Chippendales is a
touring dance troupe best known for its male striptease performances and for
its dancers' distinctive upper body costume of a bow tie and shirt cuffs worn
on an otherwise bare torso.
Established in
1979, Chippendales was the first all-male stripping troupe to make a business
performing for mostly female audiences. Through the quality of its staging and
choreography, Chippendales also helped legitimize stripping as a form of
popular entertainment.
Three original 1979 Chippendales cast members (L to R) Richard Barash, Dustin Stevens and Roger Menache |
History
After operating a
Mobil gas station, Somen Banerjee and his newly acquired partner, a law student
at Loyola Law School named Bruce Nahin, bought a failed west Los Angeles disco
named Destiny II and turned it into a nightclub featuring female mud wrestling
and a "Female Exotic Dancing Night." Destiny II was located at 3739
Overland Avenue at McCune Avenue in Palms. The idea of featuring male dancers
came from a nightclub promotional idea by Paul Snider, while the club name
Chippendales was suggested by Nahin because of the Chippendale style furniture
at the club.
The concept of
the male strip show was brought to Banerjee and Nahin by Snider (later
notorious for killing his estranged wife, Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten and
then himself) who was desperate to revive his nightclub business because other
ideas of backgammon and female mud wrestling were failing. Banerjee was the
creative force behind Chippendales, packaging the idea of a male burlesque show
with the name of elegant furniture in a night club venue that was clean and
refined, and that allowed women to feel comfortable to watch men strip down to
a G-string. The initial script was written by Richard Barsh, who was the show's
first Emcee. The concept immediately gained a huge female following. Together
with choreographer and Emmy award winner Nicholas De Noia and his associate
Candace Mayeron (Snider had died in 1980), Chippendales was expanded to New
York's Club Magique, London, Hamburg,Amsterdam, Thailand, Australia,
Philadelphia, and Florida. Choreographer De Noia was originally in charge of
the stage show. Authorized shows also toured extensively in the U.S. (by De
Noia and Mayeron), Asia, and Europe (through Banerjee).
For Chippendales,
the early 1980s were filled with major lawsuits pertaining to personal injury,
alleged sexual bias against male guests, charges of racial discrimination and
later in 1988 bankruptcy due to Banerjee's refusal to pay a $300,000+ (approx)
printing invoice to Anderson Lithograph for a layout error created by a Culver
City design firm, Haiku Advertising (owned by Al Ako) whereby the 1987 Chippendales
calendar had 31 days in each month. Banerjee had signed off on all the press
sheets yet still refused to pay the printing company. Haiku Advertising went
bankrupt and Chippendales (Easebe Inc) re-emerged from bankruptcy with a
corrected calendar and less debt.
Eventually, De
Noia and Banerjee fell out (forcing Nahin to deal with each of his partners
separately). Banerjee brought in choreographer/director Steve Merritt, who,
with his partner Mark Donnelly, had stage shows playing in Las Vegas and
London. Merritt and Donnelly had the idea of putting the male strippers into a
kind of mini-Broadway show, with dancers, music, and themes. To find strippers,
they recruited the most attractive men they could find from Venice Beach,
Manhattan Beach, and Santa Monica Beach. Merritt taught the men how to dance
and perform.
Merritt became
the choreographer of the Los Angeles show, and ultimately took charge of New
York also. This resulted in two separate shows being performed, the De Noia
touring version, and the Banerjee-Merritt Version. Banerjee could not tolerate
De Noia's ownership of the touring companies and in 1987 hired a hit man to
brutally murder De Noia. Mayeron took over producing duties until Banerjee
successfully purchased the touring rights from De Noia's heirs for a paltry $1
million. Once De Noia was killed, Merritt took control of the touring shows as
well.
The Chippendales,
though still popular, continued to suffer from legal troubles, conflicts with
"copycat" companies, and in 1993, an allegation of murder — that
Banerjee had arranged De Noia's 1987 killing and the proposed killing of Nahin.
Banerjee's bail
was denied, due to testimony that Banerjee had said he intended to pay a
private pilot $25,000 to fly him back to India without a passport, and
threatened to commit suicide if he was arrested. Soon after, the charges
against him were expanded to include the hired hit of De Noia and the planned
hit of Nahin and a group in Europe known as Adonis. In the early morning of
October 23, 1994, after sentencing, Banerjee's body was found lying in his
linen-free cell dead from what was officially termed a self-inflicted hanging.
It was speculated that Banerjee wanted to shield his wife from a wrongful death
lawsuit and from a $1.75 million fine from the government (Chippendales was
worth considerably more than $1.75 million), he killed himself before his trial
was technically completed Banerjee knew that the almost-certain wrongful death
suit by Nick De Noia's relatives would not be able to rely on the higher
standard of evidence ("beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, largely
recognized to be 95% or more likely to be guilty, required in criminal trials),
De Noia's family would have to re-prove all of the evidence at any wrongful
death trial (a civil standard would apply here, only a mere "preponderance
of the evidence" standard, or 51% or more likely to be guilty.)[citation
needed]
The entirety of
Banerjee's share in the Chippendales corporation and his estate were passed on,
(in the absence of a $1.75 million fine and any successful lawsuit by the De
Noia family), to his wife Irene, who thereafter sold the company (without,
according to court records, Nahin's knowledge and without first obtaining Nahin's
permission) to the current owner, Chippendales USA. Merritt staged shows at
various Chippendales clubs until his death in the 1990s. Irene died of breast
cancer in the early 2000s. Mark Donnelly is currently a screenwriter living in
Los Angeles. Nahin produces films in Los Angeles.
The company is
currently run by Kevin Denberg, whose grandfather was part of a partnership
with Steve and Gary Rogers to open a Chippendales club in New York City in the
1980s. Kevin Denberg bought Chippendales in 2000 with several other investors,
and immediately set about distancing the company from its somewhat risqué past.
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