Studio One Forever

Director: Marc Saltarelli

It seems everyone went to Studio One, the gay disco in West Hollywood. As well as the club, which originally opened in 1974, at the rear was the Backlot, a cabaret club to where the rich and the famous would flock: Liza Minnelli, Divine, Bette Davis, Roger Moore, Elton John, and the list goes on. So many that Marc Saltarelli’s documentary is sometimes hard to keep track of. The namechecks are certainly impressive, but it’s the lives of the boys who danced next door to the sounds of Donna Summer and Sylvester that make this film such important viewing.

Before Studio One opened, gay men and lesbians could be arrested for touching in California, with the police often raiding queer bars with the intention of arresting the customers. But after a touch-in protest where men publicly held hands with each other, the police decided to back off, leading to a safer Los Angeles for the gay community. In the wake of this newfound confidence, Scott Forbes decided to open Studio One in a warehouse that had once made cameras for Hollywood.

One of the co-owners remembers the first night; no one came until 9.30 pm, but by then, the men were queuing around the block to get in. It was an overnight success. Soon, it was the place to go, with up to 1,000 clubbers attending each night. It smelled of sweat and poppers. It sounded like disco.

Photographs taken by Rosa de Castro and others show the dancefloor heaving with bare-chested men writhing to the disco chant. An archivist wondered why so many men in the photos appeared to be sneezing until she realised that they were sniffing poppers, probably the poppers they bought at the shop at the entrance to the club. However, the images only appear to capture white men, both smooth and hairy-chested. The fact that there are few people of colour is a matter, quite sensibly, discussed early on in the film.

Apparently, according to the men who are left, with Forbes dying in 2002 after cosmetic surgery went wrong, there was a door policy that restricted black people from entering. The talking heads suggest that it was a policy that came from Forbes himself, afraid that “gang members” would come to the club to sell drugs. However, Studio One was awash with drugs already, with one ex-barman recalling that staff and customers would snort lines of cocaine on the bar top. The woman who sold poppers in the shop discloses that she also sold small mirrors inset with handy little grooves.

Despite the segregation – there’s also the implication that the ban on open-toed shoes was used to prevent women from attending – the club thrived during the 70s and early 80s, helped by the kudos that the celebrity-filled Backlot provided. However, that success was to flounder in the time of the AIDS crisis. Looking at a staff photo from the early 80s, the ex-barman remarks that out of the 105 employees, only two are still living.

In this time of ignorance, misinformation and hostility, Joan Rivers held an AIDS benefit event at the Backlot. The security that night was high, not to protect Rivers from her fans but to safeguard her and the guests from homophobic attacks. The benefit gig was a success, but with fewer customers going to the club, Forbes decided to close down Studio One in 1994. It was transformed into a nightclub for straight people.

But in 2018, when this film begins, there are plans to knock the building down, destroying the history along with it. As gentrification carves out huge chunks of the past, queer history is disappearing. In London, many gay bars, such as Soho’s Madame Jojos, have been lost to fancy urban developments while the status of others, like the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, is in jeopardy. Studio One Forever is more than heady nostalgia but an entreaty to hold on to a history that changed LGBTQ+ life forever.

StudioOneForeverwill be in UK Cinemas from 18th October, available exclusively on the IFC Channel in January 2025, with a Digital release in March 2025