Original subtitles

[crowd cheering]

[Nick] Women go to see a strip show.

As soon as a woman takes off her bra,

we're dirty-minded little boys.

With women it's not that. They'll get turned on

by a man but they have to know that personality.

That's why our guys are not sex objects.

We can't have sex objects,

we have that total human beings,

or the night doesn't work.

[Bruce] Nick De Noia first came into my life

when I was introduced to Nick by Steve.

[Nick] What the hell are you doing?

Nick was an accomplished choreographer.

You know, about two weeks now I've telling you,

damn it, Bob, this is slow.

[Bruce] He understood who we were.

And he certainly had the charisma necessary

to fund a sexy brand.

[Nick] There's a big audience out there,

let's figure out what the women want.

And let's give it to them.

- [man] What do the women want? - You got me.

[Bruce] Steve was convinced it was time to expand to New York.

Nick was a New Yorker,

he had the connections in New York, it seemed perfect.

Please welcome Pecs on Parade, The Chippendale Dancers.

[Bruce] And then Steve told me that he and Nick

had written on a napkin a deal that said

if Nick found us a New York club,

then Nick would have the license

to take Chippendales on tour forever.

But when Steve signed that deal,

he had no conception about how valuable

those rights would become someday.

[women screaming]

That agreement led to a lot of trouble.

Give a round of applause to Nick De Noia.

[woman x] There was no love lost between the two of them.

They clashed plenty.

[Bruce] And that agreement is what led

to the demise of Chippendales as I knew it.

[man speaking]

[cheerful music playing]

[man] What do you want him to do?

[women] Take it off!

[woman] It's no secret they're popular, and they're in demand.

The Los Angeles Ladies Only club

has been so well received, they'll soon open in New York,

and then Director Nick De Noia hopes to move them on to Paris.

Enjoy yourself.

[Nick] It seems to me that New York is capital

of all kinds of entertainment.

The one thing they didn't have

was super entertainment for ladies only.

The napkin deal required Nick to find us a New York club.

He went out, he found a club by the name of Maggie

at 61st in 1st in New York,

who would be interested in hosting us.

Steve was beyond himself, he was excited.

New York was huge for him.

Being a success in New York would put us on the map.

We would control the two largest cities in the United States

and our brand would be unbeatable.

But before we can open in New York...

Nick had a lot of AM 88work to do here in L.A.

[cheerful music playing]

I don't think there are any men in America

that have better jobs than you.

When Nick started working with us in L.A.,

he brought more dancing, more lighting,

more wardrobe, more ensemble dancers.

It was like Chippendales on steroids.

Now we had cues, we had marks that we had to remember,

lighting cues, music cues.

And if you weren't on that mark,

he would really get mad.

Get the light up, in time! Thank you.

Good morning.

Nick was not an easy guy to work with.

I mean, he really tried to beat me down

to see if I would stand up to him.

Boom, boom, harder.

No, that one's got to be straight across,

it's got to be strong, do it again.

Boom, boom. Thank you, nice eye.

[Michael] He was always striving for perfection,

but never getting it, and you see him

turning a lot of people negative who just didn't like him.

I'm easy. As I say to them,

"Gentlemen, if you give me what I want, I'm a sweetheart.

The only time you have trouble with me

is when you make me break your back."

[Eric] Nick took himself way too seriously.

He had to make a scene,

he was a big diva, lot of drama.

He'd just like get in your face over stupid shit,

just so that he could be the A-dog.

And he liked to, you know get on these dancers, like,

you know, they were his little bitches, and,

"Yeah, no, don't do that, I'm telling you..." like,

we're not doing Cats here, you know, or Hamilton.

It's a fucking burlesque show for women.

And most of them are so fucking drunk

they don't care how these guys are dancing.

You do that turn, and it's like I have a bowl of tropical fish.

That's the amount of sensuality

that I just felt from you guys, like this.

I'm sure you're going to interview some people that idolize him

like some kind of God, like genius.

I mean he was just...

What the hell are you doing?

He was a dick.

He was just a real mouthy dick.

[Candace] It's very true that Nick was an abrasive person.

