Chippendales

Chippendales was founded in 1976 when Somen Banerjee, owner of a Mobil gas station, and attorney Bruce Nahin purchased a nightclub known as Destiny II on Overland Avenue in Los Angeles. After a series of attempts to make the club work, Paul Snider pitched a show featuring male dancers, an idea that was initially attempted short term but ultimately became the feature of the club, then named Chippendales. The name was suggested by Nahin, as the club had Chippendale-style furniture. Dorothy Stratten assisted Nahin in obtaining permission from Hugh Hefner to utilize his trademark cuffs-and-collar design at Chippendales.

Stratten was killed by Snider in a murder-suicide some months after the male revue opened. Banerjee and Nahin hired choreographer Nick De Noia to transform the club into a dance revue. The show achieved nationwide recognition, and the concept soon expanded to New York, London, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Thailand, Australia, Philadelphia, and Florida. Authorized shows toured extensively.

Throughout the 1980s, Chippendales grappled with personal injury lawsuits, allegations of sexual bias against male guests, charges of racial discrimination, and (in 1988) a bankruptcy stemming from Banerjee's refusal to pay a large printing invoice for a calendar displaying thirty-one days in each month. Chippendales (Easebe Inc) emerged from bankruptcy with a corrected calendar and less debt.

Eventually, De Noia and Banerjee fell out, forcing Nahin to deal with each of his partners separately. Banerjee brought in choreographer and director Steve Merritt, who, with partner Mark Donnelly, staged shows in Las Vegas and London. Merritt and Donnelly pitched the idea of putting male strippers in a Broadway-style show. They recruited the most attractive men they could find from Venice Beach, Manhattan Beach, and Santa Monica Beach and taught them to dance. This resulted in two separate shows being performed, the De Noia touring version and the Banerjee-Merritt stage version.

Banerjee found De Noia's ownership of the touring companies intolerable and in 1987 hired a hit man to murder De Noia and Nahin. De Noia was killed, but Nahin, who was not in New York at the time, escaped. Mayeron took over production duties until Banerjee successfully purchased the touring rights from De Noia's heirs for one million dollars. Merritt assumed control of the touring shows.[4][5]

In 1993 Banerjee was arrested and held without bail, due in part to testimony that he had declared his intention stated to pay a private pilot $25,000 to fly him back to India without a passport and had threatened to commit suicide if arrested. The charges against him were expanded to include the hired hit of De Noia and the planned hit of Nahin and a group in Europe known as Adonis. In the early morning of October 23, 1994, after sentencing, Banerjee's body was found lying in his linen-free cell. The cause of death was determined to be a self-inflicted hanging. It was speculated that Banerjee had wanted to shield his wife from a wrongful death lawsuit and a $1.75 million fine.[6]

The entirety of Banerjee's share in the Chippendales corporation and his estate passed on to his wife Irene, who sold the company (without, according to court records, Nahin's knowledge and without obtaining his permission) to Chippendales USA.

Kevin Denberg, whose grandfather had formed a partnership with Steve and Gary Rogers to open a Chippendales club in New York City in the 1980s, bought the company in 2000 and immediately set about distancing the brand from its somewhat risqué past.

The company continues to battle similar male revues in the courts. Chippendales successfully registered its "Cuffs and Collar" uniform as a trademark in 2003,[7] following an agreement between Hugh Hefner and Nahin, brokered by Stratton sometime around 1980. However, because this registration was based on "acquired distinctiveness", Chippendales filed a subsequent application for the same mark in an effort to have the mark recognized as being inherently distinctive. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the decision of the examiner that the mark was not inherently distinctive with one member of the panel dissenting.[8] The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board noted that its decision in no way detracted from the rights flowing from the registration in 2003: "However, the fact that the applicant already owns an incontestable registration for the Cuffs & Collar Mark should serve as no small consolation in spite of our decision here."[8]

On October 1, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the decision of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.[9] Nothing in that decision affected the validity of the 2003 registration. One of the reasons for upholding the decision was the testimony of Chippendales' own expert, who admitted the male dancers' outfits were "inspired" by those of the Playboy Bunny, who also feature a bow-tie and shirt cuffs.[10][11] In April 2011, St. Joseph, Missouri, police shut down a show by a Chippendales impostor group, alleging that it violated Missouri's adult entertainment laws.[12][13][14]

Former The Bachelor fiancée Vienna Girardi hosted the Chippendales' "Ultimate Girls Night Out" in November 2010. Karina Smirnoff of Dancing with the Stars hosted the following month.[15] Ronnie Magro of Jersey Shore guest hosted an event in February 2011. It was reported that Jeff Timmons would be performing with the group through the summer.[16][17] In 2012, Joey Lawrence was a dancer for a special engagement in June at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.[18] Former dancers from the inception of the 1980s Chippendales choreographed show include Michael Rapp, John Bernard Richardson, Dean Mammales, Scott Marlowe, and Jonathan Hagan.

In 1990 a Saturday Night Live skit featured guest host Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley competing in an audition to become a Chippendales dancer. The skit was discussed during a horseback ride between Nahin and Swayze.

In the 1997 English comedy The Full Monty, the characters' plan to form a striptease group is inspired by the Chippendales.

They were featured in the 2000 film The Chippendales Murder,[19] directed by Eric Bross;[20] and the 2001 film Just Can't Get Enough.[21]

Director Tony Scott was reportedly working on a film about Banerjee and the Chippendales story at the time of his death and Producer Alan Ball is reportedly working on a story loosely based on the deaths surrounding Chippendales which was to start filming in January 2014.[22] In July 2017, it was announced that Dev Patel is cast as Banerjee and Ben Stiller as De Noia. Production was expected to start in 2018 with a working title of "I am Chippendales"[23]

Bollywood actor producer Salman Khan has announced a biopic on Somen Banerjee's life and journey of Chippendales.[24]

In 2020, the troupe turned their show into workout videos as an alternative form of entertainment/exercise to people in lockdown and quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[25]

• David Henry Sterry: Master of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates and Chippendales (Grove Atlantic, 2008, ISBN 978-1841958767)
• K. Scot Macdonald and Patrick MontesDeOca: Deadly Dance: The Chippendales Murders Kindle Edition

• Australia's Thunder from Down Under
• Dreamboys

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chippendales.

• Official Chippendales site USA
• Official Chippendales site Germany
• Obituary of Somen Banerjee
• Image of women watching a performance of male exotic dancers at Chippendales in Los Angeles, California, 1986. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.