Selling Some Old Sparkle From Nights at Studio 54

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/arts/studio-54-memorabilia-to-be-sold-at-auction.html

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As Steve Rubell saw it, the key to a successful party was populating a room with guests more interesting than you.

“Look at the Top 10 people who were there,” said Bill Hamilton, who was Mr. Rubell’s companion in the 1980s. “If you’re one of them, it’s a horrible party.” Given that philosophy, Mr. Rubell, the New York night life impresario and a co-founder of Studio 54, the Manhattan club that was the beating heart of the city’s disco scene, might be amused to find himself the focus of an auction of artwork and other items he possessed until his death in 1989.

This collection, which will be sold on Saturday by Palm Beach Modern Auctions in West Palm Beach, Fla., consists mainly of memorabilia associated with Studio 54 and is as eclectic as the roster of regulars who visited the club at its peak in the late 1970s. It includes works by Andy Warhol, Peter Beard and Michael Vollbracht, as well as news clippings and photographs of merrymakers like Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra, Truman Capote and Liza Minnelli.

Taken as a whole, these mementos also shed new light — without the glare of paparazzi flashbulbs and unrefracted by mirrored balls — on the celebrated if enigmatic Mr. Rubell, who made the entertainment of others his ultimate priority.

“He really just wanted you to have a good time, period,” Mr. Hamilton said. “Whatever it cost, he always picked up the bill.”

It was an actual portrait of Mr. Rubell, one painted for his 35th birthday by Mr. Vollbracht and depicting him surrounded by the first names of his celebrity clientele, that brought the larger collection to the attention of Palm Beach Modern Auctions.

Rico Baca, the company’s auctioneer, said he began speaking with Mr. Hamilton about selling the painting, but felt that the one item would not generate enough buzz.

When he traveled to New York to meet Mr. Hamilton and examine the wider array of Mr. Rubell’s belongings, Mr. Baca said he saw a presentation of Studio 54 take shape that was different from the exclusive playground of hedonism he once avoided.

“I wouldn’t even dream of going to stand in the line,” said Mr. Baca, who made visits to New York in the 1970s. “I’m not going near the block, it was that notorious, as far as letting people in.”

But Mr. Rubell’s photographs had “a certain fun feel to them,” Mr. Baca said.

“It was the it place, it was the in crowd,” he added. “They were all on their game.”

Mr. Hamilton was a fashion designer for Carolina Herrera when he started dating Mr. Rubell in 1982 or ’83. By then, Mr. Rubell and the Studio 54 co-owner Ian Schrager had served time in prison for tax evasion, sold the club and moved on to other ventures like the Palladium nightclub and Morgans Hotel. (Through a press representative, Mr. Schrager declined to comment for this article.)

Mr. Rubell allowed Mr. Hamilton to sublet a West Side apartment he had used primarily as a crash pad (while also letting employees and guests sleep there after long nights of revelry). It was there, Mr. Hamilton said, that Mr. Rubell “saved every single item” he kept from Studio 54, including drink tickets, party invitations and its sacred reservation book.

“It would list every single person coming,” Mr. Hamilton explained, “and then next to their name, if they were comped, which meant don’t charge them. Or if they’re really V.I.P., drinks are on the house.” As he paged through the weeks and saw the club’s reputation grow, Mr. Hamilton said, “The names were getting bigger and bigger: Sly Stallone, Muhammad Ali, Lillian Carter.”

Another favorite artifact, Mr. Hamilton said, arrived after Mr. Rubell denied the president of Cyprus entry to Studio 54, mistaking him for the president of the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn.

“What he got from the president of Cypress Hills Cemetery was a letter,” Mr. Hamilton said, “and he was furious that, had it been him, he would have been turned away.”

As Mr. Hamilton described it, the letter added, “If I do come, would you let me in?”

Though the items in the sale carry great sentimental value, Mr. Hamilton said that after he married in July, “It was time to clean out and reorganize and simplify life.”

Since the sale was posted on the Web site of Palm Beach Modern Auctions, the company said it had been contacted by many nostalgic alumni of Studio 54. Among them is Salvatore DeFalco, a former bartender at the club, who remembered it as a trading floor for sex and illegal drugs, but also as a last bastion of consequence-free celebration before the scourge of H.I.V. and AIDS.

“Everything was free and naïve and different,” said Mr. DeFalco, now a bartender in Fort Lauderdale. He added that his months at Studio 54 were “the greatest time of my life” and described Mr. Rubell — “little Stevie” — as someone whose “heart was bigger than his pocket.”

Mr. Hamilton supported this recollection as he affectionately described a photograph of Mr. Rubell pleading with a fire marshal not to shut down the club after he flooded its dance floor with candy hearts for Valentine’s Day.

As Mr. Hamilton put it, “He just didn’t want the party to stop.”