Disco Sally Living Her Best Life
You were wrong if you thought nightclubs were only for the youth! Take a look at Sally “Disco Sally” Lippman. While there were many young people in Studio 54, she swore to do anything she wanted after the death of her husband.
She was a real star! A friend told her to go there “just to see what it’s all about.” She had a blast and was adored by the manager who let her come in whenever she wanted. She explained, “I didn’t dance for 50 years because my husband didn’t like it.” Good for her!
All Seemed Well Until One Fateful Day
Sadly, the end soon came for the club. The IRS paid the club a visit and asked to see the owners and all their financial records. In December 1978, Rubell told CBS that it was “…probably the worst, one of the worst days of my life.” Agents found the club’s financial records, which included “payouts” for drugs and, as prosecutor Peter Sudler recalls, one column that was labeled “skim.”
“So that you had a daily record of everything that they took in and what they took out as skim and didn’t report,” Sudler said. It totaled some $2.5 million. “It was part of the ridiculous intoxication, I suppose, we were suffering from, like, what were we thinking?” Schrager said.