Sarah Jessica Parker and Ian Schrager

purveyor of all things fabulous Sunday nights. In the late nineties and early two thousand's, this sound could be heard in homes all over the country. Over six television seasons and two feature films, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha navigated the complexities of single life in New York City. When HBO's Sex in the City wrapped in two thousand four, it left millions of empty Cosmopolitan glasses in its wake and changed the conversation at brunch forever Do we want

another round? What do you think? It also made stars of all four of its actresses, most notably the show's narrator and my first guest to this hour, Sarah Jessica Parker. I am someone who is looking for Love, before Carrie Bradshaw transformed Parker into a celebrity fashion icon television producer. Sarah Jessica Parker was a working actress and work was actually an escape for her. She was one of eight siblings growing up. You know, it was insane in our

homes and your childhood. You started working very young, you were your child. You're eight, and what do you remember about your childhood. I'm not certain how we sort of recreate how we felt about our childhood, because I wouldn't. I wouldn't to sort of fix the things that were painful, or change the disappointments to triumphs or the struggles to ease. I remember everything about my childhood, and I think the memories are vivid because it was a very vivid life.

It was a colorful, energetic, unpredictable, exciting, scary, sad, ebulent life. And um, I think I benefited from that in countless ways, far more than I would have if it had been easy. I think I loved working because it allowed me something of my own time, to myself, something that I felt was mine. Were your siblings performers, any of them? My brother Toby was an actor, UM, and was started working before me, and then we eventually worked together a number

of times. And I think he would also say that he loved this independence from his siblings money. Knowing that we had this, we were creating like a past. Remember your past book at the bank, You and I have it, okay. So all of those were wonderful. Going home was a little dreary after a day of independence. But I think about days that I didn't want to be in my home, and I think about days that I got to be out working as an actor, that you know, getting through

the days that that I found not always super pleasant. Um, I earned those days away. I earned the five dollars they gave me from my dinner money or this opportunity to pretend to be somebody else. So I liked the balance of the suffering and the reward. Is that crazy? No? No, I think that I remember when when I worked and I got a job, and I remember I just felt strange. I mean they I did a television soap opera in New York. There was the lowest rated soap opera which

I did the Doctors before they were canceled. Were you a doctor? No? I was the bastard son. I was a swindling son of a doctor, the scion, and I get this job they pay you for I was twenty and I get the job and they pay me the minimum and I get a check for whatever, like stars. The first year, I remember sitting there thinking I make more money than my dad. We've been teaching for twenty eight years at a public school. And I felt funny. I felt weird, like people will always sometimes smack you

or swat you and say, what do you know? You're out of touch because you old you. People are so overpaid. And there's a part of me sits here and go, yeah, I mean it is kind of crazy, but but I have to ask you a question. Wait, let me just go back, because I think it is curious when you're criticized or or there's a conversation around sort of that you might be out of touch or you're not you know,

you don't recognize what it means to work hard. On one hand, you can say it is true, um, lots of people make absurd amounts of money and none of it's just none of it makes sense and none of it's fair and it's but I think the accusation of your being out of touch or you're not aware of

what it means to work hard. That's the part of that kind of charge that I am most frustrated by, because a lot of people I know who work in entertainment, theater, show business didn't come from anything and simply worked incredibly hard. And we're willing to work hard and earn nothing, and every now and then a job comes along that does pay and that you know, that's wonderful, and almost everybody

I know is thrilled and appreciative. So the idea that you know, we're sort of blithely going through life, you know, not aware of um out of whack it is and how lucky we are to to and then and the other part of that I find is that other people have jobs where there's a meritorious system of a sentencing. You go to high school, you do well, you get the good s, A t s, you get the gp A, you get the right scores, you go to Harvard, and in our business you can be great and do great work.

It doesn't mean anything. The mean you're gonna move up. Sometimes the most successful people are not the most talented people in terms of the kind of complexity they're acting. If you will, yeah, and I think I'm predictable nature, I mean, and it's it's impossible, you know, to compare career trajectories and paths and choices. But there are things that are you know, obviously very unstable about making these

life choices. And and most people, you know, really everybody I admire basically has not really you know, hit the pay dirt the way that I think they should have. And so, you know, I'm particularly sensitive to the idea that I that I'm not aware of what it means to work hard, and that I'm not aware of the imbalance of you know, the sort of It's not you know, for me, what is interesting is you and men. Eventually you become very famous. It's you, it's Mary Tyler Moore,

it's Gene Stapleton. You become one of the most prominent women in the history of television. Before Sex in the City. When someone hired you, what were they hiring you for? Well, they were usually hiring me to play uh. For a while, I was the cerebral best friend of the pretty lead girl. Subversive or UH could be a clever person, witty, um, maybe bitter, uh, you know, funny, buoyant, um wise, cracking, but not overly confident. Those were the roles, never the lead,

you know, foot loose. I was the spirited best friend of Lorie Singer. She was the beautiful, withholding, I don't know, desirable lead. And but what once again I will say and I couldn't mean this, And it's not that I'm looking back on it fondly and kind of creating affection for a time or a place. I really I thought I had it all. I would work in the theater all the time. I would play these smaller parts in movies.

