♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I started out making a film about the New York disco scene in the '70s.
And I discovered this sort of genius at the center of it all.
Whether it was disco, the Bee Gees,
Saturday Night Fever, you name it,
Robert Stigwood's fingerprints are all over it.
He was the Wizard of Oz of the 1970s.
♪ (“BOOGIE OOGIE OOGIE” BY A TASTE OF HONEY PLAYING) ♪
KEVIN MCCORMICK: I moved back to New York in late '75,
beginning of '76.
I had gotten a job to work for RSO,
the Robert Stigwood Organization.
Robert at that point was in the music business,
and other than the Bee Gees, I really didn't know that much.
I knew he had Eric Clapton he was managing...
and it was just at a moment where he was transitioning
into producing movies.
I'm like, in my early twenties,
and I'm head of development and production.
And one of the first things Robert had done,
when he set up the new company,
was sign John Travolta to a three-picture deal.
But we didn't have any pictures to support it,
so I said to Robert, "What do I do now?"
And he said, "Well, you go out and buy projects."
♪ If you're thinkin' You're too cool to boogie ♪
KEVIN: In '75, '76, in New York,
there was a very cool disco culture.
You know, music was happening
and people were coming out to do something
that you weren't allowed to do in any other environment.
♪ ...'Cause we're gonna Boogie oogie oogie ♪
♪ 'Till you just can't boogie No more ♪
♪ Ah, boogie Boogie no more... ♪
KEVIN: And as I'm looking for stories,
I met this sort of cutting-edge rock 'n' roll journalist
called Nik Cohn.
Nik had this particular insight about music, and about people,
and nocturnal explorations of Manhattan and the boroughs.
♪ 'Cause we're gonna Boogie oogie oogie... ♪
KEVIN: And he'd written a New York Magazine article
called "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night."
♪ Boogie no more... ♪
KEVIN: It was an incredible story
about a kid growing up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn,
and the part of his life that comes alive
with his dreams, which is on the dance floor.
For me,
what made it stand out was I totally got this character.
He was like somebody that I could have known growing up.
There were a lot of kids I'd gone to school with who,
what they lived for was Saturday night,
and how they looked, and how they danced,
and how other people thought about them.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
FREDDIE GERSHON: I don't know if Robert actually just read
the story, or if Kevin said, "You ought to read this,"
but Robert's the one who called me.
It was 4th of July weekend, I believe.
It was like two weeks after the article had come out.
And I said, "It was fascinating, wasn't it?"
And he said, "Yes, it was fascinating."
"Do you see what I see?"
I said, "I don't know what you see."
He said, "This is a hundred-million-dollar movie."
KEVIN: When we got the article, Robert's first thought was,
"This could be John's first picture."
And we sent it on to John, and John said, "I'm in."
♪ (“STAYIN' ALIVE” BY THE BEE GEES PLAYING) ♪
♪ Well, you can tell By the way I use my walk ♪
♪ I'm a woman's man No time to talk... ♪
NIK COHN: If anybody else had bought
that little magazine story I had written,
any other producer, Fever would not have happened.
We wouldn't be talking about it now.
♪ We can try to understand ♪
♪ The New York Times' effect On man... ♪
NIK: When they bought that story, Robert said to me,
"I smell something real here."
He existed by sense of smell.
To say he had a wonderful sense of smell.
You just get the sense of, you know, you put that there,
and that there, and that there,
and they might work together.
♪ (“THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT” BY THE WHO PLAYING) ♪
♪ I don't mind other guys Dancing with my girl ♪
♪ That's fine, I know them All pretty well ♪
♪ But I know sometimes... ♪
REPORTER: In the last five years, Robert Stigwood,
a diffident, awkward Australian who shambled into a fortune
on the other side of the world,
has become the entertainment industry's newest
and most unexpected tycoon.
Stigwood is 37, a millionaire,
and one of the world's biggest owners
and manipulators of other people's talents.
You don't personally come across as somebody with immense drive
or tremendous, abrasive cutting edge or anything like that.
You strike me rather as a rather shy person.
Yes, but drive, I think, comes from, uh, inside oneself.
♪ Better leave her behind ♪
♪ With the kids They're all right ♪
BOB ADCOCK: I first met Robert when I was a tour manager
with a band called The Merseys, and that would have been '66.
And he was the agent for the Merseys and the Who.
♪ ...be a lot better for her I don't mind other guys... ♪
BOB: And when Cream formed, Robert was their manager.
And he called me to hook up with Cream.
♪ ...Sometimes I must get out In the light... ♪
BOB: Robert's reputation was a good one.
He conducted business ruthlessly,
but on behalf of his artists.
♪ The kids are all right ♪
I'm speaking to you from a club in, uh...
in Hamburg, and I'm Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees.
Robin, here. Robin, we've heard rumors that the group is splitting up.
Would you like to verify those rumors?
If I was to say that was true, then I would be the Premier of Russia.
No. No.
-♪ (EARLY ROCK MUSIC PLAYING) ♪ -(CROWD CHEERING)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, would you meet
Robert Stigwood and Barry, Robin, and Maurice,
-The Bee Gees! -(CROWD CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
MERV GRIFFIN: Do you all remember your first meeting?
Somebody sent you a tape of these boys from Australia?
-Yes, they did. -(ALL LAUGH)
And I heard it and I was absolutely astounded,
it was the most brilliant harmony, singing,
and composing I had ever heard.
MERV: Did you make them audition for you live?
-(CROSSTALK) -I'm afraid I did.
He came in, aided by two men... (LAUGHS) ...holding each arm.
-MERV: Good heavens. Hmm. -He had a hangover like you wouldn't believe.
-(ROBERT GRUNTING) -He sat down in front of us...
-(LAUGHS) -MAURICE: Don't worry, Robin. This is 11 years ago.
BARRY: ...and put his head like this, you know, and said, "Carry on."
So we did what we had worked up, which-- In Australia, where we had a nightclub act,
and our act was a medley of Peter, Paul, and Mary songs,
ending with Maurice kissing Robin.
-MAURICE: This was a long time ago, folks. -(ALL LAUGHING)
In those days.
-(CROSSTALK) -I am straightened out now.
-(ROBERT LAUGHING) -He never saw a minute of it,
he heard something and said,
"Come and see me in my office later on,"
-and staggered out again. -ROBIN: But we later discovered
that he didn't have a hangover at all.
-(LAUGHS) -He just couldn't stand what he was hearing.
(ALL LAUGHING)
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ROBERT: It didn't take a genius to know
that one had an incredible new, exciting talent,
and I signed the record deal for them.
BILL OAKES: I was actually on the payroll of the Beatles,
which was a company called Beatles & Co.
I was just 17, I was a dogsbody,
I was the guy that got the fleas out of Paul McCartney's dog,
I can't claim that-- You know, it wasn't a great career start,
but it got me to meet people,
and that's how I met Robert Stigwood.
KEVIN: Stigwood was working with Brian Epstein.
Brian had sort of hit a place in his life
where he wasn't sure how much longer he wanted to manage,
and obviously the Beatles were the biggest thing
ever, ever, ever.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
BILL: Brian Epstein was fed up with managing.
He wanted to manage a bullfighter, as I remember,
and the Beatles were going their own way,
so Robert was brought in really to run the company.
ROBERT: I became Joint Managing Director
of NEMS on Brian's invitation.
With Brian looking after the Beatles,
and with me really administrating
and running the business.
JAMES DAYLEY: Robert was in negotiations with Brian
to take over as the Beatles' manager.
ROBERT: If I paid him half a million pounds,
I would control the company, including the Beatles.
KEVIN: The Beatles didn't know about it,
and they didn't like him.
And they certainly didn't like the Bee Gees.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: We said, "Well, let's just get this straight."
"We are not going to be sold to anyone."
If you-- You can continue to manage us, we love you.
We're not going to be sold. We said in fact, if you do,
we will record "God Save the Queen"
for every single record we make from now on,
and we'll sing it out of tune.
JAMES: Robert finally-- The way he explained it to me
was he said to the Beatles,
he said, "You know, we've kind of ruined
our work relationship with each other,
so why don't you guys do your thing and I'll do mine?"
