What a society! How could anyone take it seriously?” It was Silvio who introduced Elliot to Steve Rubell about six months after the club opened, and it was already the place to be. Almost from the beginning, there were long lines at the entrance. Elliot remembered someone saying that even real celebrities like Burt Reynolds were having trouble getting in that night. But Frank knew a guy named Dominick Montiglio, a Gambino enforcer until he went into the witness protection program, and when he appeared with them, all obstacles parted like the Red Sea. They were inside Studio 54 with no trouble getting past the cadre of bouncers and wannabes ever again. These were the golden days for Rubell, disco, and arguably New York’s night scene, unless you were willing to go back to the 1920s. On a given night, you could find Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Diana Ross, Liz Smith, you name the celebrity, some of them so out of it, or caught up in the fervor of pulsating music and strobe-light-madness, that they acted as if they were anonymous.