He was rude at times, and he was pushy.

Dunk! Good morning.

[Candace] But he was an innovator, he was a creator,

a mad passionate-intense man

who knew what he wanted,

and he wasn't going to settle for anything less.

[Nick] The eighties is the decade

of the male sex symbol once again,

and the breeding ground is here.

[Candace] He didn't want just the best show in New York,

he wanted to be the best of the biggest show in New York.

You are God's gift to womankind

except that if they had that way,

they'd destroy you and get rid of you

on the face of the earth, remember that.

[Candace] Nick was from New York City,

but he had a lovely house in Los Angeles,

and I would go over there often to work with him

on this new script for New York.

We worked together almost every day.

He was a very focused person.

And he was high energy, and he was hyper,

he's like those big blob toys

and you pull the plug and they go...

Like this as the air is coming out.

Nick had that ability to make you think

that you were the only other person in the room.

[Michael] I've been working for the club maybe a few months,

I had a taste of being on stage.

I had danced a couple of times folded in with people.

If somebody should get sick, you know,

I would always be the filler, but it's not, you know,

not a number. I'm just a standby.

One night Nick comes to me after the show,

and very quiet takes me aside and says,

"Mike, this is the first script of the new show,

tell me what you think about it."

So now I'm feeling pretty good, like, "Wow",

the director of the show, you know, wants me to read the script.

So I'm reading it, there's a barbarian,

there's this politician,

but then it comes across the perfect man.

So I read it.

"Wow, that's a great, I hadn't had... it's a great one."

And he goes, "Michael, we're gonna go to New York.

We're going to open the biggest show Chippendales has ever had.

And this character, the perfect man,

he's going to be the most important number of this,

the one I built the whole show around",

and he told me,

"You got the job, you're going to be the perfect man."

So the next thing I know I said,

"All right, give me a ticket."

["Everybody wants to rule the world" playing]

[Nancy] Michael and I moved to New York in September of 1983.

Oh my God!

To see New York City from the road.

I felt like I was in a movie.

♪ Welcome to your life ♪

We were starting this adventure together.

It was just beyond exciting,

I can still feel those feelings

thinking back to that day.

[Michael] I'm this kid from East L.A.

and all of a sudden I'm in the middle of New York.

And I just kept thinking, "You made it!"

There is that song, If you make it in Ney York,

you can make it anywhere. That's how I felt.

♪ Everybody wants to rule the world ♪

[Michael] Every time I turned on the TV there was,

"Chippendales is coming to New York City."

We're told, there's a lot of chirping

about the opening of Chippendales tonight.

It's a new night club designed to delight women,

featuring male performers.

I mean, we were on every news channel,

and in the morning talk show.

At Chippendales we go down to a G string.

We like to leave a little bit to the imagination.

I think it's a little bit more fun that way.

We were just the buzz of the whole city,

which was also, you know, a bit overwhelming.

Should be quite a show.

[sirens wailing]

[Nancy] I was nervous for him,

because this show was a whole different level of a show.

And Michael was the star.

[announcer speaking]

I was backstage, getting ready to go on stretching, rehearsing,

and the place was packed

all the way up, every seat was filled.

I was scared shitless.

And when those lights went down, you know,

for the first time, I can remember thinking,

"Okay, Michael, here it goes.

[exhales deeply]

[heart pounding]

This is it."

[interviewer speaking]

No.

You got to be kidding me.

No, I have no idea.

["The Kid is Hot Tonight" playing]

[women screaming]

[Nancy] It was just really exciting to watch women scream

and be crazy over him.

[Nancy] Seeing him in that perfect man number.

Yeah, it just made me feel proud.

"Yeah, that's my man," no?

I remember walking down.

Going down the stage, yeah.

[Candace] The expectation, the energy,

everything that went into preparing

for this opening night culminated,

and I'm surprised that the building

didn't fall down around our ears,

the noise level was so high.

♪ The kid is hot tonight ♪

♪ Whoa so hot... ♪

[Candace] And it's just all

perfect.

[women cheering]

[Bruce] New York was an immediate success.

Steve felt he was king of the world.