And Robert took his artists, the Bee Gees, Clapton.
KEVIN: And they said, "You can go and take the Bee Gees with you."
And he started his own company.
♪ (“I GUESS THE LORD MUST BE IN NEW YORK CITY” BY HARRY NILSSON PLAYING) ♪
♪ I'll say goodbye To all my sorrow ♪
♪ And by tomorrow I'll be on my way ♪
♪ I guess the Lord must be In New York City ♪
♪ I'm so tired of getting... ♪
BILL: I got word that Robert Stigwood
was starting a company in New York.
And I just leapt at it.
This was a chance to sort of build his empire.
♪ I guess the Lord must be... ♪
BILL: And his attack on America was spearheaded
by Jesus Christ Superstar.
♪ Well, here I am, Lord Knockin' at your back door... ♪
TIM RICE: When we were doing the Superstar album,
before it was a show, Robert got in touch with us,
and Robert definitely knew what he was doing.
I mean, a lot of people had turned us down.
I mean, I think we always hoped it would become a show,
but, I mean, we had a number one album
in America, which was a great thrill for us.
In a way, if nothing else had happened,
we might have thought, "Well, great,
we did better than we thought."
But Robert was the sort of person
who could see beyond a hit record.
He thought super big...
and his timing was fortuitous.
He was lucky to be around when he was.
♪ (“BORN ON THE BAYOU” BY CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL PLAYING) ♪
(SINGING) ♪ Now, when I was Just a little boy... ♪
KEVIN: From Woodstock on,
Hollywood was totally in transition.
♪ My Papa said, "Son"... ♪
KEVIN: Part of it was that young people had other choices.
They had the choice of how they wanted to spend their time.
Did they want to go to concerts?
Did they want to listen to music?
And the movie business had realized it had to change,
to try to become relevant.
♪ (“BORN TO BE WILD” BY STEPPENWOLF PLAYING) ♪
KEVIN: They started to use music to illustrate a movie.
Easy Rider becomes sort of a snapshot
of that particular moment.
♪ (“MRS. ROBINSON” BY SIMON & GARFUNKEL PLAYING) ♪
KEVIN: Or The Graduate.
It was, "What can you provide that feels relevant and urgent?"
How do you guys get to being a Secret Service man?
KEVIN: It's why you see all these fantastic filmmakers,
you know, like Scorsese, Taxi Driver.
(GUNSHOT)
NARRATOR: It was a dog day afternoon.
KEVIN: Sidney Lumet. Francis Ford Coppola.
Steven Spielberg. George Lucas.
There were just all of these voices,
making really signature films,
and getting to make them without handcuffs, creatively.
You're looking for things that you wouldn't have thought
would have worked as a movie before.
Because you were reaching a new audience.
WOMEN: (SINGING) ♪ Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ ♪
♪ Who are you? What have you sacrificed... ♪
KEVIN: And so for Robert, these were the things that he understood.
He had a great vision
of how things could work together.
And he helped these guys build Jesus Christ Superstar
into a worldwide phenomenon.
BILL: He put together a concert tour,
and then the Broadway show, and then the film.
(SINGING) ♪ Tell me what you think About your friends... ♪
INTERVIEWER: There's been quite a bit of criticism
from the religious sections of society.
How do you feel about this?
It's a free world, you know?
Let everybody say what they like about anything.
♪ I only want to know ♪
♪ (“PINBALL WIZARD” BY THE WHO PLAYING) ♪
(SINGING) ♪ Ever since I was a young boy ♪
♪ I've played The silver ball... ♪
KEVIN: People had wanted to make a movie of Tommy
for many years, and the guys would never give 'em the rights.
And what they knew with Robert was,
Robert understood music, and so they felt looked after.
Robert got Jack Nicholson,
just as a lark, to come in for three days,
and Ann-Margaret and Tina Turner,
like, right after she left Ike,
and she thought Robert was just her savior.
♪ Always playing clean He plays by... ♪
JAMES: My first official function
with the Stigwood Organization
was the opening of the movie Tommy.
The movie opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre
and then everybody walked to the subway station
on a red carpet.
Robert had taken it over.
♪ He's a pinball wizard There has to be a twist ♪
♪ A pinball wizard's... ♪
JAMES: The following morning, all of these celebrities
flew from the opening in New York
to Los Angeles for the television program
that was a 90-minute special.
NEWSCASTER: Army Archerd is greeting the celebrities
as they arrive, thronging into the foyer,
for the premiere performance, right here, of Tommy.
It's like an old Hollywood premiere.
Well, it's a new Hollywood premiere.
BOB: I think Robert was more into show business than music.
The showbiz side of it, that's what he excelled at.
TIM: He covered concerts, records, stage, film,
he was good at it all.
Plus, he was a good impresario.
♪ He can beat my best ♪
♪ His disciples lead him in And he just does the rest... ♪
ROBERT: I'm a gambler. I act instinctively.
You have to know what people want,
and I suppose I'm fairly tuned in to that.
KEVIN: Robert really understood the synthesis of movies,
music, and storytelling.
He was always looking for where trends were going,
and had such a great nose for what works.
NEWSCASTER: You have to go all the way back to Elvis Presley,
to the Beatles, to rock and roll,
and then finally comes disco.
A very large, very lucrative new business of dance music,
maybe the biggest wave yet.
'Cause it certainly seems that more and more Americans
are getting more and more into the disco scene.
♪ (“NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE” BY GLORIA GAYNOR PLAYING) ♪
♪ I never can say goodbye ♪
♪ No, no, no, I I never can say... ♪
NIK: When I came over to America in the early '70s,
New York Magazine hired me to write about music.
♪ ...had enough And start heading... ♪
NIK: It was the beginning of disco.
Disco was essentially gay music, and Black gay music.
But it was inclusive, it was all-inclusive.
♪ It's that same Old dizzy hang-up... ♪
NILE RODGERS: In the '70s, I was living in New York.
We were into jazz, and we thought our world was the hippest.
One night I went out with my girlfriend,
and we went to a disco.
♪ I don't wanna let you go... ♪
NILE: And we just couldn't believe
that there was this whole other, really hip world.
♪ Ooh, ooh, baby... ♪
NILE: The crowd was such a disparate crowd.
It was Latino, Black, gay, straight,
but the fact is, is that everybody treated us with love.
In the Black Panthers,
we used to call that "Liberated territory."
And that's what a disco felt like,
it was '"Liberated territory."
♪ (“CHANGES” BY SYLVESTER PLAYING) ♪
PATRICK BYWALSKI: Robert used to make numerous trips to Paris.
I'm talking about '71, '72.
Going to discotheques on the Left Bank.
It was the place where
gay people used to meet and dance.
♪ Changes Oh, yes I am... ♪
PATRICK: He used to love people taking enhancing stuff,
you know, to be able to enjoy the music
and to experiment with their bodies
on the dance floor.
Things that men wouldn't do before that, I think.
♪ No more bridges shall... ♪
JAMES: Robert was-- How did they put it in Britain? They--
He was a "confirmed bachelor."
♪ ...going through... ♪
PATRICK: England, I mean, it wasn't the place to be gay,
if I may say so, because it was outlawed.
♪ ...going through... ♪
RICHARD GOLDSTEIN: In the '60s, it was a very harsh environment.
You could be fired, disgraced, your family kick you out.
So, for gay people,
dancing, with someone of your own sex,
that is a real emblem of liberation.
♪ Changes, changes, changes ♪
FREDDIE GERSHON: Before there was ever a Saturday Night Fever,
before the disco craze, Robert got it.
He saw that it was a new phenomena
taking over the world.
MURRAY THE K: Hi, I'm Murray the K.
Murray the K's Hustle
is now Murray the K's Hustle C'est La Vie.
♪ (“THE HUSTLE” BY VAN MCCOY & THE SOUL CITY SYMPHONY PLAYING) ♪
♪ Do the hustle ♪
NIK: After "The Hustle," suddenly disco was mainstream.
You had secretaries and ordinary guys
going up to hustle class.
