PLUS HOW THE CHIPPENDALES BECAME A TRUE CRIME OBSESSION
The story of the Chippendales dancers has become the latest unlikely true crime obsession, says Katie Rosseinsky
MURDER plots, toxic rivalries, arson attempts and ... male strippers with mullets. The intriguing story of muscle-bound dance troupe the Chippendales has all this and more, running the gamut from high camp to the criminal underworld. With a new investigative podcast and an upcoming movie uncovering this strange, sordid tale, it’s set to become 2021’s unlikeliest true crime obsession.
Dressed (if you can call it dressed) in their trademark cuffs, collars and tiny spandex pants, the Chippendales were still keeping Vegas hen dos entertained until the pandemic. But in their Eighties heyday, they were a pop culture force to be reckoned with, inspiring tours, pin-up calendars and even workout videos.
The first episode of Welcome to Your Fantasy, a podcast presented by cultural historian Natalia Petrzela, rewinds the group’s origins back to Indian immigrant Somen “Steve” Banerjee, a petrol station owner with dreams of becoming Los Angeles’ next nightlife impresario, fancying himself as a sort of unholy cross between Hugh Hefner and Walt Disney.
When his business partner Paul Snider suggested flipping the script on strip clubs to turn Banerjee’s struggling bar into the first “male exotic dance night for ladies”, the pair had a hit on their hands. They changed the club’s name from Destiny II (there was no Destiny I) to Chippendales, after 18th-century England’s premier cabinet maker — this wasn’t a nod to the dancers’ mahogany tans, but an attempt to give the venture a patina of class. Snider’s wife, Playboy model Dorothy Stratten, is thought to have come up with the barely-there costumes, asking Hefner permission to borrow elements from his bunny girl outfits. On opening night, 600 women queued up outside.
Banerjee’s club gained PR points by inadvertently dovetailing with second wave feminism. He and his business partners certainly didn’t go into the male stripping game because they felt passionately about reclaiming the female gaze — but when they realised that the women’s lib angle could be incredibly lucrative, they embraced it wholeheartedly, even inviting women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred to host a fundraiser for the Women’s Equal Rights and Legal Defence Fund at the club. “Now [the original guests’] daughters are able to run for President of the United States and go in spaceships and fly fighter jets… and I’m not so sure Chippendales didn’t have a lot to do with it!” co-founder Bruce Nahin tells Petrzela. If you say so, Bruce.
This high camp milieu means Petrzela’s podcast is often riotously funny. Former Chippendales producer and pro backgammon player Candace Mayeron is hilarious, wistfully waxing lyrical about how the world would be a better place if men still sported mullets (“It’s still the best hair men ever had…”) while another interviewee claims an entire front row of women fainted the first time top dancer Michael Rapp’s “Perfect Man” act reached its climax. For every laugh out loud moment, though, there’s a disturbing, often violent twist. The story takes a dark turn in 1980 when co-founder Snider shot his wife Stratten dead and then killed himself. This left Banerjee in need of a new business partner, and in stepped choreographer and Emmy-winning children’s TV producer Nick De Noia. Talented and ambitious, De Noia upped the show’s production values and helped transform it into a well-oiled moneymaking machine.
Though the Chippendales were raking in millions by the midEighties, Banerjee started hiring thugs to burn down rival strip clubs. He was also jealous of De Noia, resenting how he’d supplanted him as the business’s charismatic face. In 1987, he hired an amateur hitman to shoot De Noia dead, then turned his attentions back to those rival acts, setting another (this time botched) murder plot in motion. From The Full Monty to Hustlers, Hollywood can’t resist a stripper story, and with its jaw-dropping plot twists and larger-than-life characters, it’s no surprise that the Chippendales saga has piqued the interest of movie industry execs. A film based on this bizarre tale has been in the works for two decades, but the project finally gained momentum late last year when Craig Gillespie, the man behind the Tonya Harding biopic I, Tonya, signed up to direct. Dev Patel is set to star as Banerjee, with the roles of Snider and De Noia yet to be claimed. It’s not clear when production will begin — but don’t turn up to the cinema expecting it to be the next Magic Mike.
⬤ Welcome to Your Fantasy is on Spotify and Apple Podcasts