultimately, I went to Rancho La Puerta, which [singer/songwriter] Paul Jabara turned me onto. It's a spiritual retreat [in Mexico], with organic food and hiking and exercise, very physical. After that, I gave up everything and was able to reinvent myself and open [midtown restaurant/club] Tatou in New York in 1990.

  Mark Fleischman marrying Mimi at Tatou LA in 1994, photo by George Leonard

  I know Betty Ford was becoming trendy at that time, but was there still a stigma to going to rehab?A little bit. Some people thought I must really be fucked up, but I was. The instructions that Betty Ford sent me were, "Get on the plane and come to Palm Springs and don't drink," so I decided I was going to have one last Bloody Mary with breakfast. That ended up becoming three or four. By time I got there, I fell asleep on the couch as I was being admitted. They searched my luggage and found all kinds of things in there and threw them away. I had a blood test and they found various drugs in me.

  They said, "You're here for six weeks, not four, because of your blood test."

  What were you on, exactly?

  It all started with pot. Then I went onto coke. Somehow in the middle of all that, I did acid and mescaline. Poppers, of course.

  But you're straight. I thought only gays do Poppers.

  Everybody did Poppers at the time. I had the little canister. I didn't wear it around my neck when I danced, but I had it in my pocket. Also, when I was having sex, just as I was about to orgasm, I'd take a hit of Poppers. It makes it more intense. Then of course there was angel dust. And quaaludes, which were at the time called disco biscuits. And somebody turned me onto whippets. It's nitrous oxide, inhaled from whipped cream canisters. That's really addictive and it was really horrible and it was the one that did me in. It's the greatest rush of all time, but then it only lasts about 20 seconds, so you have to do it again. In the middle of all that, next to the mescaline, there was Special K. It comes from ketamine. It comes as a liquid. Ketamine is used to inject women during childbirth in the form of an epidural. They use it in hospitals. Somehow people were able to buy the little canisters. We'd distill it on a spoon with the match and turn it into powder. We couldn't sleep, so we'd hang out at Crisco Disco till noon and Hank, the owner, used to mix it with cocaine and we'd snort it. People who didn't know what it was would go wild. Some had weird trips, but mostly they had good trips. It was a little trippy.

  Photos from "Inside Studio 54"

  Did you ever end up in a "K hole" where you felt alienated?

  No. It had a very positive affect on me. Hallucinogenic drugs always did. Before that, in the late '60s, I used to eat mushrooms. I always felt good on hallucinogenic drugs. The other thing we did from time to time is speed. Also, dexedrine, meth—meth was pure at the time, not what they're selling now that kills people. And valium to go to sleep. There was no way I could sleep without it. Of course when I woke up, I was groggy as hell and I'd do coke again at two in the afternoon and my routine started all over again. I did that for three and a half years, which is why I finally fell apart and needed to go to Betty Ford.

  And once you cleaned up, you never turned back?

  No. That all happened at Rancho La Puerta. I was on this mountaintop, which is considered a magic mountain. Shamans had been going there for thousands of years. Somehow or other, I got this high from being healthy, fit, and climbing this mountain.

  It's a much cheaper high.

  Cheaper and better, and I can live longer. A lot of the people I knew are no longer around.

  But how do you get that mountaintop high again? What do you do?

  I've been to Rancho La Puerta 55 times.

  What were the most prevalent drugs you saw others on in the '70s and early '80s?

  Coke and quaaludes.

  Could you determine what people were on based on their behavior?

  Yes. With coke, you see them talking fast and jumping around a little bit. With quaaludes-- remember Steve Rubell? He used to get really high on five or six quaaludes and act similar to Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. He'd stagger around and spit.

  I only saw the charming side. What was the most damaging drug of all back then?

  Cocaine led a lot of people to heroin, and that became the most damaging drug. At first, they snorted it, then they shot it. That wasn't for me. I tried snorting it once. It didn't make me feel great--it made me feel too down. I never shot anything. I don't like needles.

  Do you think today there's just as much drug use among a partying crowd?

  No. I think the people who were alive then are happy they're alive now. I think they're just on alcohol.

  Splash image via Getty

• Daily News
  http://beta.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/confidential/ex-studio-54-owner-mark-fleischman-offers-all-excess-tour-article-1.2225916
  Word count: 534

  Ex-Studio 54 owner Mark Fleischman offers all-excess tour of the club in new book, takes swipes at Ian Schrager
  By Confidential
  | BY MARIANNE GARVEY, BRIAN NIEMIETZ AND OLI COLEMAN WITH RACHEL MARESCA |
  May 18, 2015 | 2:00 AM
  Ex-Studio 54 owner Mark Fleischman offers all-excess tour of the club in new book, takes swipes at Ian Schrager
  Mark Fleischman offers an all-excess tour of the club in his new book. (The Studio 54 Effect)

  According to veteran entrepreneur Mark Fleischman, his brand-new Studio 54 tell-all is the drug-fueled, name-naming book that Ian Schrager would rather brush under one of the rugs of his glitzy new New York Edition hotel.