I would do television shows. Um. I assumed that the leads were really only made for a particular type of girl and then woman, and I understood that I just wasn't going to ever be that person. And I talked myself into believing that the roles that I got to play were more complex people. They were more nuanced, they were more interesting. Sometimes that was the case, not always. But the opportunity to work, to move from job to job was the best because I was constantly figuring out

new relationships, new people. How did they work, How do I work? What do I want to do? Like they do? What I mean? You make a lot of films. I remember that, but all the people those days of like running to a pay phone, checking your voicemail, I mean sorry, checking your answering machine. It was like you're like, oh, there's a lot of calls. It's a lot of calls. You have thirty nine messaging messages, just the potential of

that next job. And then what happened? And then, um, Kevin Euvane, my agent of or thirty years now, rang me and said, there's this pilot script a guy named Darren Starred. You know who, Darren Starr. As I said, yes, I know, certainly do Melrose Place, UM, Beverly Hills nine two one oh. He he said he's written this pilot. He says he's written it with you in mind. So Starr told you Vane, he wrote this with you in mind. Correct. Kevin Euvane told me that that's what Darren Starr had

had shared with him. What I read the script, Um, I read the script right away. I was really kind of confounded by the idea that I was a voice that would have come to mind because she was so this part of Carrie Bradshaw was so like anything I'd ever played before. Um, I would say maybe a year and a half two years prior to the script, and so I met with Darren. He said to me, you know, I would love for you to consider this. We met at eat on the Upper east Side, which I thought

was kind of a fancy place. It's expensive, you know, the menu is pretty deer like everything on the menu, and uh, I said, you know, I don't feel comfortable doing nudity. I don't. I think we can be more thoughtful about this language. She's a writer. Does she have to use the F for it? Isn't she more thoughtful about? You know? He kept just saying to everything, every possible obstacle I can throw it his way to talk him

out of hiring me. He had a relatively great convincing and have you been successful at talking people out of hiring you previously? I think I'd given people lots of other ideas, like don't you think Patty Clarkson the same one. I'm always offering up Patty Clarkson because I don't know about you, but I always have these actors in my head that I think are more deserving or better, frank

simply better. I always I always think that. And I always think that there were like four or five other three named actresses that either they may be meant to go to first and that when I showed up there, like we didn't mean that, we meant Mary Louise Parker. But anyway, he was very convincing and um and really, uh just so tenation. He just never let the idea go. And and I said, oh, and by the way, between you and me and I'm actually getting married, I think

next week. It was, I think I'm getting married next week on my night off. He got the day off and we're gonna get married. So I don't want to start shooting until after we get married. And he said, that's fine, we'll figure it out. We'll push it a few days. And so I went and did this pilot and um, you know you ready to do a TV show? No? And to be honest, at the time, HBO is a very different network. It was a place that was a primarily male dominated um uh net work. It was there

was heavy on the sports and boxing. There were a few scripted shows dream on, Um a football show. Yeah, um there was a football show about a football team. You know, it was skewed towards the male audience that existed for the for their sports, their great special sports events, and so I thought, you know, I'll do this pilot and I loved I thought the script was spectacled, and actually I gave it to Matthew and my oldest brother Pippin, and they both read it and said, without a doubt,

you should do this. So I did the pilot, went on with my life and one day I was walking down the street and I ran into Merrill poster and she said to me, I think I was on my way to see a play and she said, oh, I I saw your television show. And I said her, what what television show? And she said did you do a pilot called Sexton City. I was like and I literally said, oh, that's right, I did, and she said it's good and

I said it is. I haven't seen it and she said, oh no, I just thought I think it's really good. I said, okay. So after Merril post the pilot, what happens next? I think eventually I saw it or was forced to see it, and um, there was this discussion of it, you know, going to series. And I then tried to get out of it, called a meeting and said to them, gentlemen, you have to help me get out of this. I don't want to do a television series. I've rethought this. I would like to offer myself up

to HBO basically free. I will work for them for the next four years. I'll do any television movie they want. But I just don't think I want to be caught up and tied down in intelligence series. This is after you've seen the pilot. After i'd see the pilot. I might not have seen the pilot yet, and I just sort of rethought my future and panicked, And eventually they producer ended up coming on the show who I did

a movie with, Miami Rhapsody. They said to me, look, this is We'll tell you about this kind of home. HBO is a place where it doesn't feel good after season when we don't do season two, don't worry about that. Just let's try that hostage. I went to the set on the first day and I never looked back, and every day I got in the shower to go to work, I was I was gobsmacked by the idea that I didn't want to be anywhere else. There wasn't a day that I spent on that set that I didn't want

to be there. When I think of that show, because it was a lot of practical locations, and when you guys were on the streets a lot, you weren't on the stage much. We weren't, And I always think of you like four chicks in a trailer changing your clothes and outside of you you here. Yeah, yeah, he loved it. I loved it. I loved the work. I love the people, I love the storytelling, I love the character I loved it.