There were these hustle contests and disco dance contests
all over the straightest parts of New York.
I went to one and I met a great, great dancer
called Tu Sweet Allen.
And I wrote an article about him in New York Magazine.
Tu Sweet mentioned that
there were these Italian clubs in Brooklyn
that were the opposite
from what I thought of as disco culture.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NIK: And so, he and I went out there.
It was very, very forlorn in those days.
Bay Ridge, around the clubs, was a desert.
Locked-up body shops.
Bay Ridge was this sort of bastion of Italian life.
It was tribal. Everybody was Italian.
So we get out to one of these Italian clubs...
and we walked in,
and Tu Sweet went on the dance floor.
And I would say three seconds, he was jumped on and pounded.
We were out of there in 25 seconds.
And this wasn't just a sort of stern warning.
This was a beatdown.
It was the a hundred and eighty
from the original Manhattan clubs.
They were misogynist, they were anti-gay,
by God, they were anti-Black.
JIM MCMULLAN: I was an illustrator
for New York Magazine.
Nik had said there's a whole scene
happening at clubs in Brooklyn
that people were paying no attention to,
so the magazine said to me,
"I think it'd be really interesting
if you went out with him and took a camera, look around,
see what you can do."
♪ (“THAT'S WHERE THE HAPPY PEOPLE GO” BY THE TRAMMPS PLAYING) ♪
JIM: So we went back to this converted
sort of supper club called the 2001 Club.
♪ I used to spend Most of my time ♪
♪ Just being alone, yes, I did ♪
♪ Nothing to do No place to go... ♪
JIM: The club was kind of corny,
with these wrought iron balconies and stuff,
which is not to knock it,
because it had a great sort of funky charm.
♪ ...to live a little myself ♪
♪ So I went on down To the disco ♪
♪ Disco... ♪
RALPHIE DEE: Odyssey wasn't the most elegant place.
(LAUGHING) Put it that way.
But what was good about it, they would always have groups,
you know, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes,
-the Joneses. -♪ ...disco... ♪
ALEX MARCHAK: Every disco group they had there
on a Friday night or Saturday night,
Gloria Gaynor, The Trammps.
♪ And they're just dancing along To a perfect song... ♪
EARL YOUNG: That was our home club,
2001 Odyssey.
In Brooklyn, that was one of the most popular clubs there.
We worked there all the time.
I mean, we were really well-liked,
but I mean, we didn't come to socialize,
we come there to work, it's our job.
At that time, I don't even think
Blacks were even allowed in the neighborhood,
'cause it was an Italian neighborhood.
♪ ...I got myself together ♪
♪ I danced my blues away They're gone forever... ♪
ELIZABETH CURCIO: It was very Italian.
The boys were called cugines. "The cugine in the car."
Italian guy with the blown back DA haircut
in their daddy's Cadillac, which was very popular,
or maybe a Monte Carlo then.
And had a certain look that they all feeded into.
The gabardine pants, the huckapoo shirts.
♪ That's where The happy people go ♪
♪ And they're Just dancing along... ♪
♪ (CALM MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JIM: When I got my photographs back,
there was so much nuance that was somewhat concealed
in the dim light of the club.
Nuances of expression, of anger, hostility, sadness even.
Girls that got left
and were sitting in their booths alone,
while everybody else danced.
Guys looking for clues as to how they should behave.
You could really see them assemble in a hierarchy.
NIK: What I'd tapped into was that eternal dreaming.
Someone who is trapped, whose life is going nowhere.
And who, Saturday night rolls around,
has this dream come true.
It was something I'd seen
where I grew up in Northern Ireland.
Catholic teenagers, who had no outlet,
and nowhere to go, dressed as Teddy Boys,
dancing on the sidewalk to "Tutti Frutti"
by Little Richard.
When I went to London in the early '60s,
and Mods were just starting,
and I'd see them work nine-to-five in a grunt job,
and yet you were King Mod on the weekend.
I fell in love with the idea of the alternate reality.
And you'd watch all the rites and how they interacted.
This extraordinary vanity.
This male, teen thing of preening, of peacockery.
So when I walked into 2001,
I didn't think, "This is a specific culture."
I just thought, "Here it is again."
-♪ (PEACEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪ -(TYPEWRITER KEYS CLACKING)
BILL: New York Magazine called it the "Tribal Rites
of the New Saturday Night,"
which was a rather pretentious title.
NIK: When the article came out, Robert called me up.
ROBERT: I said, "You have a movie here already."
I said, "Come to my apartment this afternoon."
NIK: Robert said, "Come around for tea."
I think he was attracted to the street feel.
I mean, that's where he would have smelled something real.
ROBERT: My next film is a story about
a ghetto called Bay Ridge in Brooklyn
and Italian kids in dead-end jobs,
and how far away Manhattan is.
And a young guy who discovers himself.
It's much more exciting than I tell it.
FREDDIE: Robert did not know who would direct it.
He didn't know how it would be cast.
He didn't know what the script would be.
He just knew the skeletal bones
of a fabulous story, which had global appeal,
was right there in that New York Magazine.
BILL: That was where Robert was really inspired.
He could see a magazine article like that,
and he could see the whole thing.
He said, "This is a movie."
And Robert saw the soundtrack as being the killer ingredient.
FREDDIE: Robert believed that the movie had to have...
(TAPPING RHYTHMICALLY)
...that rhythm. The same rhythm you heard in a discotheque.
BILL: And right away, he said, "We're gonna get
the Bee Gees to write the music."
At the time, the Bee Gees had a couple of bad years.
There were probably two albums that I was involved in,
Life in a Tin Can, I remember,
one was Mr. Natural, that no one bought.
They were stiffs, as they say in the record business.
ROBERT: I didn't feel they were really
on the right track musically.
And this happens to stars very easily,
they close their ears and just go their own merry way.
And I told them so.
I was saying, for God's sake,
listen to what's happening in the world today.
♪ ("PICK UP THE PIECES" BY AVERAGE WHITE BAND PLAYING) ♪
BILL: And so what Robert did, which was inspired,
was he got Arif Mardin,
who was the producer of Average White Band,
to produce the next album.
KARL RICHARDSON: Arif Mardin was a staff producer
at Atlantic Records and would come into our studio
in Miami with various Atlantic artists.
KARL: We were working on Average White Band
and one day he goes,
"Boy, have I got a group for you, Karl."
He says, "They sing like angels."
And I said to Arif, "Who's that?"
He goes, "The Bee Gees!"
The Bee Gees had had major hit records.
But they'd passed through the success zone.
They had been sort of passed over.
Arif Mardin, though, was a genius.
So he says, "Yeah, it's gonna be a little more R&B,
a little more rhythm, you know."
'Cause that's what the studio was.
And I said, "Well, great, let's do it."
They came in, and I met their band,
their house band.
And I think it was about 20 minutes later,
I knew Barry was the leader of the group,
and we hit it off.
We all just, you know, had music in our minds.
♪ (“JIVE TALKIN'” BY THE BEE GEES PLAYING) ♪
♪ It's just your jive talkin' You're telling me lies, yeah ♪
♪ Jive talkin' You wear a disguise... ♪
KARL: Because Atlantic Records was all about R&B.
Arif goes, "You know, we tried a click track at one point
in the drummer's headphones."
He said "Karl, are you up for that?" I said, "Sure!"
So I found a metronome hidden way back
in the bowels of Criteria, and put a microphone on it.
And that became a click...
-(FINGERS SNAPPING) -♪ Oh, my child You got so much... ♪
...so that the drummer would have a positive feel
to where those beats belonged.
(SINGING) ♪ With all your jive talkin' ♪
KARL: And everybody in the band heard the same click.
So when Barry played guitar, Barry was grooving,
'cause Barry has amazingly good time.
That became a fundamental approach that we got a hold of,
was this pulse.
ROBIN GIBB: The difference in our music now and then,
is our music is completely, sort of, Black-oriented now,
where it wasn't completely then.
We could play this kind of music that we're doing now.
And we daren't do it, because at that time,
people would say, if we did it,
they wouldn't say it was the Bee Gees.