  "Ian is now in a different world," Fleischman told Confidenti@l. "I'm writing a book that's the true story."

  He scoffed at "Ian Schrager: Works," a new coffee-table book about architecture and design that Fleischman calls part of Schrager's "whitewash" of Studio 54's debauched history.

  Fleischman says he swapped his Executive Hotel for the beleaguered disco den in 1980, while the club guru was in prison on tax charges. The rest is history for Schrager, who welcomed Emily Ratajkowski, Chrissy Teigen and Tommy Hilfiger to the Edition's grand opening last week.
  Mark Fleischman (pictured) takes swipes at Ian Schrager in the book.
  Mark Fleischman (pictured) takes swipes at Ian Schrager in the book. (The Studio 54 Effect)

  "(Schrager's) new life, whether it's because of his kids or his business associates or his banking or whatever — he's covering it up," Fleischman says of Studio 54.

  It took two years of legal vetting before Fleischman got the OK to start pitching "The Studio 54 Effect" to publishers. He says that finally, this month, the Chubb Group insurance business offered him a policy that protects him "up to $1 million per libel suit."

  Fleischman admits some punches had to be pulled, but he still names plenty of names and offers some intriguing blind items. For instance, he writes about one night when a coked-up "super model" used his office to have superfreaky sex with a funk musician who's no longer with us.
  Studio 54 owner-turned-hotelier Ian Schrager
  Studio 54 owner-turned-hotelier Ian Schrager (Michael Appleton/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

  He also writes about a wild VIP party he threw to reopen the club in 1981. But what he couldn't include was the part about a recent Oscar winner locking himself in the bathroom with Champagne and cocaine at the after-hours bash Fleischman hosted in his apartment.

  He says he also had to pull several stories involving Liza Minnelli, who entered the Betty Ford Clinic in 1984 — the year Fleischman sold the club.

  If the book becomes a film, he says, it'll be more accurate than 1998's "Studio 54" with Ryan Phillippe. "I went to the opening," he said. "I spoke to (producer) Harvey Weinstein and asked, 'What happened?' Ian Schrager wasn't even in the movie."

  Fleischman now lives in L.A. and runs the Bar Method workout studio. His main haunt is the Rancho La Puerta resort in Tecate, Mexico, where he regained his sobriety 30 years ago after Studio 54's party finally ended.

• Fox News
  http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/09/14/former-studio-54-owner-shares-unforgettable-encounters-with-madonna-dodi-fayed-rick-james.html
  Word count: 1292

  Former Studio 54 owner shares unforgettable encounters with Madonna, Dodi Fayed, Rick James
  By Stephanie Nolasco
  Published September 14, 2017
  Fox News

  Now Playing

  Former owner of Studio 54 shares details of famous hot spot

  When the owners of New York City’s Studio 54 were indicted on federal income tax charges in 1979, Mark Fleischman knew he was next in line to take over the infamous nightclub.

  “Studio 54 was the most famous club in the world during the late ‘70s and I knew it,” Fleischman recalled to Fox News. Fleischman eventually became the owner of the hotspot. He recently released his memoir, “Inside Studio 54,” which details the rise and fall of Manhattan’s champagne and cocaine-fueled lair.

  “I was a patron there and I loved it,” he explained. “Then I heard Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell were busted. I followed the newspapers and I had the sense that their liquor license wasn’t going to be renewed… They needed a new owner. So, I contacted their lawyer and he arranged for me to visit them [in Manhattan Federal Prison]… I had a clean reputation and figure I could get a liquor license. In jail, they questioned me very carefully about my background and whether I could actually get a license.”
  Related Image
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  Larkin Arnold of Columbia Records, recording artist Rebbie Jackson, and Studio 54 resident DJ Leroy Washington in the DJ booth. (Courtesy of Richard Manning)

  Fleischman managed to impress the weary business partners and that year, a deal was made. However, Studio 54 wouldn’t reopen until September 1981 after Fleischman, in fact, struggled to get a liquor license.

  “New York didn’t want Studio 54 to reopen,” he claimed. “I went through three to four different attorneys.”

