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When the first Chippendales male revue opened in 1979, it was an instant hit. But the male strip show hid a dark secret: its founders were murderers who treated the business like an organized crime syndicate. How did Chippendales start? In the 1970s, Somen Banerjee owned a failed Los Angeles disco, and a nightclub promoter named Paul Snider suggested he begin the first all-male strip club for women...
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When you think of Chippendales, you probably think of that classic Saturday Night Live sketch
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starring Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley, or maybe the Rescue Rangers. But behind the famous all-male strip club's image of simple risque fun
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is a seriously grim crime story full of jealousy and murder. So today, we're revealing the shockingly dark history of Chippendales
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In the 1970s, budding entrepreneur Shomine Banerjee had nothing to his name but a failed
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Los Angeles disco. Then, nightclub promoter Paul Snyder suggested he begin the first all-male strip club for women
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This flipping of the male gaze turned into an organization known as Chippendales, and
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we ain't talking about no chipmunks. Their original dancers adopted their signature bow tie and cuffs at the suggestion of Snyder's girlfriend
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Playboy Playmate of the Year, Dorothy Stratton. The idea was a hit, and soon Banerjee began opening other locations and added a touring show
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But Chippendales was more than simple, salacious fun. Only one year after opening, Snyder and Stratton were deceased
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and Banerjee started hiring all manner of criminals to burn down other clubs
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take down his rivals, and even eliminate the original Chippendales choreographer. But we'll get there. Keep your shirt on
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Showmean Banerjee's original LA club, The Destiny 2, was a particularly scuzzy strip joint
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designed to attract a particularly debauched clientele. Banerjee even had female dancers mud-wrestle each other, which cannot be sanitary
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It took Canadian nightclub promoter and aspiring criminal, Paul Snyder, to suggest a gender
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switch, turning Banerjee's club into an all-male dance review, paving the road toward success
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The ever-hustling Snyder also convinced his significant other, Dorothy Stratton, to pose
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for Playboy. Snyder and Stratton were married on June 1, 1979, and Stratton became Playboy's Playmate of the Month that August
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Stratton used her budding fame to book small roles in film and TV while working at Century City's Playboy Club
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while Snyder continued to peddle get-rich-quick schemes on the slimy fringes of showbiz
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How slimy? He was eventually portrayed by Eric Roberts in the film Star 80
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And if you were being played by Eric Roberts, you did something wrong. Meanwhile, Snyder also helped with Chippendales
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designing the dancers' iconic bow ties and cuffs they wear to this day. Sorry, fancy chefs on the bear
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Your restaurant chic will probably never get as much attention. Listen, you've probably seen Magic Mike
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And if you want to have a successful all-male strip club, you need more than hot dudes and flashy outfits
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They need to be able to dance if they're going to knock anyone's socks off
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You know, other than their own. So Banerjee turned to a major talent to craft a signature style for his dancers Nick DeNoia was a choreographer who directed a series of musical educational children TV specials called Unicorn Tales for NBC in 1977 and 78
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winning two Emmys for his troubles. From this acclaim, DeNoia was recruited by Banerjee
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as the Chippendale Review's original choreographer, developing the troupe's iconically macho and revealing moves
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Dealing with his own troubled personal life as a closeted homosexual married to actress Jennifer O'Neill
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Danoya converted all that inner turmoil into on-stage revelry, turning Chippendales into a smash sensation
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But things were about to take an extremely dark turn. In 1980, Stratton was named Playboy Playmate of the Year
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and reached the apex of her fame, which sent Snyder over the edge
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Soon after her Playboy accolades, she was cast in acclaimed filmmaker Petar Bogdanovich's They All Laughed
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her biggest role yet. Through this career success, Stratton and Snyder became more and more estranged
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and Stratton began an affair with her director. So, Snyder hired a private detective and had the
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man follow Stratton. The budding starlet responded by asking for a divorce, planning to formally move
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in with Bogdanovich. But that was too much for Snyder to handle. On August 14, 1980, shortly after
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Stratton's separation and just a few months after her 20th birthday, Snyder slew Stratton in their
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West Los Angeles home before bumping himself off. The crime rocked the lives of many, especially
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Bogdanovich, who wrote a 1984 book about the incident called The Killing of the Unicorn
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In his book, and in later interviews, Bogdanovich placed the blame at infamous Playboy founder Hugh
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Hefner's feet, accusing him of coercing Stratton into an affair in exchange for her success
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and arguing that Hefner's banning of Snyder at the Playboy mansion was the final straw that
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triggered the vicious crime. Bogdanovich wrote it bluntly in his book. More and more women
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as well as a sizable body of men, are finding the playboy philosophy at the core of many evils in
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our society. Dang, Pete. As for Hefner, he released a somber press release after Stratton's
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death, expressing his sadness over the senseless tragedy and lamenting the fact that Stratton's
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life had been cut short, just as both her life and career were getting started. Hefner later
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responded to Bogdanovich's book directly. In 1985, he suffered a stroke at age 58
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and blamed the filmmaker for his affliction. Hefner spokesperson Dan Rogers stated that the stroke
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resulted from stress developed over the last year in reaction to the pathological book
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written by Peter Bogdanovich. Bogdanovich responded to this accusation saying he was
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sorry if making him face it had something to do with making him sick, but that he felt
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a lot worse for the human cost paid by all women who don't issue press releases