(SINGING) ♪ There you go With your fancy lies ♪
♪ Leavin' me lookin' Like a dumbstruck fool ♪
♪ With all your jive talkin' ♪
KARL: It became one of the guiding factors
in making a lot of those records,
was, "Where's the groove?"
♪ (“YOU SHOULD BE DANCING” BY THE BEE GEES PLAYING) ♪
-BARRY: You heard the lyrics? -MAURICE: Yes.
BARRY: Great!
BARRY: Albhy, I'm ready to sing,
got the lyrics finished!
-Love it, you sing 'em, we play 'em, tape 'em! -All right.
BARRY: Okay 'em.
♪ ...on 'til the dawn ♪
♪ My woman takes me higher ♪
♪ My woman keeps me warm... ♪
ALBHY GALUTEN: The three people who were in the room
eight hours a day, were me, and Karl, and Barry.
Barry and I loved R&B. We connected on that level.
We were never making disco records.
We were making R&B records with good songs.
♪ ...she's trouble... ♪
ALBHY: At that time, Barry was sort of tapped
into the collective unconscious.
When he'd write a new song, it wouldn't be,
"How big of a hit will this be?"
It would be, "How many weeks at number one?"
♪ What you doin' on your bed On your back? ♪
KARL: Main Course, we had three number one records.
♪ Dancing, yeah... ♪
KARL: When we did "You Should Be Dancing"
off Children of the World,
Stigwood came in the studio, and he got the vibe,
he says "Oh, my gosh, this is a hit record!"
He could just feel it.
(CROWD CHEERING)
BILL: Robert took advantage of a form of music
that was all there, and he handed it
to the Bee Gees.
So when Saturday Night Fever comes about,
the Bee Gees weren't exactly rookies at this.
At the time, they were mixing a live album in France.
Robert said, "Do you have any songs?"
And they said, "Yeah, we've got a few,
but we're going to keep them for our own next album."
So, I sent the script to them,
you know, thinking they'd like to read it,
which was a mistake, they never read the script.
But about ten days later,
I got a package from northern France,
and these songs came piling out, one after the other.
♪ Oh, girl, I've known you Very well ♪
BILL: "More Than a Woman," "Night Fever..."
♪ (“NIGHT FEVER” BY THE BEE GEES PLAYING) ♪
BILL: "If I Can't Have You..."
♪ (“IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU” BY THE BEE GEES PLAYING) ♪
BILL: "How Deep Is Your Love..."
♪ (“HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE” BY BEE GEES PLAYING) ♪
♪ I know your eyes In the morning sun ♪
BILL: ...and "Stayin' Alive."
♪ Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk ♪
♪ I'm a woman's man No time to talk... ♪
BILL: And the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
This was extraordinary, to get five demos
of obviously brilliant songs,
which is exactly what we wanted for the film.
♪ ...the other way We can try to understand... ♪
BILL: To have those songs was an enormous boost for me.
We were in preproduction on the movie,
and we were really rushing.
We had a start date, 'cause we had John Travolta
booked for that time on his hiatus from his TV show.
You gotta loosen up here, all right?
All right. Start to relax.
Start to feel who you are.
♪ I said a bar-bar-bar Bar-bar-barino ♪
♪ Bar-bar-bar, Bar-bar-barino ♪
♪ Bar- bar-bar, Bar-bar-barino ♪
♪ You got me rockin' And a-reelin' ♪
♪ And a-boppin' And a-reelin' Barbarino ♪
Vinnie! Earth to Vinnie!
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NIK: Travolta was having a moment as one
of these teen idols.
NEWSCASTER: The young, sweeter-than-thou, male adolescent star
is a multi-million-dollar business.
Donny Osmond and "Puppy Love."
TV's Partridge Family created David Cassidy
as the newest dreamboat.
FaVE! and STAR! and 16 and Tiger Beat,
they tell the kids what their hero wears to bed
and how to get a pillowcase with his picture on it.
NIK: Somebody else would have signed him maybe to a film.
But Robert signed him to three films.
JAMES: Robert paid John a million dollars
to do three movies.
At the time, it was the biggest dollar amount
that was ever given to a television star
to do a movie.
PATRICK: Everybody was laughing about it.
Because nobody had done that,
you know, coming from television into feature films.
BARRY DILLER: Travolta, all of the research said
he's a television person, he's not a movie person.
KEVIN: There were a lot of actors that had not transitioned
to movies.
But Robert just had this instinct
about John Travolta.
PATRICK: In 1971, Robert was touring
Jesus Christ Superstar in the states.
Travolta wanted to be cast.
He was very young at the time. He probably was like 15 or 16.
I remember the day my father started saving
for my college education.
It was my tenth birthday,
and he opened a savings account for ten dollars.
"Brian," he said, "You're gonna have it better than me."
"You're not going to have to stand on your feet all day
just to make a buck."
PATRICK: Robert made a note on his yellow pad,
that this kid will be a great star.
FREDDIE: Robert said, "I don't want to have this star
and then not own him for two more movies.
I'll make him a star,
and then I'll make him a star a second time,
and then a third time."
NIK: Then he had to find those three films.
Well, Grease was sitting there.
KEVIN: Grease was an old show
that had been running on Broadway.
TIM: The first stage show, Grease, didn't really work.
I mean, it was good, but it wasn't a huge success.
Most people thought it was just a fun,
'50s revival show.
But Robert saw it was more than that.
FREDDIE: Robert said, "What about it for John?"
And sure enough, it was exactly what John wanted.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: I get a call from Robert Stigwood.
Stigwood said, "I think this is the kid for us,
why don't we put him in Grease because he can sing and dance?"
NIK: And then, when the article came out,
Robert said, "This will be just right for Travolta."
KEVIN: So we got Travolta just based on the article.
-INTERVIEWER: Do you dance? -I am going to get to dance
in a film in January and it's gonna be hot.
Are you scared?
No, it's about discotheques themselves,
so I'll be, like, king of the discos.
FREDDIE: He believed in John,
and he felt that everything else was going to fall into place.
But there was no plan for how it was going to be made.
♪ (UNSETTLED MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
FREDDIE: My job was to make a deal with Paramount Pictures.
Robert spoke directly with Barry Diller.
And they agreed they would be the distributor,
and the deal would be financed by us.
We wanted 50 percent of the gross,
and it was compromised at 45 percent of the gross.
That was the deal.
BILL: No one had ever done that.
When George Lucas, who had made a deal for Star Wars
at Fox, heard about it,
he wanted that deal, he wanted the Stigwood deal
he'd heard about at Paramount.
George told me his lawyers could not believe
the deal that Robert had somehow extracted
at Paramount on this little disco movie.
It helped that Robert was pitching a movie
that none of them really believed in,
so they didn't care, they didn't think it would make money,
they gave him fifty percent.
NIK: Paramount didn't think it was going to be a hit.
But Robert had an extraordinary instinct.
And he built up this little group of people
who he trusted.
BILL: I must've looked about 12.
Literally, I had no experience. What was I doing in that job?
KEVIN: At this point, I'm like in my early '20s.
I'm basically running the show, and I have no experience.
And I said to Robert, "Well, now what are we going to do?"
And he said, "You gotta go get a director."
♪ (LIVELY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KEVIN: So, I had this magazine article.
Then I'm going around to various agencies.
I go to CAA, I go to William Morris.
Basically, nobody was that interested
in anything I had to say.
I go to this guy Marvin Moss.
And I'm talking to him about a particular client
and he says to me, "You know what, kid?
My directors do movies,
they don't do magazine articles."
NIK: In that time, articles, they weren't turned into films.
I mean, Tom Wolfe wrote all those,
you know, very famous articles,
but they weren't turned into movies.
It was just something that didn't happen.
KEVIN: I had been in California for like three days.
I go back to the hotel,
and I make a reservation to come back to New York,
and I figure, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
And the phone rings and it's Marvin Moss,
who calls me in, and sort of says,
"I was on a long phone call with a client
who you wanted to talk to.
He's read the article and he's interested,
but you should see his movie first."
"You could see it in New York. When are you going back?"
And I said, "Over the weekend."
"My boss is gonna be there, and,
you know, so Stigwood needs to see the movie, and..."
