The impresario who revived Studio 54’s temple of debauchery

In September 1981, Andy Warhol, Calvin Klein, Bianca Jagger, and 5,000 other VIPs received a 25-watt lightbulb in a box, sent from Mark Fleischman to announce “the relighting of Studio 54.” The reopening party forced the fire department to close the entire block. Fleischman had bought Manhattan’s hedonistic hot spot for $5 million from owners jailed for tax evasion, and soon A-listers and hangers-on were back at Studio 54—along with mountains of cocaine and quaaludes. It was, Fleischman later said, the “post-pill, pre-AIDS era of free love, consequence-free sex, and seemingly endless partying.”

Fleischman was born in New York City, where his father “ran modestly priced hotels,” said The Times (U.K.). At age 10, Fleischman got to tag along with his party-loving parents to Manhattan’s Copacabana, where he was “mesmerized” by Harry Belafonte performing and Copa Girls in sequins and feathers. Drawn to the family business, he bought his first hotel in his 20s with a loan from his father, embarking on a series of hotel, restaurant, and nightclub ventures.

At Studio 54, said The Washington Post, Michael Jackson would dance alone behind the DJ booth, an assistant was employed to cut cocaine lines, and Fleischman would arrange a 5 a.m. taxi to take Robin Williams, Christopher Reeve, and other members of the “dawn patrol” to after-hours clubs. Fleischman entered rehab in 1984, and new owners shuttered Studio 54 two years later. Suffering from a degenerative condition, Fleischman went to Switzerland to die by assisted suicide. “There is no shame in what I am doing,” he said, “I have done everything and been everywhere and met everyone I want to meet.”