Vertigo, a Dizzying N.Y.-Style Downtown Club : Doormen Rate Appearance as Part of the Price of Admission

Around midnight, Mark Benecke paces an area roughly 12 feet by 12 feet while 200 pairs of eyes anxiously watch him at a downtown nightclub called Vertigo.

Benecke is the head doorman, and Friday and Saturday nights from 9 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. he is a god, in a manner of speaking. It is up to him to decide who gets beyond the ropes into the club, and who doesn’t. If the world is divided into the haves and the have-nots, here it is divided into the ins and the not-ins.

First of Kind in L.A.

Vertigo is the first “New York-style” club in Los Angeles, a euphemism meaning not everyone is allowed to go in, although it’s not a private club. At popular New York nightspots like Area and Palladium, patrons take it for granted that doormen will pick or not pick them according to how they look or who they are.

Up until now, all that L.A. clubs demanded was a cover charge. At Vertigo they want more. “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” is the motto, and selection of the trendiest is left up to Benecke and one other doorman who survey the crowd at Olympic and Grand with steely stares and let down the ropes for the people they want in. Being on the guest list or having a “priority card” helps but doesn’t guarantee anything. After that, looks, clothes, the right attitude--and the right shoes--are essential.

Generally, they pick the people wearing the latest fashions first, such as girls in sleeveless turtlenecks and tight skirts, or something way out, such as punk haircuts or thrift shop clothes worn with style. People in black tie seem to get in automatically.

Benecke has the distinction of having been the maitre d’ and the doorman off and on for several years at New York’s Studio 54, the club that started the whole trend in selective admittance, where in the late ‘70s Calvin and Brooke and Bianca partied the night away. After 54’s original owner, Steve Rubell, was jailed for income-tax evasion, Benecke headed to L.A. to work at La Cage Aux Folles, then went back to 54. In the world of doormen, he’s a pro.

“Without trying to sound haughty, I see myself like an artist,” he says. “It’s kind of like casting a play. Or mixing a salad, in layman’s terms. You need the mix of all different types.”

On this particular Saturday night when the crowd inside the club is getting up to the 1,100 capacity, Benecke is being choosy. He knows the fire marshals are on their way to check out the crowd and he’s got to make sure no riffraff slip by. (The space it occupies two nights a week is actually Myron’s Ballroom; ballroom dancing takes place there on Sundays.)

Always Open for the Famous

In another setting the 29-year-old Benecke might look like he’s on his way to a Yale class reunion, dressed in a navy blazer, toothpaste white shirt, striped tie, baggy white pants and navy slip-on shoes with no socks. Neatly cropped blond hair and chiseled features add to the look, and his jaw tenses as he scans.

“We’ve been getting a good number of famous and important people,” he says. “George Michael, Boy George, Harry Dean Stanton. . . . I personally admire him greatly.”

Other than celebrity superstardom, what does Benecke look for when mixing his salad? “The most important thing for me is personality, how a person comes across. Then you have what I call unusual--people who are interesting, exciting, who don’t dress the norm, don’t conform to society. Basically, I look for people who are visually interesting, people who have high energy, not people who are just going to hang around upstairs and gawk at everybody.”

What if a couple is split--one good-looking, one hopelessly out of fashion? “Yeah,” he says, laughing, “that happens. Normally the personality becomes the overriding factor. If they’re a nice person they’ll get in.”

One man Benecke let in earlier didn’t seem to fit the mold in his tattered jeans and ratty brown sweater. “Oh, he owns a gallery down the street,” he explains.

As it is with night life in Los Angeles, when a club is hot, neither fire marshals, cover charges (here it’s $10) nor doormen will keep people away. Ads about Vertigo in the trend-watching Interview magazine and other publications have helped fuel the fire. And though it’s been open since Jan. 1, it is now hitting its stride.

“People here are not yet used to this kind of club,” Benecke says as a few young men manically snap their fingers and lean over the ropes, vying for his attention. “A lot of trends start here and go to the East Coast, but this is one trend that started out there and came here. I think there was a definite need for a club like this. Most clubs are private, and charge an astronomical amount of money to join. Or you have what I call the hotel-chain discotheque. You know the kind of place I’m talking about?”