  But the wait was well worth it. Like the previous owners, Fleischman focused on having nearly every celebrity in Hollywood party the night away and even encouraged a new generation of stars to let loose.
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  Studio 54 was a major hot spot for celebrities. (Courtesy of Mark Fleischman)

  “A lot of sons and daughters of famous people were ready to go out, too,” Fleischman explained. “Ben Stiller, Mario Van Peebles, Cecilia and Anthony Peck, Amy Lumet, who was Lena Horne’s granddaughter, Francisco Quinn.

  "It didn’t mean that their parents still didn’t keep coming because they did... It was an interesting time to see this young crowd get along with Calvin Klein, Liza Minnelli, Andy Warhol — they all kept coming. Studio 54 became a habit for a lot of people… Once you were inside, it felt like nothing could happen to you.”

  And Fleischman easily mixed business with pleasure. Every night, he gave his playlist to the DJ and danced for several hours where both stars and local patrons mingled on the floor. It was there where he made plenty of friends.
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  Mark Fleischman details his wild experiences in a new memoir, "Inside Studio 54." (Courtesy of Mark Fleischman)

  “Rick James parties the hardest,” said Fleischman. “It was unbelievable. I don’t know how he did it. But he killed himself partying… He did an enormous amount of cocaine and alcohol. He stayed up all night, every night, sometimes for days at a time… Mick Jagger took care of himself. Rick James did not… He and I were both born on February 1st, so we would have joint birthday parties together.”

  There was also Fleischman’s encounter with King Juan Carlos of Spain in 1982, who made him an offer he refused — and still regrets.

  “He invited me to open a Studio 54 in Madrid,” said Fleischman. “It was a casual thing. I should have jumped on it… I guess he could have helped me. I wish I had taken his offer.”

  Fleischman also became a comrade to Dodi Fayed, the son of Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed. The playboy, who reportedly had an insatiable appetite for women, even traveled down the dangerous streets of downtown Manhattan after Studio 54 would close up for the night at 5 a.m. to keep the partying going, Fleischman claimed. Fleischman said Fayed frequently visited Crisco Disco, a popular gay discotheque.

  “At Studio 54, we were not allowed to serve liquor after 4, and we normally closed by 5,” said Fleischman. “But people didn’t want to sleep. They were all hopped up on whatever drugs they were taking. So we all piled into limos and head down to Chelsea… those after-hours clubs would stay open until noon. But they were completely illegal. And that’s what made it so fun. There was drinking, everyone was doing cocaine and poppers. It was quite the scene.”

  Fleischman was surprised when Fayed became romantically involved with Princess Diana.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I read about it,” he said. “He liked women, there was no question about that. And he was rich. He had a plane… When she was on the loose, and he lived in London, why not?”

  But some of Fleischman’s favorite encounters with the stars took place in his own club. He never forgot the gorgeous blonde accompanied by “The Juice.”

  “Nicole Brown was beautiful and nice,” he said. “She was a real sweet person. And [O.J. Simpson] seemed like a nice guy also. Gregarious and fun. They looked fine together.”

  But not all of Fleischman’s encounters with celebs were welcoming. He insisted Madonna was a diva long before she was a pop star.

  “I don’t know when she first became a diva, but it was in her blood,” he said. “She was there one afternoon to do a soundcheck on her song ‘Holiday.’ She was meeting Frankie Crocker, who was the top DJ in the United States. Most performers really wanted to please him. And she was cursing at him because he was late. I found it interesting that was her attitude before she even became famous.”

  Meanwhile, Fleischman claimed John Belushi was unbearable.
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  Michael Jackson at Studio 54. (Courtesy of Richard Manning)

  “He was really angry,” said Fleischman. “I think he may have been freebasing, but he used to get extraordinarily hostile towards our staff and other guests. He would get into fights all the time.”

  But the non-stop partying would ultimately come to an end. In 1984 Fleischman, who was faced with his own addictions, sold Studio 54.

  “I could no longer physically tolerate the life,” he explained. “By 1985, there was a period in my life when I pretty much stayed in my pajamas and wouldn't want to get out of bed unless it was to go get a drink.”
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  Mark Fleischman with Ronald Reagan. (Courtesy of Mark Fleischman.)

  Studio 54 was never the same again. Fleischman said the new owners tried to charge celebrities for drinks and admission when they once entered for free, luring “thousands of people who paid.” The club shut down in the late ‘80s and the space remained vacant until 1998. It’s currently the Roundabout Theatre Company.

  Fleischman began his own reinvention in 1988 after a stint at the Betty Ford Center. Today, he and his wife run exercise studios called The Bar Method in California.

  “I’m very happy here,” said Fleischman. “I also stopped doing drugs completely. I hardly drink. And I guess that was the key.”