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Dang, Pete. But the chaos surrounding Chippendales was just getting started. By the 1980s choreographer Nick DeNoia had moved to New York City to open an East Coast Chippendales location but he wouldn live to see the franchise expansion
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In 1987, a hitman posing as a messenger walked directly into DiNoya's office in the middle
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of the day and fatally shot him. Chippendales dancers immediately suspected Banerjee
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Candice Mayeron, a former associate producer of Chippendales, said in 2022 that it's been
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34 years, and it still is acute. And when Mayeron told the dancers of Danoya's passing
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one wanted to run out of the room in his G-string and get revenge on Banerjee right then and there
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And Mayeron, for her part, said there was no doubt in her mind that Banerjee was responsible
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And Banerjee did indeed confess to the action when he pled guilty to charges brought
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by the United States District Attorney. Because of this crime's combination with Banerjee's other usage of hitmen and arsonists
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the US government hit him under the racketeering influence and Corrupt Organizations Act, or the RICO Act, as the Dark Knight might have taught you
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This is typically reserved for long-gestating organized crime. The official legal documents
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describe the hit as intending to help enhance the business of Chippendales, or to gain revenge from
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persons who had caused injury to the business. And you thought the characters on Succession were
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ruthless. Another intended target of the hit was Banerjee's estranged partner, Bruce Nahan
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a lawyer and film producer who narrowly escaped his grisly fate when a family illness prevented
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him from going to New York to visit Danoya. But even though Nahin wasn't harmed, Banerjee was
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still charged with attempted assassination. Because Rico chargers are like the eye of Sauron. They see
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all. Shomine Banerjee knew he had a good thing cooking with Chippendales, so he'd cook whoever
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got in his way. Literally, as in, Banerjee committed a ton of arson. In fact, Banerjee was burning down
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the house before Chippendales even took off, beginning his fiery habit by paying to burn
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down a club called Moody's, which seems to describe Banerjee's general vibe
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That arson took place in 1978, a few years before his success. After Chippendales' explosion, Banerjee kept his explosions coming
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In 1984, he hired an arsonist to burn down a rival club called the Pearl Harbor, which
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is too bitterly ironic to even reckon with. Then, like any good exotic dancer, Banerjee turned up the heat, graduating from hiring
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arsonists to hiring hitmen. He was particularly protective of his all-male dancers hook
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and when former Chippendales employee Reed Scott joined the ranks of another all-male dance club
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called Adonis, Banerjee wanted to get mad and even. Banerjee hired hitmen for $8,000
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intending to eliminate three key Adonis leaders, including the club's choreographer and the so-called
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traitor, Scott. Lynn Brestler, one of the hitmen, met Banerjee at an expensive LA home to receive a
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canvas bag marked with a skull and crossbones Oh very subtle The bag contained enough cyanide to take out 2 people just in case the hired hands felt like wiping out a small town
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on their way to Adonis. The gnarly gig was supposed to happen in Blackpool, England
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But before Bressler and his crew made their way across the pond, he ratted out Banerjee and confessed to American authorities
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Sayonara, cyanide! Banerjee was officially charged by federal prosecutors in 1994 and was denied bail
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because a witness testified that he would hire a private pilot and pay them $25,000 to fly him to India without a passport
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where he'd get a new wife and kids. Once again, very subtle
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After spending months in prison, Banerjee arranged a plea bargain with a federal court, pleading guilty to all charges
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He was expected to receive a prison sentence of 26 years, but at 4 a.m. the morning of a sentencing hearing
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he was found having taken his own life in his jail cell at age 48
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Even if you take away all the many, many crimes, the culture at Chippendales made Magic Mike look ordinary
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and the Wolf of Wall Street looked afanged. Before all the arson and violence, Banerjee packed his club to the gills
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getting slapped with tons of federal citations for violating overcrowding laws. In fact, an inspector from the fire department said that Chippendales
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was the most extreme violator he had seen in years, and that the owner severely endangered patrons with blocked exits
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Hey, when you're hot, you're hot. On one night, the establishment was stuffed with more people than bills in a g-string
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cramming 435 people into a nightclub with a maximum occupancy of 299
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And when you multiply that by the number of six-packs, that is a dangerous number of abs
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The early dancers at Chippendales were aware of the unorthodox vibes, believing wholeheartedly the club would shut down quickly
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Men were rarely allowed to patronize the club, and Banerjee got his liquor license taken away as the result of a sexual discrimination complaint
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But the women who came could do bad all by themselves. They would bring pairs of scissors to cut the G-strings off the male dancers
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Original cast member Michael Rapp said that when we first started, we thought that we could have been closed down any day
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We thought it would be a fad that wouldn't last that long. So Rapp made a promise to his brothers in Cuffs
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We were going to have as much fun as we could while we had it. And it looks like that fun at all costs mantra continues to be shared by the club's dancers today
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Dancer Terry Lenley was on a Chippendales tour in Belgium when a bomb threat was called into the theater
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The show was canceled, and the dancers were forced to evacuate back onto their tour bus
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But then, the fans and ticket holders, whose appetite for muscular choreography remained unsated
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surrounded the bus and cheered. So what did Lenley and his gentlemen dancers do
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They climbed to the roof of the bus and danced for their patrons. Because even among bomb threats, revenge-fueled fires
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and the most vicious crimes ever committed, a scantily clad show must go on