When did you know you guys had gotten it? Though? Well, I felt at the end of the first season, Um, we produced the whole first season without being on the air. We went on the air, I think while we were already into our second season shooting, and even though there wasn't a terribly large audience at that time, I just

felt that the stories we were telling, we're successful. And I think it became really necessary for us as we started to face a second and possibly third season that it had to get You couldn't hang your hat on being titillating. You couldn't hang your hat on, you know, nor did we want to on the story of clothes and carry in the story that told. But rather she had to start revealing why she was floundering, Why why

was she a mess? And Michael just had some innate, sort of preternatural instinct about Carry Bradshaw and how to tell her story, and he was superior. I think Michael was you know, grew up with a lot of bunch of sisters, a lot of important women in his life. He is deeply curious about women's stories. He can write women. It doesn't really make any sense, although there have been some great, great screenwriters who have written I mean, we know them, but he just was very, very First of all,

he loved Carrie Bradshaw. He loved telling her story and was as invested in it as I was. And I think that's why we were such great partners and producing partners, because we were both bitter enders. We will work until we were bloody and bloody crossing the finish line. We cared about it being as perfect as possible. But he loved that girl and he loved those stories. And I think when you were that interested and curious about when you're a writer like that, it just makes the writing

that much richer. So King's the head writer, and he's a guy with an eye and an ear towards women's stories. Was the writing staff a lot of women or was mostly women. The top of each season, they would meet in a writing room Los Angeles, where a lot of them lived at Michael Patrick's you know, home base was when he wasn't you know, shooting our show, and every now and then a fellow would come along and he

would sit in the writing room. I think at the top, you know, when they're breaking story and just um kind of give a perspective that was important for people to be familiar with because there was such a strong female sensibility, and a couple of scripts were written by men. We had one young man for a while, but they weren't as consistent year to year as as our women were. At what point was the teeny staff too very tiny

relative for television, considered quite small? Yeah, you know, at some point the show becomes this huge hit, And at what point in the process did they start to turn to you and say, well, now you're a producer, Well, now we're going to factor in your inborn When I first met with Darren, he said to me, why don't you be a consulting producer on the show or consultant, And I said, you know, he said it would be good for you. You could learn about television, you could

learn about producing television. So I said, well, who would say no to an opportunity to learn? And so I was very devoted to that idea. And second season they said, do you want to start producing? And I did, and I I said yes if they continued to let me learn, and that sort of the understanding was that I kind of laid out was up. I would only contribute if

and when I thought I had something valuable to say. Really, it was an opportunity for me to now sit and be more part of the conversation and learn about producing. And I just did and loved it and loved it. And one aspect of that that I comes to mind for me, is it in your career prior to this, number one on the call sheet is a guy and you're the girl. So Nick Cage approves you, and Bruce No,

I was hired before Nick. What I mean? But for many times in your career you're the girl, and now you're number one of the call sheet and you get to decide who the men are that are coming in the door. How did that work with you? You know? I mean you have like kind of um tastes and you react in ways that you didn't even know you would I would have no feelings about certain names, and

and Michael would have feelings. And that was, you know, sometimes hard because he would write it so he imagined things, and so I couldn't argue with what what he saw in his head. My problem was that I knew what I was going to have to do on screen with them, and I think there's something very interesting about that which is hard to explain to people. But you and I

can get into it now. So you know, when they've given you somebody to play opposite, and everybody wanted them but you because what and what you know, I would allow it under dress when someone's holding me down and saying, you have to trust me, you have to trust me. I know you haven't seen this out of this person. I think he or she can do is perfect for

this part of your boyfriend. So what I think it's hard to explain to these people, right the Senate that believes in their choice, is that you know what they won't bring, and you know what you will then have to do is tell the story for two people on camera. And I think what's really really dangerous about that is you end up projecting onto the other person what you wish they were bringing into the scene. And what I think happens is you become a bad actor. You overacting.

You try to create chemistry and romance and love and you imbue the scene with everything, and you can't because when you feel it, even if you're not in love with this person. I've worked with countless actors who I'm not in love with them. I really mean it. But I love working with them and I can. I don't care what they look like, smell like, where they come from, who they are, how tall, how short, if they're smart

and interesting and talented. I do not the greatest act it's but then this is the weird part, right, This is the fork in the road, is that I don't need to I don't even care if I don't want to have sex with them. You just want to feel some friction, some kind of exciting sword player love, some capturing of something I did street carent Name Desire with Amy Madigan and Amy Madigan's real Antiochley flinty cow girl. Usually this really kind of tough little girl. And I

loved Amy every night. I was in love with her, and I've got to have that some feeling. It's just so wonderful, to have that, and when you don't, it's it's a kind of hard work. What would you do? I would be you know, it would be very hard and earn your money that week. I guess, so, I mean, I don't, I don't know. I think it would be hard, and it would be a different kind of hard work. Like I would work so hard on that show. I worked hours. I would do a hundred hundred ten hour weeks.