Chippendales became unsinkable at that point.

[women cheering]

The bad things were yet to happen.

[Nancy] Warm 80 degrees here in New York City.

[Michael] Within three months, we felt New York was our home.

[Nancy] This is our backyard.

Michael is barbecuing hamburgers.

Everything was just clicking for me

as far as Chippendales in New York was concerned.

[Nancy] We lived on at 81st on the East Side for a while.

It just seemed like...

this is where we belong.

Our son was born March 27th, 1984.

Peekaboo!

Peekaboo!

We named him Bo Christopher Rapp.

It just felt like we were going to be a family now

and, you know, this is forever.

You know your family film.

When you're young you think those things

until things start to go down a darker road.

[woman] You're trying to project a fantasy.

Constant fantasies from a female point of view.

It's definitely... We are Disneyland for ladies.

Finally women demanded their right to express that they like men.

[Eric] Nick De Noia.

Yes, he had this little wedge of Chippendales,

which was in New York, and needed an interesting fun show to be at.

But that wasn't Chippendales.

Chippendales is a bigger idea than that,

and Banerjee understood that.

I mean, he had a fucking amazing ability

to see how he could take this hack strip club idea,

and build it into something really big.

[interviewer speaking]

[Eric] He totally did the nightclub

as a laboratory of experimentation,

and I think the one thing you can admire about me

was that I tried really hard to experiment

with different things, different concepts, or promotional ideas.

So I became a creative director,

by, you know, working hard at just finding better ways

to get Chippendales out there in the mainstream level.

[Eric] He understood brand building

without having to go to college to do it

and that's just fucking amazing.

I mean, he was actually,

it's gonna sound crazy to a lot of people listening to this,

but he was actually like the Steve Jobs of sexuality for women.

[chuckles]

[cheering music playing]

All he thought about was making Chippendales a bigger name,

because he knew there was a way to make more money out of it.

Wait, these are respectable women,

you don't want to see these kind of things.

[cheering]

I guess I was wrong.

[women screaming]

[Eric] He studied, morning, noon, and night his market.

It just, it was his porn.

[Dan] He was always researching,

trying to see how he can implement Chippendales

into the trends, into the fashion.

Guys stopped shaving.

See? They had the little stubble from Miami Vice.

There was a time when everybody slicked their hair back.

There was a time when people tried growing mustaches,

like Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I.

And there was a time when everyone was clean cut short hair.

Banerjee was trying to imitate

what he would see working in mainstream America,

and he would mimic that in the calendars,

or in ads that we would do.

And the people that he picked for models or dancers

were all based on their face.

♪ You're looking straight at me ♪

♪ I'm in a poster hanging on your wall, baby... ♪

[Read] The faces were very, very important in the Chippendale brand.

♪ Drive me crazy when your tongue... ♪

[Read] And the way they identified who they were,

were by putting them in this lineup of 10 to 15 guys.

Banerjee would always watch it

because the audience applause

would dictate who the women really like.

[women screaming]

Banerjee from that would select them

to go on to a photo-shoot with the photographers

for potential calendar work, greeting cards, posters.

So if you were a face

or a spokesperson for the brand,

Steve went out of his way to be nicer to you,

because you meant more to him monetarily.

No.

Well, I was never a face.

I was a body part.

I did body part shots.

I do group shots.

One time Steve Banerjee made it very clear,

he pretty much let me know,

"You are a very good performer, Read,

but you're not a looker."

You just kind of take that and you go,

"All right. Well, Steve, thank you very much."

So, I was not a face.

And Mr. November is Dan Peterson.

[women cheering]

Steve did ask me if I would do the calendar,

and I was all gung ho,

I mean, I'd never been in a calendar,

I'd never been photographed, period.

I don't know if you can see this but you're, you do have...

We have clothes.

Yes, you do have some clothing on

so you're not completely in the buff.

[Dan] Being in the calendar was great,

but once I was on the cover,

that's where things sort of exploded.

That's where everything sort of became a little more real.

["Take On Me" playing]

[Roger] The first Chippendales calendar came out in 1981.