So Robert and I go to see Rocky, before it's released...
and we hire John Avildsen.
And Avildsen said,
I want to work with this guy Norman Wexler.
Norman Wexler is a guy who's literally
just gotten out of a mental institution,
is a famous bipolar cat,
and had written a bunch of movies
and after each one of them,
he sort of would have this manic flip
and set his life on fire.
FREDDIE: Avildsen said, if you want gritty,
this is what he makes. He's a little crazy,
but he's someone I admire very greatly.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KEVIN: I go down to his apartment in Chelsea,
which consists of a bed, a table and two chairs,
and this guy who chain smokes.
I've never supervised a script before.
I'd go at like 2:00 in the afternoon when he got up,
and he'd show me the pages he had written the night before.
And it was fantastic.
Stigwood loved it.
And when Travolta read the script, he loved it too.
JOHN: When I first saw it, I said, "Gee, you know,
this character seems like he's underwater most of the time."
But then every once in a while he comes up out
and sees everything exactly how it is.
And has so much knowledge about,
I mean, like he knows everything.
FREDDIE: When Robert saw the first draft
of the screenplay, and his heart was pounding,
he said, "Freddie, this director,
this screenplay, it's all here,
it's all in the script, I could see it,
I could visualize it.
This is the movie."
♪ (“JUNGLE BOOGIE” BY KOOL & THE GANG PLAYING) ♪
♪ Get down, get down Get down, get down ♪
♪ Get down, get down... ♪
DENEY TERRIO: I was living in Hollywood Hills.
In my condo building,
there was this young lady that was on a soap opera.
We were out by the pool one day, and she said,
"You've done a lot of dancing shows, haven't you?"
I said, "Yeah."
She goes, "My manager is Bob Lamont."
Now, he manages John Travolta.
She goes, "Well, they've got this script
that they're gonna use for John
and they're looking for a choreographer."
Now Bob lived up in the Hills, about a mile away.
So I drove over to his house.
I come in the front door.
I didn't even know what the movie was about,
but I knew I had a chance, so I moved all the furniture.
He had a nice stereo system, and I found "Jungle Boogie"
by Kool and the Gang.
♪ ...and shake it around... ♪
DENEY: And I just started doing all the steps.
The knee drops, the clock splits, locking up.
Those knee drops, up and down,
I picked up a lot of those steps
from Don Campbell and the Lockers, and Soul Train.
♪ ("JUNGLE BOOGIE" CONTINUES) ♪
DENEY: So the next thing I know, they called me in, at Paramount,
they said, "We're signing you up to teach this man how to dance."
♪ Jungle boogie ♪
♪ Jungle boogie... ♪
DENEY: John Travolta said,
"Everything I do, I want it to be great."
I would take him to these clubs,
and he started discovering the nightlife
and the dancing and the music.
He was like a sponge.
I just tried to work on making him a really good,
believable street dancer.
DENEY: One night, Kevin McCormick and Robert Stigwood
come in to see what we're doing
and where we're going with this dancing.
♪ Till you feel it, y'all... ♪
DENEY: We went side by side and start doing the step backs,
the crazy legs, the wavy arms and all the steps.
We got through and it was dead silence,
you know, nobody said anything,
they'd all look over at Stigwood.
And all of a sudden, Robert Stigwood
got this big smile on his face.
He goes, "I love it."
♪ (GENTLE PIANO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KEVIN: When Rocky came out, John Avildsen became a maniac.
He and John Travolta went from loving each other
to he was impatient with John,
he thought he was too fat, he thought he needed to train,
he didn't think he could dance.
John takes everything incredibly seriously
and had a very clear idea of what he wanted
to do dance-wise.
And Avildsen wasn't, you know,
he couldn't even select a choreographer
and never could really quite key into
what it was gonna look like.
He just gets more and more impatient.
He decides he doesn't like Norman's script,
which we all loved.
At this point, Stigwood called me to say,
"What's going on?"
And I said, "There's something else,
John has decided
that he doesn't want to use the Bee Gees' music."
And he said, "Really?"
"Call John and tell him to be at my apartment
tomorrow morning at ten o'clock, and you should be there, too."
So, Avildsen and I show up, we're there, waiting.
Stigwood comes in, and he said,
"John, there's good news and bad news."
"The good news is you've just been nominated
for an Academy Award for Rocky."
"The bad news is you're fired."
And I said to Robert, "What do we do now?"
And he goes, "Go out, go get a director."
So I came out to California.
There was a director, John Badham, who I'd met,
who'd just been fired off of The Wiz.
JOHN BADHAM: My agent said to me,
"Do not read this script. They want you to do this,
but I want to make a deal first before you go and read it."
And I said, "Okay, yeah."
So I promptly started reading it.
Well, like an hour and a quarter later,
I'm running around our little house
at that time going, "This is great! Oh, my God!"
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
BADHAM: The characters, the dialogue, the situation,
everything about the Tony Manero character
just leaps off the page.
I'm a guy who was, A, born in England,
B, raised in Birmingham, Alabama,
had been in Brooklyn maybe once.
And what I knew about dancing
was the dance classes my mother sent me to
when I was 12 or 13 years old.
And yet, for me, it jumped off the page.
And only as I'm on a plane two days later
to go to New York,
to get this thing shooting in two and a half weeks,
that I go, "Ho, my holy God, this is a musical!"
♪ (ENERGETIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
BADHAM: I get to New York and I go to meet Robert,
and one of the first things he does
is hand me a little tape cassette,
and he says, "My boys, the Bee Gees,
have done five demos
that we're going to use in this movie."
And he said, "Three of them are gonna be number one hits!"
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KEVIN: We started production flying by the seat of our pants.
You know, all the locations weren't locked down.
You know, it was a three-million,
five hundred thousand-dollar movie.
It's not like it's a luxurious studio budget.
BILL: We were shooting the movie at the same time
as me getting the music.
We were really rushing, because I didn't-- never done it before,
I didn't know you had to get a sync pulse
and a click track... (CHUCKLING) ...and all this stuff, you know?
It was like, we were sort of making it up
as we went along.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
KEVIN: There was something quite wonderful about being in that neighborhood.
You have to fill the club with extras who can dance.
You know, better that they're people
from the neighborhood who get this, you know?
MAN: Now shape up, you assholes. We're the faces!
♪ (“A FIFTH OF BEETHOVEN” BY WALTER MURPHY PLAYING) ♪
ELIZABETH: I did the movie when I was 20 years old.
My brother and I would compete in dance contests.
JOE CURCIO: They did a contest for the movie.
If we entered the contest and we won,
we would get one day in the movie.
We ended up walking in, Saturday afternoon,
and I was a little like, starstruck,
John Travolta was in the corner reading his lines,
Karen Lynn Gorney was there.
ELIZABETH: So I said, "Oh, my God, this is really it, you know?"
JOE: The most beautiful memory for me,
and this is straight up, no lie,
John Travolta stopped reading his lines
when we stopped dancing. He came right over to me,
and he put out his hand and he said,
"You guys are great, you're wonderful!"
"My name is John." And I said, "Well, who don't know that?"
ELIZABETH: My brother goes, "Yeah, okay, like I don't know that."
(LAUGHING) I was like, "Shut up!"
MONTI ROCK: We have Elizabeth and Joseph Curcio!
Give 'em a hand! Come on down! Yeah, baby!
(CROWD CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
ELIZABETH: To be in a movie, with John Travolta,
I couldn't believe it.
And once it got out, it was like an epidemic.
The whole 86th Street.
BADHAM: Our very first day of filming,
you couldn't turn anywhere without seeing people.
Even if you looked straight up,
you were seeing kids hanging over the building.
We had to shut down by lunchtime.
We could not shoot.
RONA BARRETT: Mr. Stigwood in a short period of time
has developed a reputation
as being someone who knows exactly what he wants.
How much control does he have over the people
who work for him?
Well, I think the great thing about...
the, uh-- doing pictures with him, would be
that he likes the artists to have a lot of say-so.
Because I think he trusts artists' instincts.