I didn't care this kind of hard work shows. It made me a bad actor because I would try to keep it alive and around for both parties. And I think it makes you over animated, surface and fake and it's just awful, and it would upset me and it would make me pouty. It's really bizarrely hard. It was not hard for Sarah Jessica Parker to work with Chris Noah, who played Mr. Big on Sex in the City. She'll talk about their collaboration in a moment. I would never

have predicted that we would have become that close. Take a listen to our archives if you want to hear other conversations with longtime New Yorkers, like the late Elaine Stretch about a month ago, I really said, I want out of here. I want out of New York. I shouldn't live in New York anymore. It's not for me anymore. It's too fast for me. Or no, it's not too fast. And I changed my mind about that. It's not this, it's not that, it's just not for me. Take a

listen at Here's the Thing dot org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Sex in the City centered around the girls, but it was Carrie Bradshaw's love life that was the main focus, and it was her on again, off again relationship with Mr Big that fans could not get enough of. Have you got a smoke? I quit? Oh? We always used to share a cigarette together. We did a lot of things that were bad for me together. Chris not played Big, and

he was there from the very first episode. I knew Chris and uh so we did this table read and I knew. After the table read, I thought, Wow, this could be good, This carry Big thing could be really good. And my greatest concern was that I was going to appear like a twinkie, that he was so earthbound and so so masculine, so virile and um kind of truculent and that I was going to my voice would somehow go up, you know, two octaves higher. And um, but I loved the story. I said, oh this is good.

The last you know, these last three four lines of

the script were perfect. And um, but he but he is a so so special and we'll get back to the girls in a second, or the women, I should say, But since we got on to Chris, you know, the thing that surprised me most about Chris was, um, how I would never have predicted that we would have become that close, that he and I would have become so reliant upon one another, that it would be my job to take care of him on more than you know, four or five, six dozen occasions, that I was really

responsible for keeping him happy, that I could negotiate his worst moments and and bring him out of them. That that was that he was my charge in some way. I love fellow actor and always and wouldn't have wanted to see anybody else do it play it, um and all these people we meet and you can have love with them. And Tony Hopkins, I did a movie. I mean, I can't tell you, like every day I was around and I was like Oh my god, I want to enjoy every minute this. So I mean he's I won't

be doing this forever, you know. And it's funny because you just can't maintain those relationships. It's such a lesson to learn when you're first starting out and you're on a movie set and it's all done and everybody goes home, and you think, these are the people I'm going to know for the rest of my life, and you know, write long letters and longhand and and page after page of you know, the documentation of your day and friendships and yeah, the lake house would be nice and um.

But the truth is someone said, if you leave and you stay in touch with one person from a job, that's like a miracle. You know, people just go on and um. So these relationships are are funny and very unusual, and therefore I think more special because they are this kind of um finite little and how we have to pick up where we left off. I'd be in an award show and I'd see someone go, oh my god, Cynthia,

hug Cynthia, kiss Cynthia. My daughter would say, when was the last time you saw I go, I don't know, three years ago. You got to just pick up right where you left, the gypsy kind of transient thing. I call them the girls because I once to joke with Christen that the four of you were like the Beatles. Actually,

any quartet I compared to the Beatles. You all had distinct personalities and distinct idiosyncrasies, and even the imperfections were kind of perfect too, because we were all really different and and we had to figure it out and create friendships on screen, you know, kind of prematurely before it meant anything in our real lives. You know how you kind of go backwards. You know, there's a whole history that brought these women together, and we eventually caught up

with our characters. Basically, Um, we were together for ten eleven years telling these stories, and you know, by the end, the kind of feelings that we had for one another, we're like what we were doing on screen. It was very weird, and it took a long time to figure out who we are with one another. But I remember sitting in Morocco for the last movie. We all had trailers, but we preferred to share a hotel room, and I thought, Wow, this is um, this is the best it could be.

Kim might be lying down for a minute, or Cynthia's lying down and I'm reading a book or eating some some eating something more likely and not, and we're all just in a room, completely comfortable, the very thing you

hope for in romance. You're like, I just want to get to that time with this fellow where I can eat in front of him, or where I can just read a book and I don't I'm not worried about entertaining him or And that's where we were as women and friends and fellow actors, and a lot had been written that was untrue and it had been painful for

all of us, and we've been all through it. We had traveled to this other side together and without trying that hard, because you can't really try that hard in real relations, Like you can't focus it that way, you can't be that result oriented because there are people, they're human. You know, what are you gonna do? You can't force it.

But I really thought at that moment, Wow, like if this is it, this is the best, this is the best, and honest and just wave it's I always tell people it's like that moment in West Side Story when he says to her at the dance he says, you're not lying, are you? And she said, I have not yet learned to lie about such things. Oh yeah, and it has to be those people. Yeah, you know, I have a

very strange metaphysical feeling about those. Like McCartney said to me about the Beatles, he said, everyone was pressuring them to hire the guy that was the best drummer in London. And the guy came and played a few tracks for them, and they didn't really like him very much. And Ringo Star was off fulfillming other commitments he had to other bands and he was associated with, and he came back to record with them, and they all said, it's got to be him, or we're not doing it anymore. It

has to be us four now for you. Well, the fifth Beatle for you guys, was the designer who was UM. Well, there was a toss up. Was it was it the City of New York or was it Pat Field? The clothes were such a huge Yeah, the clothes were Was that presented to you you upfront that she was going to become this style master. Actually we brought her in after the pilot because she had designed Um. She had designed Miami Rapsody, a movie I shot with David Frankel that

he wrote and directed in Miami. We knew we were going to um rehire the costume design, and he said Pat Field, and I was like, of course, it's Pat of course. And I had loved working with her, like fallen in love she had. Remember when I went to n y U. She had a very very idiosyncratic boutique on eight Street which was still open, and I did