The first production was like 100,000,

but the following year, we went to half a million,

and then from there on we went to a million.

[man] The Chippendales are famous not only for their sexy dancing,

but for what has become one of the hottest

and best-selling calendars every year.

[Roger] Steve's idea was to spread the name as fast as possible,

and through the calendars it was simple.

[Dan] We went to events when there was 10,000 people

flooding a mall, waiting to get calendar signs.

This is really the biggest crowd we've ever had.

We expected hundreds, not thousands.

♪ ...another day to find you... ♪

[Roger] And then Steve got more creative

and started selling everything.

[woman] They're part of a multimillion dollar enterprise,

which include: sexy exercise tapes,

sexy lingerie, sexy jeans,

sexy calendars and even sexy coffee cups.

I brought something for you to use in bed every night.

- Oh! - [audience cheering]

[Roger] And the more we sold...

Yes, he's cute.

[Roger] ...the more Chippendales got known.

Here they are, the most exciting guys in America,

it's Chippendales.

[Candace] In the 1980s Chippendales was so popular

that we didn't have to seek out publicity.

Excuse me.

[laughter]

[Candace] We were in the magazines.

Major motion pictures.

Gentlemen.

Chippendales became iconic.

♪ Take me on ♪

♪ Take on me ♪

The fact this multimillion dollar organization

is continuing to expand

shows that Chippendale thinks that male stripping

is still big business.

Money was coming from all different directions.

Coming from a family who didn't have money.

I didn't know how to handle money.

And I was hoping that Nancy was better than me,

but she wasn't good with money either.

[Michael laughs]

So people always ask me, "How much money did you make?"

I said, "A little less than I spent."

Pecs on Parade, the Chippendales Dancers.

[all cheering]

[Bruce] The money was rolling.

And Steve used to tell me he was making so much money

there's not enough dirt in his backyard to bury it.

We'll be right back.

[Eric] Steve knew we had a phenomenon,

he would say to me,

"Things like this don't come like, you know,

in everyone's lifetime.

You're lucky if you get like one Chippendales,"

he knew he had a gold mine.

And it wasn't just about the money,

it was like about the success of building it.

Unfortunately, other people tried to dip their hand,

and take credit away from him.

That became a huge problem.

Name, Michael Rapp.

Age, 27. Height, 6'3".

Hair, brown. Eyes, green.

Perfect?

I try my best.

[reporter] Perfect or not, Michael obviously knows how to work an audience.

[Michael] When I did the perfect man,

my ultimate goal

was to take you on a sexual journey.

I'm the perfect man, but yet, you know,

I'm wild, I'm lustful,

I'm going to take my six foot four body

and I'm going to engulf you in man.

I'm just about sex, I was made for sex.

I want you to feel lust.

I want you to lust me as much as I lust you.

So, you know, as New York is trying to build up,

my reputation and my persona

keeps growing.

I mean, I'm the king of New York.

This belongs to me.

[Nancy] In the beginning,

it felt good being married to him.

I mean, he was the star of the show.

It just made life seem really special.

Many times, women would say to me,

"Oh, you're so lucky."

But I was starting to not feel lucky,

because after a while, there are always women

trying to be my friend, to get to him.

And that, you know, became a part

where you didn't trust every woman

who was trying to be your friend.

That brought a little insecurity in me.

[Michael] I'm doing a close-up, ma'am.

[Nancy] As a woman, that can be a little,

a little worrisome.

But he treated me like I was a princess,

like very special.

It felt like...

just I could totally trust him.

[announcer] He is the founder, the creator,

he is Mr. Chippendale. I'd like to welcome back

the one and only, give a round of applause for Nick De Noia.

[crowd cheering]

[Eric] Nick De Noia loved media coverage.

It's like, the energy was the Wizard of Oz,

the guy behind the curtain.

But De Noia was just a media whore.

Sitting next to me, the founder,

the director of the Chippendales, Nick De Noia, and also...

Nick was always doing interviews for Chippendales,

he was trying to become the face of Chippendales.

We want every woman to bring her mother back,

and her daughter back,

and we want to have grandma out there, you know.