One of the most important things working with Robert
is that he gave that kind of freedom within the projects,
to get a lot of your own creative ideas in there.
And he really did, I mean, I must say.
KEVIN: John had a very evolved sense
of what the dance solo should be like,
and really thought it should be covered in a specific way.
And his imagination led him to what it had to be,
to be excellent.
And when he saw the dailies,
Badham had a much more ordinary version of it.
You know, it wasn't anywhere near captured
the way he had slaved for about 18 months
to really make it look fantastic.
BADHAM: The first time we saw the dailies,
there were a couple of places where he went,
"Why did you do that?"
And he said, "When you're ready to shoot it my way,
"then," you know, "I'll be in my trailer."
KEVIN: The movie literally shut down for three days.
John wouldn't go back to work,
he just couldn't imagine finishing this out
because Badham had screwed it up.
And Robert had to be a peacemaker,
to sort of put it back together again,
so we could get everybody back up on the high wire...
(LAUGHING) ...of making the movie.
We really talked about it, and argued a little bit,
and he said, "Well, if you really feel
that strong about it, it must be-- it must be right."
BADHAM: Absolutely he was right, so I went into John's trailer
and said, "Okay, come on, we're gonna do this."
"You're right. I take your point, I'm sorry."
"So we'll go and fix it."
♪ (“YOU SHOULD BE DANCING” BY THE BEE GEES PLAYING) ♪
♪ My baby moves at midnight ♪
(CROWD CHEERING)
♪ Goes right on till the dawn ♪
♪ My woman takes me higher... ♪
KEVIN: In the end, it was rather simple coverage that sells it.
You know, that really gave you how magnificent it was.
-All right! -(CHEERING)
KEVIN: I always think about John as being incandescent
in that moment, you know, he becomes that character.
♪ ...you should be dancing Yeah ♪
All right!
♪ Dancing, yeah... ♪
KEVIN: For me, it was both an incredibly intense experience,
but I kept thinking, "How lucky am I?"
Every day, I couldn't wait to get there, you know?
And I think everybody sort of felt the same way,
because they knew something special was going on.
♪ (UNSETTLED MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
BILL: I was on the lot in Paramount Studios that summer.
We were editing the movie.
I was doing Grease at the same time.
We were shooting Grease in Venice, California,
so we were going from "Summer Nights,"
or something like that, to "Night Fever" at night.
And I remember they said, "How's your little disco movie?"
That was the phrase I got from Michael Eisner, of all people.
He was the president of the studio.
He had Looking for Mr. Goodbar, a movie with Richard Gere, scheduled for Christmas.
That was the Paramount Christmas picture.
The idea that Robert wanted
this "little disco movie" to come out before it,
and then come out in more screens, was absurd to Eisner.
You know, people think Saturday Night Fever somehow kicked off disco.
It actually didn't. It was dying on its feet
when we came out with that movie, I have to tell you.
Disco was almost over. I was worried we were too late.
I remember, when I'd finished mastering the album,
I was up all night in Hollywood at Capitol Records.
I had the album that I'd been working on
for nearly a year and a half in the back of my car,
and I was stopped at a traffic light
on the way home on La Brea in Hollywood. (CHUCKLING)
And in front of me there was a truck,
and on the bumper sticker said "Death to Disco."
I remember calling Robert, I said,
"You know, I've got a feeling we might be too late."
FREDDIE: Saturday Night Fever did not do well
in its sneak preview.
We flew to Ohio.
People weren't quite sure what to make of it.
When we got the so-called "focus group" report,
it said, "Saturday Night Fever sounds like a venereal disease
you pick up on a Saturday night."
"Boy in a white suit, subliminally, that's a sissy boy."
You know, all these silly things.
BILL: For a movie musical, it's quite dark, you know?
-(SOBS) -(CAR HORN HONKING)
(PANTS)
-(GROANS) -BILL: There's a rape scene,
and then, you know, the scenes in the back of the car,
and the guy falling off the bridge.
This is not your grandma's musical.
-Tony, look at me. -Look at the punk.
Bobby, get down! It's too dangerous!
BILL: The language alone, we had endless discussions
about taking all the language out.
TONY MANERO: Oh, fuck the future!
No, Tony, you can't fuck the future.
BILL: Because it was full of F-words
that Paramount just couldn't get their heads around.
C'mon, fuckhead!
Hey! Son of a fuck won't budge!
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
PATRICK: Robert was staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel,
bungalow five or ten.
Barry Diller and the execs at Paramount met with Robert,
they had breakfast, and Barry said,
"There's too many 'fucks' into the script,
and it's bad for the audience, for the young audience."
"What can I do to sweeten you off,
and can you take
a few of the 'fucks' out of the script?"
And Robert said, "How many do you want?"
"Well, at least five,
there are about twenty, at least five."
Robert said, "Well, five,
that's five percent extra on the gross."
And Barry, "You've got a deal."
FREDDIE: Ultimately, Robert, I think, agreed
to one dirty word being taken out.
KEVIN: I remember, very vividly, I'm in the airport,
getting ready to get on a plane to L.A.,
and somebody paged me,
and I thought, "Wonder who the hell that is."
And I picked up the phone. And Michael Eisner got
on the phone and started screaming at me.
I think he had just watched the new cut of the movie.
"Who do you think you are? What are you doing?" Blah-blah-blah.
He just went on and on and on and on.
He was enraged that there was still a lot
of language in the movie.
When I told Stigwood... (LAUGHING)
...he thought it was the funniest thing ever,
and it made him absolutely determined
that it was done, and that's exactly what it was gonna be.
NIK: Robert was very driven by the idea,
"You can't do that."
The moment any suit said to him,
"You can't do that," it was, "Right,
roll up your sleeves, here we go, lads." You know?
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NIK: Paramount made clear
that they were not really going to push it.
MICHAEL EISNER: I had no idea what we had.
I didn't even know it was a musical.
I was walking down the street on Central Park West
and I ran into Robert Stigwood and he said,
"Do you want to come upstairs and listen to music?"
I can say categorically I went up and listened to it,
and had no idea it was a musical, still.
NIK: That was the thing that triggered Robert
to do what no one had done before,
release the soundtrack before the film came out.
KEVIN: He instinctively knew that he could use that
to water anticipation, and that more than any trailer,
the music from the movie would really compel people
to wanna come and see what it was.
BILL: Eventually, Michael Eisner said,
"How will we know if your record's a hit?"
And Robert said, "Guarantee it,
it will be a hit, it'll be number one."
"How will we know?" He said, "Okay,
if it's number one, then you give me 250 more screens."
♪ (“A FIFTH OF BEETHOVEN” BY WALTER MURPHY PLAYING) ♪
BILL: "If the next one goes number one,
you give me 500 more screens." It was an escalating thing.
He wrote this all down.
So they went with it.
But of course, he had the last laugh.
We were number one seven times with it.
Every time you turned on the radio
you heard "How Deep Is Your Love,"
"Stayin' Alive," "Night Fever,"
"More Than a Woman," and "If I Can't Have You."
NEWSCASTER 1: Four singles from Saturday Night Fever
have hit number one since the album's release,
more than from any other new album in history.
NEWSCASTER 2: The album Saturday Night Fever
is projected to sell some 12 million copies.
NIK: Right, take that.
Now can you put it in the dumpster?
NEWSCASTER: The album has sold more than ten million copies,
on its way to being the biggest-selling album
of all time.
MICHAEL: I was skiing in Vail, Colorado.
I think it opened December 7th,
this was like two weeks earlier,
and I heard the guy at the lift at the bottom,
and I heard "Stayin' Alive."
And then I went up to the top of the lift
then at the top of the lift, and went to the restaurant,
and there was "Stayin' Alive."
I called up Barry Diller and I said,
"Do we have a hit here?"
♪ (“DISCO INFERNO” BY THE TRAMMPS PLAYING) ♪
Oh!
ANNOUNCER: Presenting the world premiere
of Paramount Pictures'
Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta.
(CROWD CHEERING)
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, this is John Travolta!
♪ Burn, baby, burn ♪
RONA: The movie is Saturday Night Fever,
and the star is John Travolta disco dancing his way to fame.