had many meetings with her there. And only later, well into this life of the series or even the movie, did did she have to leave that It was the landlord forced her out after all those years, I think thirty some years. There she with you, all the seasons of the show, all the seasons and the movies. And at what point does it come to you? Do you become We're really kind of getting further and further untethered from the mothership here of fashion, because obviously wore a

lot of very stylized clothing. Well, she she would have always told the story the same way, no matter what I think, the only difference being that in the very beginning we couldn't get our hands on anything. Nobody wanted to give us a thing, nobody, And we had a teeny teeny teeny. We talk about in Emick. We had a tiny, tiny budget for the whole per episode, and so that's why I wore so many thrift clothes from thrift stops, and that was the only way to fulfill,

you know, something unique. So so she was very clever. Thrift stores by necessity, thrift stores by necessity. We went to some rental houses in Miami, in New York, she had apartment in Miami, she had resources in Miami and frankly all over and we just pulled and pulled and pulled. And it was about I think towards the end of the second or even the beginning of third season, I can't remember which. Someone will correct me that it was Fendi that loaned us a baguette, and that was like

the gateway. That was, you know, the floodwaters. Everything shifted. We were able to get our hands on pieces that could help us tell the story maybe a little bit more clearly. That so the woman who starred in the show that had a that wore thrift store closed because you had a thrift store budget for the show. As soon as Sex in the City really started to conquetize in the culture, and Maureen Dowdalls. Do you have people coming to you going, we're gonna do this and this

and this and this. How are we going to monetize or did all of it come to you slowly? I think the world was really different than so all of that didn't really exist in the same way. I wanted to do a fragrance and that it was that that was mine. I long dreamed of doing a fragrance for lots of reasons. I won't warri your listeners with so I actually eventually had the courage to say this to somebody. But this was in the days before actors were doing it.

There was one. There was the great Elizabeth Taylor signature Fragrance White Diamonds, and really wasn't And Jennifer Lopez had very been really smart about business and fragrance business in particular. But all of that stuff, anything that came to me because of the show, I was super vigilant about not doing what was easy just because it was lucrative. I mean that's always a great challenge. Yeah, not be ingredient.

What is the real connection to it? And I would have had them name a donut after me, a Duncan Donuts if they would have written me a seven figure I'm not like you. You have a lot of integrity and sex. And the Carrie Bradshaw is this iconic figure me. I would have let them name like a tie with whales on it after me at Brooks Brothers. Well, that would have been actually really cute. Actually that's a word for it. That's a connection that isn't so ridiculous. Actually

I was ready to cash in. I was ready, let's let's have a Jack Donaghee. I wasn't right, okay, but but you've remember thirty Rock came after. But the time thirty Rock was on the air and the time you're talking about people presenting you with crazy opportunities, the world had shifted. When Garnier came to me Tina's now that spokes first and four and said to me, we want

you to do hair care commercials. I was like and and actually this actor who I adored and admired and thought like hung the moon and I will not say his name, Sad just said to me, well, you know you're being really smart. At least you're not doing hair care commercials. And then they came to me with this crazy offer and I said no, immediately, No, because this actor I admired said to me, well, at least you're not well version an American version of Colin Firth. Let's

put it that way. And then I said to Kenny Lonergan, who's my husband's best friend, I said, you know the top of this? An ex actor said no, he said are you? Are you? And I was like, is it too late to collect? I not? Wasn't practiced that. Do you actually pick up the phone and say I've been thinking? So I called Richard love It and I said I've made this. I think this grave error and he said,

oh was interesting? Is it interesting how you go from talking people out of hiring you talking them back into high You come full circle? Sarah Jessica Parker fill circle? Is you calling up the fructist people saying I fructiasted up here? Yeah? Exactly. Anyway, they were nice and um forgiving and but I want to talk to you about um Is it kind of not ruined? But does it affect you? Does it? Because I think it does? It can't Does it affect you in terms of um acting

and acts? To be married to? Who you're married to, who's so talented and so polished and so smart, and so elegant, and do you sit there sometimes and go I always have an image of you, like lying and there with your husband's very romantic Woody Allen movie images. You're in bed and you have especially squeezed grapefruit juice

in the times who squeezed it? And your son, of course, his parents are start the paper ironed gers butler, of course by a butler named James, Wilkie James, that juice isn't gonna walk over here by itself, son, And you're in bed, and the sun brings you the tray to keep start trotting, as they say, and he brings you the juice, and you're sitting there and your husband and you were just giving each other notes about scripts, and don't you don't want to work with it? Who do

they want you to work with? No? No, no, no, you really can. I mean, I'm so flatter, do you you? I actually picture that in other people's lives, and perhaps even yours, but including yours, would be a physical class of some sort of yeah. Um no, I mean we don't have that kind of leisure time. And no, none of that has ever happened, although I will say there was a time before we had children. Do you remember that where we would sleep? I mean, do you remember

not being in bed with us? But do you remember that time before you had children where you were I'm trying to envision being in bed with you? Go, go go. You woke up like eleven, You're like crack of twelve. It's eleven and eight and um. Then you would get the paper and you would sit with someone you liked or loved hopefully, and you would read and you talk about coffee and put another log on the fire, Go to cinema the village and watch a movie. Yeah, go

to you know, film forum, or go to Chinatown on Sunday's. Um, you know all of that. I'm so glad we did that, though, you know, as much as I think, wow, that was sometimes I miss it a lot. At least you did it.