Benecke allows in a few stunning blond women who look like they dressed according to this month’s Mademoiselle fashion spread and says, “We really do have a potential occupancy problem here. We have to keep the crowd at a certain level. People can get pretty abusive when you don’t let them in, but then they’ll try to come back. People just feel they should get in immediately instead of waiting. There is no nice way to say no. And you have to realize that your actions will have an effect on what kind of a time they’ll have inside.”

Slightest Bit of Agitation

But when Benecke says no it’s done subtly, smoothly, without the slightest bit of effort or agitation. Most of the time he ignores the people who don’t fit the description he has mapped out in his mind. If they persist he may give them a standard line about how the club is only open to those on the guest list or with cards. He might relent and let them in, or make them wait before he does. Some who don’t get in walk away muttering nasty things they’d like to do to doormen.

A man who looks like he believes he’s waited long enough hangs over the ropes and waves his priority card at anyone who might be looking. He slips some money out of his wallet and tries waving that around, too. “I have some friends inside. I don’t know why I’m not getting in,” says the man, who identifies himself as Faryar, a TV producer. “I don’t know what the situation is. It’s very awkward when one has guests and plans an evening.” Does the cash work? “Sometimes,” the man said.

Benecke doesn’t work the door alone; with him are three security men who are alternately in the club and outside watching the crowd. One sports a radio headset so he can talk to other security personnel. There is another doorman named Vincent Reynaud, a 24-year-old Frenchman known to most just as Vincent, pronounced “Vahn-sohn.” He is tall and good-looking, and as he lets the pretty girls pass he is rewarded with a pat on the cheek, a quick kiss, maybe a phone number. He, too, has that detached air that seems necessary for this kind of job.

Right now, a man who doesn’t know Vincent’s name, much less the correct way to pronounce it, is pleading with him to be admitted. “I came 3,000 miles to see this club,” he says, but Vincent replies, “That’s not good enough” and walks away.

“People say, ‘Oh, this is discrimination,’ ” Vincent says. “Sometimes people do behave nicely, or sometimes they’ve had a couple of drinks too much.” He is asked about the man who was told that traveling across country wasn’t a good enough reason to be admitted, and without blinking says, “It was a joke. See, he is in.”

Sure enough, the man is on his way up the stairs.

The methods of gaining entrance are as dizzying as the club’s name implies. Talking to the owners doesn’t shed much more light on the subject.

Four men own Vertigo: Jim and Nick Colachis, 26-year-old identical twins; Mario Oliver, a 28-year-old deeply tanned former club owner who is French, and another Frenchman named Caradoc Ehrenhalt who is 21 and used to run another nightspot in town called Club Soda. The Colachis brothers are perhaps best known for producing the “Looking Good!” hunk-a-month calendar featuring USC males in all their youthful glory. (That project was started when the brothers and some friends were in USC’s Entrepreneur Program.) Oliver’s sideline is dipping clothes in resin and putting light bulbs inside to make them glowing objets d’art. “I have 77 reps around the country,” he says.

Merits of Style

Earlier in the evening they discussed the merits of this style of club in the restaurant, done in a black-and-white checkerboard motif, which is just off the main dance floor.

“You can tell within three seconds,” Jim says, “if someone dressed up to come to your club, or to go out at all, or if they thought you were another restaurant, a Red Onion. We call them guidos --people who had no idea what we were about and they heard about it and came down, instead of knowing somebody and finding out about it first.

“I don’t think we’re punishing people for not knowing (about the club),” he says when asked if that was the intention. “I think we’re teaching them. When they see who gets in and who doesn’t, next week they come back, they dress up, they know what to do. We’re not saying no forever, we’re saying no that night.”

Jim even admits he’s been on the other side of the ropes more than once. “Hey--I’ve been turned down at clubs. I went to Studio 54 two years ago and they wouldn’t let me in.”

He jumps up to take care of some matter and down sits Nick. Only their clothes and the fact that Nick’s black hair is slicked back sets these two apart. Even their enthusiasm is identical.