♪ To my surprise... ♪
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen,
-will you welcome the Bee Gees! -(CROWD CHEERING)
♪ People getting loose y'all ♪
♪ Getting down on the roof You hear? ♪
♪ The funk was flaming... ♪
PRESENTER 1: Did you get Saturday Night Fever?
PRESENTER 2: I do-- I have Saturday Night Fever.
Did you disco down?
-I discoed on down. -Me too, I had such fun.
♪ When the boogie started To explode I heard... ♪
BILL: When the film did open,
and it opened massively to a lot of screens,
the cinema operators were immediately all asking
for more prints, they wanted to add more screens.
Paramount said, "The cinemas are billing us
for the ushers they are having to bring in
to stop the dancing in the aisles."
NEWSCASTER 1: Saturday Night Fever put rock and roll to bed
-with a bad cold. -NEWSCASTER 2: Saturday Night Fever
has apparently revived disco fever.
NEWSCASTER 3: Hundreds are rushing to schools
to learn the right steps.
♪ ...till I had To self-destruct... ♪
BILL: What it did, was it gave disco
another, maybe, five more years of life.
In the year or two after Fever came out,
you couldn't go to a single nightclub
anywhere in the world without people wearing white suits
and chains and dancing like Travolta.
DENEY: Everybody was going to the clubs, dressing up,
fixing their hair, looking good.
-♪ Burn, baby, burn ♪ -♪ Burn that mother down ♪
♪ Burn, baby, burn ♪
♪ Disco inferno ♪
DENEY: People that would never dance,
never want to dance, wanted to be John Travolta.
NIK: To me, it was always just this little magazine story,
and then suddenly it wasn't.
♪ (“YOU MAKE ME FEEL" BY SYLVESTER PLAYING) ♪
PATRICK: I met Robert in '78 in France,
when he was having so much success coming through.
I was driving a limo.
One afternoon, I was sent to the airport
with two other limos to pick up a group of people
coming from London.
♪ When we're out there dancin' On the floor, darlin'... ♪
PATRICK: I can see this lovely group,
young people arriving, all smiling and full of fun.
And then, Robert is amongst them,
with a white scarf... (CHUCKLING)
...and he picks my car.
♪ You make me feel Mighty real... ♪
PATRICK: Robert said, "Can you put the radio on?"
"Okay." And of course, soon as we put the radio on,
"Stayin' Alive" is blasting through the loudspeakers.
♪ ...mighty real... ♪
PATRICK: And he says, "This is my music."
I said, "No, you're not a musician."
And he said, "No, I'm the producer of the film."
♪ When we get home, darlin' And it's nice and dark and... ♪
Could I ask, for example, what Saturday Night Fever
has grossed, thus far?
I think around 110 million, at the moment, in America.
MERV: And what do you anticipate after it's all wrapped up
in a nice big bag?
ROBERT: I would think something in the region of 250 million.
-MERV: Mm. -It's a very popular film.
♪ Oh, you make me feel... ♪
PATRICK: Robert said to me,
"You stay on, I'm going to use you,
I need to go to San Remo, I'm buying a yacht."
♪ Mighty real ♪
PATRICK: Everything is moving forward,
he's getting his toy, this big yacht.
Money was flowing in.
MERV: And the album?
The album, I think, is nearing 18 million
double albums worldwide at the moment.
But that would be the record breaker of all time.
Yes, it's already the biggest-grossing album
in the history of music.
♪ I feel real, I feel real... ♪
EARL: When that movie came out, we worked every day.
Wasn't a day we didn't work. It was unbelievable,
you know, how much money we made.
Had a suitcase going to the bank.
♪ I feel real, I feel real... ♪
KARL: The Bee Gees were a little surprised,
like everybody else.
It just mushroomed beyond what expectations would be.
They had a 727 plane, "Spirits Having Flown."
They sold out Dodger Stadium in L.A.
They sold out Madison Square Garden
for five nights in a row.
DENEY: I don't think anybody
really foresaw the phenomenon of this movie,
other than Robert Stigwood and John Travolta.
BILL: I remember, when we were shooting Grease,
John asking me, like, "So, what do you think about Fever?"
'Cause he wanted to know how it was shaping.
I said, "Well, you look great, you look fantastic."
He said, "No, is there any chance for, maybe like,
an Academy recognition for it?"
And I thought, "Oh, my God, this is ridiculous,
this is not an Academy movie, are you nuts?"
-Johnny! -(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
BILL: Well, he had the last laugh,
he got a nomination, Academy role for it.
-How are you? -INTERVIEWER: You want to win tonight?
-Sure, why not? -INTERVIEWER: What would the win mean tonight?
Terrific, terrific validation.
-INTERVIEWER: See you later! -(CROWD CHEERING)
♪ (HOPEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
PATRICK: Robert was so relieved
that he was right in every which way.
Fever came out, and then Grease.
(CROWD APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
KEVIN: No reason why kids should have liked it,
but Stigwood, brilliantly, got enough new music into it
that it was both recognizable but new again.
FREDDIE: Robert said, "I want two hit songs!"
This really happened, just like this.
He said, "I want two songs that could go with this script,
with this character,
and if I have two hits, I could sell this album."
♪ (“YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I WANT” BY JOHN FARRAR PLAYING) ♪
♪ You are the one that I want ♪
FREDDIE: They wrote "You're the One That I Want"
and '"Hopelessly Devoted to You" and it worked.
Grease sold 28 million albums. This was a big deal.
BILL: Those two movies, Saturday Night Fever and Grease,
carried Paramount through several fiscal quarters.
(BRITISH ACCENT) Robert, I'm over the moon about our three-picture deal
and that it has become so successful.
(LAUGHS)
The winner is, Evita, producer Robert Stigwood.
(CROWD APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
TIM: I mean, from about '75 to '80,
almost everything that was successful was Robert Stigwood.
You know, Grease, Tommy, Superstar, Evita,
RSO Records, the Bee Gees, Saturday Night Fever.
He had all these things going at once, more or less.
KEVIN: He's on the cover of Newsweek, and, you know,
we used to jokingly say to each other,
if only they knew how mad this all is.
PATRICK: There was so much money flowing in at the time.
In the New York office, the flower bills
were something like 15,000 dollars a month.
I mean, the amount of money that was spent
by everybody in the office, let's say, was just staggering.
But, you know, it was there to be enjoyed.
That's what Robert said, you know,
"Rather my guys enjoy it,
rather than pay the IRS too much money."
KEVIN: You know, and within a couple of years,
you know, it had started to change.
-(CROWD CHEERING) -MAN 1: Turn all the lights on!
This sign was the original sign
used when they made all the posters
-for Saturday Night Fever! -(CROWD JEERING)
Let's give them the salute, ladies and gentlemen.
MAN 2: It's time to ring out the old and bring in the new!
(CROWD CHEERING)
'Cause we've got something to say about that.
♪ I hate disco music ♪
♪ 'Cause disco music Really sucks ♪
That's right.
♪ And I hate disco music ♪
♪ 'Cause disco music Really sucks ♪
♪ ("DISCO AT AL'S" BY JAMES O'CONNELL PLAYING) ♪
♪ Disco sucks Turn off the radio ♪
♪ Disco sucks 'Cause I don't wanna hear it ♪
BILL: I think it was that natural pushback
that anything really successful gets at some point.
-♪ Disco sucks ♪ -It had become so mainstream,
that anywhere you went in the world,
weddings, funerals, they always played disco music.
♪ Disco sucks ♪
MAN: I hate disco.
-INTERVIEWER: Yeah? -It's a snore.
-I think it sucks, man! -Disco sucks!
Disco is a disease!
RICHARD: Why does it suck?
Because that's something gay men do.
♪ Disco sucks ♪
RICHARD: It was about the fact that these people
were asserting themselves and shouldn't have.
I saw Ted Nugent last Saturday, you know what he said about it?
He said he was glad for disco
because it kept them away from his concerts. (LAUGHS)
He says, "Those guys don't come close to me, boy."
♪ Disco sucks ♪
NEWSCASTER: Fifty thousand people got in
before the White Sox called upon Chicago Police
to help close the gate.