You did it. One thing I always never ceased to amaze me was that in my single days, when I was married, got divorced, I was single for several years, and whenever I would date women, regardless of whether they had law degrees, they worked in biotech, whatever they were doing, we would talk about their television viewing and they would say, well, I don't watch television, don't real enough time to telesion. I mean, I think you can disconnecting my cable. Well,

I watched Sex in the City. That's storytelling, that's the writing, that's the stories we got to tell. We were just the repository. We were the lucky enough series. Again. Um, I used to say never. Now I think would they let me do six or eight episodes if I could do it the way I like to do things, which is splitting the atoms the bitter ender and still be a good parent and wife. Yeah, I think I would. You know, it's just about timing and choices. Now that

I have kids, that's the thing. But it's you know, like Strasburg says in The Godfather, this is the life that we've chosen. It's a dream. Really. Sarah Jessica Parker. Coming up, I talk with another legendary New Yorker whose job makes dreams come true for others. He opened Studio fifty four in the late nineties seventies and many boutique

hotels and condominiums since then. The nightclub does. Your primary goal is to look after people, make sure people have fun, elevate the experience, make them comfortable, same going all tops, same going, you know, and so there is a common denominated there were differences in it, you know, like the people that work in the nightclub business. Most of the time they look like vampires in the day. Ian Schraeger describes his years in the nightclub business. Next, you're listening

to Here's the Thing. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Come with me as I take you back to the nineteen seventies. The Vietnam War was over, the AIDS epidemic had not yet begun, and one night club will forever symbolize the glamor and debauchery of the time. If you managed to get through the doors of Studio fifty four, you'd find yourself among the biggest stars of the day. Warhole, Liza Minnelli, Calvin Klein, Share,

Mick Jagger. The midtown Manhattan hotspot was the epicenter of sexual experimentation, drug culture, and yes, true disco fever. Ian Schraeger opened the studio nine seven. He had started out as a lawyer, but that didn't last long. I got bored by it, so I wanted to nightclub business. I read an interview where you said you were driving by and you saw people lined up out in front of a club, and you thought, that looks like a good business to me. Yeah. I mean, do you remember what

club le j Dan where it was one? It was on forty third Street between um sixth Avenue and Broadway. At that time, the whole social millennium was being set by gay clubs, not blacks, the way it is now and the way it was before then. But then it was gay because everything was just emerging sexually, and if you had a successful gay club, you were trying to keep all the straight people out because once the straight

people came to gay people left. And that was one of the first clubs that I call a fusion club that they're really It was gay, and it had that kind of sexual electricity in the air that gay clubs at. But there was a lot of straight people there and and there were people waiting in lines, and all these straight people were being insulted and tried to be turned

away because everybody just wanted to get in there. That was a business I wanted to get into because you were giving nothing, offering nothing, and people are paying to get in now. For people my generation, when I say your name, all you have to do is say uh Ian and Steve, and people will know who the Steve is for for those who don't know in our listening audience, Steve Rebel, who was your the late Steve Rebel? Who was your partner? How did you hook up with him?

And how did you meet him? We both worn in Brooklyn and different they were Jason neighborhood, but you know, different school districts. We didn't know each other. Middle class Brooklyn. You know, his his dad was a mailman, his mother was a teacher. We went up to school. He was a few years older than I. He was up in Syracuse, and we just became fast friends from from when we when we met. You know, I left after four years. He stayed on because it was the Vietnam War. Everybody

was trying to stay in school. And and when he ultimately came back to New York, you know, we stayed friends obviously, and and and I represented him. He went into the state business taching, like for five dollars you could have all the steak and beer you wanted. And he went into the restaurant own. Yeah, what was it called steakloft stick. It's like unsuccessful undercap for people who want to go have steake and soho saft and so uh.

And I represented him, keeping the credits off his back because it was on the capitalized And then it was during that time that I saw like the nightclub thing was just emerging. When it was kind of shifting away from you know, going into a nightclub and trying to meet people and meet girls and it was pick up places and things like that. It was kind of evolving into it like a gay club kind of scene where it was serious, sweaty dancing, you know, and and and

that's the kind of club that I liked. What was the other places that were the top clubs? Then you guys opened Palladium a couple of years later, and that on fourteen Street when we opened up, when we when we had Studio fifty four, there was a kind of uh, there was a place called Zeno with a knockoff. Knockoff was where you went because you couldn't get into the studio exactly you said it. Yeah, but but there was some some great, great, great great gay places. Flamingo, very creative,

twelve West. Uh. This is a cliche obviously, but when the early eighties roll around, did aids kill that culture today. It's uh, it didn't kill it, but it change things because all of a sudden, before age, there wasn't anything you couldn't do at night and went up there. It was carefree, It was different things. Things, things were different.