[Nick] Grandma? I don't know if you can see it,

but we have a nun in the audience, look at this.

Nick had this gift of gab, and language

that Steve did not, Steve stuttered, he stuttered.

They're all kind of like very good looking guys

that will be very [stutters] attractive

for our female clientele.

Steve was a very quiet person, he was private,

and he wasn't as charismatic as Nick De Noia.

Nick was much more vibrant,

much more gregarious, much more articulate.

We men have had our sensual entertainment on stage

the last 10,000 years.

You women can finally say, "We have it now."

[woman] Right.

[man] That's why he's so popular.

Nick is getting all the publicity.

What do you say, ladies?

Would you like to see these guys one more time?

And he was touted as the creator of Chippendales

and the force behind Chippendales.

Our top PR firm here in L.A.

was trying to get Banerjee more interviews,

so that he could start, you know,

owning the authorship of his company.

But the problem was, he was terrified

of being in front of the camera.

Finally, this PR agency in L.A. convinced him.

"Look, you got to start to feel comfortable getting on television."

So they did a mock interview.

[interviewer speaking]

[Eric] You could tell right off

that Banerjee does not have the chops.

Not even the modicum of chops

to be on any television at all.

[Eric] It was horrible, couldn't market himself.

He could market Chippendales,

but he couldn't market Steve Banerjee.

[Eric] Banerjee looked at it once and that was it.

He was too afraid to look at it again.

I think it'd be fun, Nick, for you to describe

what goes on in the nightclub where the Chippendales are.

You've never seen anything,

till you see a roomful of female inhibitions

go down the tubes all at once.

[all laughing]

[Bruce] Steve didn't like all the attention that Nick was getting,

and there was an inherent conflict

as to the two men's goals,

both of whom wanted to be the chief.

[Read] It was always a challenge

when you're working at the Chippendale club

when Nick and Steve would be there

at the same time,

because it was always confrontational.

It was like a big pissing contest.

Nick was the show.

So Nick was more about the Academy Award,

and Steve Banerjee was more about the box office.

And a lot of times when he was trying

to get a new face in, or a new body in,

Steve would move them into the lineup,

and the guys would be so static, and stiff and couldn't move.

Back, back.

Move that thing!

Nick would go, "No, I'm not putting that guy,

he has no talent. He can't walk and chew gum."

And Steve would go, "No, I want him in the show.

He's good looking, you know, the women love him, put him in the show."

And then they're arguing over, you know, "It's my show,

it's my club, it's my show,"

and Nick would constantly argue over with Steve

in front of the cast, his management, his employees.

And I think over time

that began to fester in Banerjee.

[Eric] Thing about Banerjee was he was easy to intimidate

because he can't speak that well,

so he can't throw back a fast retort,

and people behind his back would call him an idiot,

make fun of the way he would talk.

But Nick's fast with his mouth.

He could be aggressive physically,

and he didn't mind just tearing into Banerjee

or anybody that got in his way. He was a bully.

Nick, take it away.

You know...

Men have always had their sexual fantasies fulfilled on stage.

So we've got 10,000 years,

that we're trying to make up for.

[Michael] People were showing him respect,

and calling him the King of Chippendales, you know,

he was the creator of this, you know, phenomena.

And I could see changes in him.

Do you guys have any other occupation besides Chippendale?

Well, an acting career,

and I myself, I'm into modeling.

- Besides Chippendales. - [Nick] Oh, yeah,

we have school teachers, an engineer.

[Michael] I saw him stepping every time,

more and more into the front of the camera

instead of just letting us go on.

What does the job pay?

[Michael] You make a high average living.

It's varies, it depends when a guy starts,

he starts at the lowest rung of the ladder...

[Michael] It had to be him.

"These are my boys, this is my creation."

[announcer] Let me ask you about these characters,

where do the ideas for your acts come from?

-Usually... -[announcer] You're not letting

the Chippendale speak, can these guys speak?

[Michael] I realized this isn't the same Nick De Noia

that I knew in L.A.

Now this was a guy who thought

he was in control of everything.

And he was taking that power, and turned it on the people

who had actually put him there, like Steve Banerjee.