It was billed as "Disco Demolition Night."
Then came the main event,
a crate of disco records was blown up in center field.
♪ I don't wanna hear it I don't wanna hear it ♪
♪ 'Cause disco sucks ♪
BILL: It was directed very much at the Bee Gees,
more than disco I think.
It was they were fed up with the Bee Gees,
it was weird.
The Bee Gees were upset about that,
you know, having all their records burnt
in the middle of a ballpark.
(CHUCKLES) Who wouldn't be?
BARRY: We're not really a disco group, we do all kinds of music.
And what happened with Saturday Night Fever,
is we actually were asked to write the music
and we did so,
and they used the film as a disco film,
which we didn't, weren't aware that is what they were going to do,
was going to be done. And the music, I think the songs
stand on their own apart from disco.
If "Stayin' Alive" had come out five years ago,
no one would have called it a disco record.
It's as simple as that.
KEVIN: Saturday Night Fever was the apotheosis of disco.
Then all bets were off.
ROMAN RICARDO: The film definitely expedited disco's death.
It took the mystery out of it.
There was no cool scene around it anymore.
VINCE ALETTI: Once everybody is going out in Suburbia, USA,
and pretending that they're John Travolta,
it's done, it's done.
Anything that big, it has to end.
The success, I knew, was going to be a problem.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NEWSCASTER: The movie Saturday Night Fever grossed record earnings
and escalated actor John Travolta
to the heights of superstardom.
Practically everyone involved made a bundle on the film.
But there's one man who says he should've made a bundle, but didn't.
He's taking action to see to it that he does.
KEVIN: Some guy who said he spoke to Nik in Brooklyn,
somebody quite specific, took it to court.
INTERVIEWER: What makes you think that Tony Manero is you?
EUGENE "TONY" ROBINSON: I know, because I was interviewed by Nik Cohn,
who wrote the original script,
"Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,"
and it was developed from that article
in New York Magazine.
ELIZABETH: From what I understood, Nik Cohn
came down to the club one night, was observing stuff.
JOE: I'm not sure-- Don't quote me on it.
I know they-- Somebody was interviewing somebody.
ALEX: Basically, there was a guy coming down,
asking about this, you know, all different questions.
In filing the suit, what are you really after?
I would like Paramount themselves to come out
and admit that I'm the character,
and I would like these writers to back down,
and admit that it's my original gem.
KEVIN: That lawsuit went on for a number of years,
and in the end, Nik said, "I don't know what
this guy's talking about. I made it up."
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NIK: I made up the main character
and built him around a Mod I had known
in London in the '60s.
There was a certain degree of authenticity about it
in the sense that I had watched the various rituals,
so the attitudes of the main character
in terms of his mates, that was observed.
The actual character himself did not exist,
I have to say I made that up.
They were guesses,
and trying to put myself in somebody else's shoes.
When I looked at any group of young teenagers,
in any culture, it was just,
I wonder what it's like to be that way.
So my imagination would go, and that's what came out.
ELIZABETH: So he didn't even really talk to some kid
named Tony Manero? Oh, my God.
(SEAGULLS CAWING)
♪ (DOWNCAST MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NIK: For a long time, he had just an infallible touch,
and then, suddenly, he didn't.
FREDDIE: Moment by Moment was a disaster
and humiliating to him. A horrifically bad movie.
It may be too early to pick the worst movies of the year,
but it is not too early to cite one of the worst movies
in the past ten years.
Maybe the worst big-budget movie ever made.
It is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
(ENERGY ZAPPING)
TIM: The Sgt. Pepper film and album just was a disaster.
It was a bad idea, looking back on it.
But I'm trying to remember what other flops he had.
♪ (“FAR FROM OVER” BY FRANK STALLONE PLAYING) ♪
BILL: We did the sequel to Saturday Night Fever
called Staying Alive, which was not enjoyable for me.
♪ This is the end ♪
♪ You made your choice And now my chance is over ♪
BILL: Stallone was the director and I was the English meat
in this rather weird Italian sandwich,
with Travolta on one side, and Stallone on the other,
and it was me in the middle, as producer of the film by then.
But, I mean, we were just retreading.
And I think Robert's interest sort of...
well really, it went away.
(SHIP HORN BLARING)
BILL: And he folded up his record company,
and moved to Bermuda, and never really went back.
♪ (DREAMY PIANO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
PATRICK: He decided to lift his foot a little bit
and go into yachting for a couple of years.
-MAN 1: Oh, wow, look at this! -MAN 2: Look at that!
(MAN CHEERING)
PATRICK: He had his retreat in Bermuda.
A beautiful place in Bermuda where he would spend,
-you know, months on end. -(MAN CHEERING)
KEVIN: He became fantastically wealthy.
JAMES: I watched Robert make,
you know, a billion dollars for Paramount
within three years. I think 300 million of it
wound up in his pocket.
FREDDIE: If you sell 22 million soundtrack albums,
and you're averaging four dollars an album
as your profit, that's 88 million dollars more,
and you're not splitting that with the studio,
because Paramount never had a piece of the album.
BILL: The studio wasn't interested in soundtracks.
They said, "Soundtracks don't sell."
So he said, "Fine, I'll keep it."
Which was kind of a mistake on their part, I think.
That was probably one of Robert's lasting great achievements,
is to wake up the synergy between records and film.
You saw the film, you'd buy the album.
You listened to the album, you'd go to the movie.
KEVIN: The soundtrack became part of the way
that you looked at a movie's success or failure.
You know, Urban Cowboy, let's see
if there's a country music application to it.
♪ (“WHAT A FEELING” BY IRENE CARA PLAYING) ♪
KEVIN: It just became this crazy phenomenon.
-♪ (“DANGER ZONE” BY KENNY LOGGINS PLAYING) ♪ -Top Gun was successful
on its own, but music certainly helped it.
♪ (“I'VE HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFE” BY BILL MEDLEY, JENNIFER WARNES PLAYING) ♪
And it went on for a really long time.
♪ (DREAMY PIANO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Robert really did change a lot of things.
The good news was he made more money
than he ever could have imagined.
And I suppose the bad news is once he did that,
I think the incentive
to keep working, to keep plugged in,
to keep looking for new things, went away.
(WAVES CRASHING)
NIK: There was a great loneliness at the heart of him.
He was always very unsure of himself.
Pink-faced, not comfortable, he was never comfortable.
He was only close to the people
who was in his very immediate circle,
basically lived with him.
I mean, the beautiful boys flitted in and out.
(LAUGHS)
ROBERT: Well, I had you, if you didn't make that move,
I had you checkmated.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(ROBERT GROANING)
PATRICK: He fell in love with Barry, with me,
with everyone around him.
And then, all you had to do was put the record straight.
And that was it, then he was happy to be around you.
So, he wasn't pushing anything to anyone.
ROBERT: Yes.
They're cheating again.
-MAN: Would you believe that? -The two, he gives them advice.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
NIK: His deepest instinct,
I think, was still to just charge, madly,
don't think about the odds, just keep going.
But that's impossible to sustain,
there comes a day where you just can't keep doing that.
And the culture's moved on,
and you no longer have the feel for it.
And part of the art is,
at that point, getting off the train,
and that's what he did.
♪ (DREAMY PIANO MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
(SEAGULLS CAWING)
♪ (PIANO MELODY CONCLUDES) ♪
♪ (“HEART OF GLASS” BY BLONDIE PLAYING) ♪
♪ Once I had a love And it was a gas ♪
♪ Soon turned out Had a heart of glass ♪
♪ Seemed like the real thing Only to find ♪
♪ Mucho mistrust Love's gone behind ♪
♪ Once I had a love And it was divine ♪
♪ Soon found out I was losing my mind ♪
♪ It seemed like the real thing But I was so blind ♪
♪ Mucho mistrust Love's gone behind ♪
♪ In between ♪
♪ What I find is pleasing And I'm feeling fine ♪
♪ Love is so confusing There's no peace of mind ♪
♪ If I fear I'm losing you It's just no good ♪
♪ You teasing like you do ♪