But but I think the nightclub business got killed not because of age, but but but because I think government when they started to regulate it, it became so expensive to do a nightclub to comply with all that. What you said that we're a nightclub. To open it up, of course to you, tens of thousands of dollars, now somebody a million because of why because if it was because of exists and things like that. So all of a sudden, young people didn't franchise. I did my personal

club for twenty seven dollars. You know, you didn't have to know anything, You didn't have to have a lot of money. It was like you roll up the carpet, you put on a record player when you have a nightclub and did that stopped? That kind of raw energy stopped. That happened in rock and roll, and it happened with technology too, when appleca invented in the garage and so it changed. The business evolved and so young people can't do it anymore. And that's why now in the nightclub business,

nobody owns anything anymore. They have promoters going around from clubs to clubs because it's just too expensive. When you and Rubel decided to go into business, what did you think he brought to the table and what did he think you broke to the Was it kind of in front of the house, back of the house battery? No, it wasn't that simple. It's just like with a husband and a wife, nobody really knows what goes on except

the husband and a wife. With partners, you're not going to say a fifty percent with someone that's not making a fifty percent constitution. You know. They weren't mutual exclusive fears of influence. I mean, he was more of the people person and I was more of the creative person.

You know. But but like, for instance, I might be in the nightclub and I would see Steve go get friendly with Austin over there, you know, And if I was wanting to do something, I would go to Steve and he'd be like my instant one man sample serve act that he had had good instincts and and and it's just so funny that the vision of responsibility happened naturally. You know. We we had a we had a first nightclub was in Queens, which was about six months before

studio and got killed by Son of Sam. I remember the first night we opened, Steve went to hang out with the kids at the bar and Queen's and I went up into the d J booth the play with the lights. It just kind of happened. And that club was called What Enchanted Garden, and then that died after the Son of Sam shops. It was hard to get people to come in to a nightclub when someone was

out there killing it on the streets in parked cars. Yeah. Now, when you open up the studio and you were you married at the time, when you come to your first wife, how soon after studio now for quite a while, so you could live that for none of different. Boy, But you were letting somebody down, crawling in the door at eight o'clock in the morning, so it was long night's view. You were in it. You weren't somebody who was turned into somebody and blowing them a kissing Sam, I'm going

home and you were in bed by one o'clock. No, but Steve used to say he stayed too long and I left too early. You know what would really happen is I stay two one, two o'clock till the night to thirty, sometimes until the night turned the corner and I knew it was stable, and then I would grab somebody and go home. Now back stairs, Now, back then, is it safe to say? Another risk of businesses back then with the credit cards were not that big back

in the late It's a cash business. And ultimately that was part of the problem, was that it was a cash We didn't have any money. You know, there was a movie once was to Good, The Brents Robbery, and after they robbed the truck and they were in the room, they're throwing the money up in the air. Was one of the scenes in the movie touched the way it was with Steve and I. We didn't have any money.

All of a sudden we were the toast the town and all this money was coming in and it was it was, you know, like you couldn't believe it, right, it wasn't. We went in and we we weren't motivated by the money. It was just the kind of byproduct to kind and I'm trying, I'm trying to be generous here insofar as that when you get yourself into trouble with taxes and so forth and eventually led to some

tough consequences. Was it did you find that there was more difficult back in the day when things weren't computerized and things weren't credit cards and you have to handle that much cash. We were the gang that couldn't shoot straight. You know, we were just it was kind of very spontaneous and impulsive. It was like a kind of silly, stupid thing. Everybody in the whole world knew what was going on, and you weren't the only ones. Well, I mean, I know this has been brought up to you added

infinitum about going to prison. You're you're there for thirteen months, and where did you go? We were in the mcc here for six months, and then we were in Montgomery, Alabama for six months. So you say, we who's we Steve and I so you get to see him pretty regularly. Yeah, what was that like? Oh, it's the worst. I mean, you know, we were the only one that was guilty. Nobody else and jail was guilty. Uh, it was. It

was terrible. I mean, you know, like even I mean if I would take you and put you in the grandest suite in the grandest hotel for a year and let you have room service, it's still gonna hate it. Yeah, maybe it's just you you arrived, you are robbed of your discretion as a human being a terrible What got you through that? I mean, you're young, so you're still pretty tough. But what did you keep telling yourself to keep yourself together? You know? Uh, we would read a

lot and dream a lot. It was a very very tough thing. Being with Steve made it a little bit easier, you know, someone who could understand. Yeah, I mean, and someone I mean when you're in there with a lot of psychopaths, and and and it's just it's just kind of difficult. Life cheap, and you know, and and and it was just a very difficult thing. And you know, you you try and not let them rob you of

your enthusiasm for life and your verb for life. You know, you know when you succeeded at that, So by the time you're ready to get out of there, by the time were you both released at the same time, And when at the same time we released the same time, we went to a halfway house here and I think it was in on seventy something and on the website,

and you were there for how long? Three months? And then you're free, right, And when you were even then very tentative and very you know, very tentative, couldn't even open a bank account. It was kind of re entry and it's tough. So three months you're done with the halfway house. So what does the team of Schraeger and Rebel, what's the first thing that comes to hotel hotel? Why?