Nick was taking control away from Steve little by little.

He was the front man,

and Steve had taken a backseat.

[Nick] What I see is the most important entertainment

in the world for women.

Women have never had this before.

[Michael] Nick had to take the adulation

for what Steve Banerjee created.

"This is my creation."

[man] This administration is determined

to make all-out war against the evil people

who use drugs, and pornography

to prey on our families and on our loved ones.

I believe there has been and continues to be

a great hunger in America

for a moral and spiritual revival...

- [music playing] - All of you, with me.

At a time in this country when modesty, decency

were just an accepted principle of the American lifestyle.

♪ Well, I was born an original sinner ♪

♪ I was borne from original sin ♪

♪ And if I had a dollar bill ♪

[Bruce] By the mid-80s, we become such a huge presence

in popular culture.

Then we started getting some backlash from people

who didn't like some of the societal changes

that Chippendales may have caused.

[man] Let's get a call. Are you there? Hello.

[woman speaking]

[all laughing]

I understand that people have their values and morals,

and they will read into it what they want to read into,

you can't change everybody's mind.

You're gonna leave, right?

- Yes. - Because...

Well, it's just not my thing.

Well, if a few of the women get together

and have a few giggles, who is hurt?

I didn't know what was on today,

- or I wouldn't have... - You're really gonna leave?

I'm leaving.

I think that what people were thinking

was that this was a strip thing

that was going to change the morals

and values of these housewives,

and women across America.

Are you ladies ready to get wild?

- Yeah! - Yeah!

Were the morals and values skewed a bit

when someone came to the club?

Yeah, they were.

Did I think it was going to change the morality of the country?

No.

My talking point always was, you don't have to go.

You don't have to go to the club, right?

You don't have to go buy a calendar if it offends you.

Anyone ever questioned the fact that, you know,

what you're doing might be a little...

Well, it is different, let's be honest, huh?

Yeah, you always can question one way or the other,

but if you came down to the club,

you can see how it's set up, and you'll enjoy it,

so you're all invited.

[Dan] But at some point,

I noticed that when I went on the talk shows,

there was somebody religious at the talk show.

There was somebody there either inside

or outside protesting what we were doing,

and that's sort of where everything started to turn.

One woman calls on, how can you put this junk on the air?

She said, the Bible says that man's body

is this and that and I'm... really...

[Bruce] The evangelical communities were underwhelmed for sure.

They didn't like us, we didn't care.

Satan is The Great Deceiver,

and he is the one that is trying to deceive you

into believing it's wonderful and good.

[Bruce] We weren't really concerned about all that

until it was closer to home here in L.A.

[sirens wailing]

[reporter] In the early hours of this morning

yet another popular nightclub

has been the latest establishment in Los Angeles

to be targeted and firebombed.

[Bruce] Several nightclub in Hollywood

had started putting on nights that feature male dancers.

Some of these clubs started becoming

heavily vandalized or firebombed.

Some people obviously didn't like the idea of men stripping for women.

Steve was concerned because he thought that we might be a victim.

So he beefed up security at the club.

[man] All right, do you want to see more?

[crowd cheering]

[Bruce] But despite the fire bombings,

and all the noise being made by the religious groups,

we were doing extremely well.

However, during that period of time,

Steve and Nick's relationship had gone into the toilet.

My job was to keep motivating both of them

going forward and keeping the partnership together.

But they wouldn't talk to each other anymore.

It was sad, it was discouraging,

it was frustrating.

The modern term is toxic.

And in the end,

Steve threw Nick out in New York.

[announcer] Joining me right now is the man who conceptualizes,

and choreographs a lot of the acts

that you've been seeing this morning.

His name is Steve Merritt,

and please welcome him to People are Talking.

- Hello, Steve. - Hello, Steve.

[Candace] Steve Banerjee hired a new choreographer,

Steve Merritt, to create and choreograph

a brand new show for Los Angeles, and for New York.

[upbeat music playing]

[announcer] In 1979, Chippendales arrive in L.A.

In 1983 they arrive in New York.

Now, 1987 you've got the welcome to your fantasy show

in New York City, and you're striving

to create and achieve a new image

for the Chippendales. What is the new image?

Well, I'm dealing with the sensuality,

I'm not dealing with bump and grind,

you know, sexuality. We're doing sensuality.

Steve Merritt changed all the elements

that Nick had instituted.

Nick's characters, gone.

All interaction with the audience, gone.

Nick was really, really angry.

[Eric] I was sitting in manager's office one day

and De Noia just blows into the office,

like a vampire and accuses Banerjee,

in this accusing voice like,

"What are you doing with my fucking show?"

And that's when Banerjee was like, "Your, your, your show?

It's my, my fucking..."

And he couldn't get it out, and couldn't express himself.

Nick would take everything to the 10th level

of extreme anger if you crossed him.

He would say, you know, "Fuck you off, bro.

Don't fuck with me."

In essence, Steve Banerjee thought

that if he can isolate Nick away from New York and L.A.,

then Nick would fade away.

Hello?

[Eric] But Nick had other ideas.

Here to do something very special

on this section of the show,

and to help us, I'd like you to meet Nick De Noia.

Nick is the producer and director of Chippendale.

He's the guy that hires the guys.

[crowd cheering]

[Eric] But the napkin deal

that Steve and Nick worked out, said,

if Nick successfully brought us to a New York club

then Nick would have the exclusive license

to take Chippendales on tour.

Nick, tell them what you just said during the break.

We're on tour for the first time.

[crowd cheering]

[Eric] So, Steve was stuck with Nick.

[Nick] And so, What we saw

was so funny is that our club in New York,

women are flying in from Chicago,

and Boston and St. Louis, we finally said,

"Let's take it on the road, let's bring it to the women."

So we're starting now.

[crowd cheering]

So, Banerjee had Los Angeles and the New York club,

and Nick had to go out on the road.

So, on tour, we billed ourselves

as the original Chippendales,

while New York and Los Angeles remained the Chippendales.

Business arrangements were fairly simple.

The venue would keep the bar, and after expenses,

Nick and Steve, split the ticket sales.

I thought it was a fair deal.

- What time? Eight o'clock. - Doors open at six,

that's a lot of fun. Come early.

[Candace] There's no question that the tour

was an immense success.

The Los Angeles club held 250 to 300,

New York held about 550 to 600.

However, on the road, we were playing to crowds of 2,000.

Every single city we went to, we were sold out

100% of the time.

[Bruce] As we started receiving money from Nick for the tour,

the dollars were exceeding the profits

that either of our fixed venues.

That frustrated Steve.

But when he signed the napkin deal,

he gave away half of his rights

in a touring show in return for New York.

He had no conception about how valuable

those rights would become someday.

And when he saw how much 50% equaled

he began to think he was suckered by Nick.

Has anybody seen our show?

What are the rest of you waiting for?

Come on out, we're having a ball out there.

De Noia hammered down at the right time.

Got this fucking napkin agreement signed.

I mean, an agreement on a napkin

to give away a piece of his company for touring.

It's the most unconscionable thing for him

to let this guy, legally take part of his company away

and make millions of dollars.

[Candace] On the road, Nick was to keep track

of the number of tickets that we sold.

Half of the proceeds after expenses

were to be sent back to Banerjee.

But Steve didn't trust Nick.

So what Banerjee got,

he didn't think was the right amount.

Nick felt that he solely was behind

the immense success of Chippendales.

But still, he had to give up half of his door

to see Banerjee.

Why?

Because Nick's using the word Chippendales,

and Steve owns the rights to that name.

It just added to the animosity between the two of them.

Steve was telling him you're a cheater and a thief.

And it got to the point where he not only

didn't need Banerjee anymore,

he didn't want to be around Banerjee anymore.

[sirens wailing]

- [phone beeps] - [woman speaking]

[man speaking]

- [man] Tonight... - [woman] The male strip club Chippendales

- is the victim of a... - [woman 2] The large caliber gun, perhaps a .45.

-[man 2] He was shot in the face. -There was no sign...

[woman 4] No signs of robbery, or struggle.