You know, when we were in jail, first of all, I was reading all these great books, you know, you know David Applestram, you know, the best and the brightest, and you know, and and which was a kind of study of the rise of the media empire, and and and in there there's a lot of those guys had interludes in their life the war, and and and after those interlude they all did game changing switches in their lives,

and one open to different directions. Well, you know, the Bill Pilly decided to do do CBS after the war, and the New York Times up the anti and so are intoludlespost. But but that's when when Harry Helmsley and and and

Donald Trump. The newspapers were playing up this big rivalry. Uh, Harry Helmsley was doing a hotel and fifty one to Madison that was called the Palace, and Donald was doing the one on on Street and they were playing up the rivalry and that kind of rivalry, and the papers sucked me in, boy, and I said, well, we can do a better hotel than than both of them. And when you say better hotel, weren't you're actually doing just

a completely different hotel. They're doing big, are they? Is it safe to say they're still doing the old style? And you wanted to do what we liked. We went to a hotel that was that that that it wasn't rocket science, was just what kind of hold we did a club we liked, and and and and we want to do a hotel that manifested who we were all popular culture and not my parents, but but but but

what we liked. So no rules start from scratch. And the Morgan was the first hotel and that was on what street A thirty eight and Madison and so when and why that property good story. When we sold Studio fifty four, we took back promisory notes. You know, it took a very meager down payment and promissory notes, and we were helping the person run the clubs. We get a promisory notes paid well, he couldn't pay the promisory notes.

So when he couldn't pay the promisory notes, we traded his promisory note for his interest in at which happened to be Morgan's. And so it was. It was a hotel before. It wasn't like a private mansion or something before. What had it been before? It was hotel? It was a dump. It was called executive hotel, and it was a dumpy hotel looming house, you know, you know, in a kind of very many floors, uh fourteen. And you took it over. You just hand gratted the whole thing.

I read, did the whole thing. We we we We didn't bang on the walls because once you start doing that in an old building, you can't have a definitive budget. So you know, the rooms are very small. So we took the rooms the way we found them, and we try to have good design, come up with solutions, and we did a lot a lot of tricks. You know. We made the furniture, always scaled the furniture down ten percent to make the room feel bigger and etcetera, etcetera.

And it was a natural hit. Light to a studio was a natural hit. It just it resonated with people to day one and we were Now, So after you do the Morgan, do you find now that people are taking you seriously because they are trying to squeeze you when they're intersonly just just recently, you know when when W came out. Up until then, it was still thought of that only people who wear black and live in Soho come to my hotels. It wasn't until W came out, you know, whenever that was it was a while ago

that it gave real credibility. Hey, this is a real idea. Now there isn't a hotel company in the world that doesn't want to do a boutique hotel. And it's the fastest growing segment. There are thousands and thousands of versions all over. But it was treated with absolute skepticism and dismissively by by because you know why, they couldn't he couldn't put it in the box. They couldn't understand what

it was. Uh So, do you find that the major hotel companies not only want you because you're doing additions now is that with Marriott and that you're partnering with Marriott to do this addition series. It's it's a style of hotel you're gonna do with them. Do you find out with that that you wouldn't call that a bouktique hotel? I would? You? Would? You know? Like to me, I you know, because it's so over you. Steve is the one that came up with the name boutique. By the way,

because we were in New York. The fashion business is probably a central most important business here and uh, and when he was trying to explain to people what we were trying to do, he said, look, all the other hotels are like the Popping Scores. They try and be all things to all people. That's kind of generic. We have a specific thing to say, were very specific of a specific attitude, will like a boutique. And that was the invention and the use of that name, which we've

lost ownership of. It become part of the English language. But Steve really was the first one to use that when he tried to when when we were promoting Morgans and we're trying to explain to people what we were trying to do. Were you closer through bell. Yes, where were you when he died? By his bed? You were so you were still that close right to the end. You were best friends with him, and you were there he We took him to the hospital. We watched the

monitor numbers sink. He died in nineteen nine. Who's been your mentor or who's been your trusted advisor for the last five years? You know, by myself now, you don't have my wife, you know, and have some good friends, but you know that it's it's a it's a lost when you're by yourself. You know, it's good to have somebody to bounce things off of. It. It keeps the moral compistrated. It almost operates like a conscience. You know, it's it's tough. You know, I'm by myself now, don't

You don't have a partner. Who's you someone you consulted? You don't have friends that I asked questions, but no one replaced rebel. No, you never have a friend or a bottle like that. Lucky to have that, Ian Schraeger, And at least for now, he hasn't returned to his own geographical roots. You know, I came from Brooklyn. My my dream was to come and be in Manhattan. Now everybody to Manhattan, and everybody's dream is to go back to Brooklyn. Did you did you repredict that was possible? Dad?

I had no idea, You had no idea? And did you? Did you? I mean, I hate to see use this kind of slang with did you get it on that? Did you? Did you head out to Brooklyn Queen's in a timely way to develop? Did you develop? I totally missed it because I thought I left. I had never gone back, but I I But you know, it's so funny the way these things happened every generation. That's what happened to Brooklyn hundred fifty years ago, and well women started to go to go over there. You got two

crowded here, what's two expensive? People went to Brooklyn's happening again and for now without Ian Schrager's imprint. We'll see how long that lasts. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing you unt