“This is like a grade-school club,” Nick says when the analogy is brought up. “The only difference is that they’ll exclude you in grade school because you’re fat or ugly or short. Whereas here you still have a chance if you’re fat, ugly or short. You have a chance not just because what you look like but because you’re interesting and you’re doing something in this town.”

The club went through a fairly radical renovation when the four decided to turn it into Vertigo, Nick explains.

Carpet was ripped up to make way for sleek black and white tile and chairs and walls were painted pink and gray. “It feels good,” Nick says. “People can associate with it.”

He goes up a staircase that leads to a balcony, which has a bar and some tables. “This gives people something to do, somewhere to go. People don’t know how to entertain themselves. We have a photographer who goes around taking people’s pictures. We have them processed, and in two hours you can see yourself up on the screen. We also run old movies up there, with no sound.” He points to a huge mirrored structure that hangs above the dance floor and looks like a leftover prop from “Metropolis.”

“That’s one of the things we kept,” he explains. “When all four of those things turn it’s just wild.”

Vibrating With Sound

He heads back downstairs to an outdoor balcony off the dance floor, which is now vibrating with sound. “PEOPLE WANT TO FEEL THE MUSIC!” he screams.

But out front, men and women wanting to feel at least a couple of notes are becoming a tad anxious. “This is tougher than last time,” says one young man, and his friend adds, “Yeah, they’re only letting girls in.”

“This is my first time here,” says a young woman who is dressed in a spangly green top and black pants. She has been waiting for at least an hour. “No, I don’t like the way they’re letting people in. I’ve heard a lot about it and I’d like to get in. I’m hurt, but I’ll wait. I guess they’re picking all the blondes.”

When the woman is pointed out to Mark Benecke, he glances over and says, “She should definitely get in because of how she’s dressed. Who is she with? She’s alone? Well then she should definitely get in.”

“I hate to go to these clubs,” says another woman in gold pajamas. “It’s just like work. You have to know somebody.”

The angst level rises higher as people push body to body, jealously guarding the best spots to catch the doormen’s eyes. Benecke announces that the fire marshals are inside, and for a time the club will be closed to everyone. One man, biting his fingers, anxiously says, “There’s a party up there I’m supposed to be at,” while another, who has been rebuffed, angrily barks “This is NOT New York, man, this is Los Angeles.”

It’s not long before the ropes part again, this time just for those on the guest list. A security guard warns the crowd not to whistle at the doormen: “They are not dogs!” The pleading continues. “We came from far away. . . . I’m on the guest list. . . . Is Tony here?. . . I’m a good friend of Nick and Jim’s. . . . I’ve been standing here for hours. . . . “

One of the few ugly confrontations between patrons and doormen takes place when three men slip past the rope and Benecke orders them back, scowling and shouting.

During a lull a little while later, Vincent admits he is offered a lot of money to let people in. “And if somebody uses one of the owner’s names to get it, I contact him through the intercom system. Everybody gets so crazy. They think it’s so important to get right in.”

Benecke steps out from the lobby. “Oh, I forgot to mention--the whole Brat Pack comes here, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, all of ‘em.”

Feeling of Privilege

Vincent continues. “I think the major reason we’re packed every night is that people love the feeling of being privileged.” He leans against the door, a glass of champagne in his hand. “A little Dom Perignon helps a lot,” he says with a sigh. “Why do I do this? Nobody else is going to sponsor my scholarship. I am studying real estate at Santa Monica College. And I’d rather do this than wait tables. Ah, I love it when it’s quiet and peaceful.”

Vincent notices an attractive girl standing at the ropes looking forlorn. “Can I get in?”

“Who are you with?” he asks coyly.

“Just me.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” And smiling, he lets her in.

At 2:15 it’s calm enough to let down one of the ropes and actually have people walk right in. The bar has closed but the club is open until 4:30. Vincent and Jim Corboy, the security guard with the headset, talk about the downside of the job.

“People throw beer, eggs, all kinds of things,” says Vincent.

Benecke makes an appearance again and says, “I almost forgot to add--shoes are really important. I usually look at shoes before I’ll look at anything else. The really good ones are Maud Frizon, Vittorio Ricci, Panicaldi, Walter Steiger. . . . I’m a shoe freak.”

He is asked about a man who stands beyond the ropes who is wearing two-toned brown-and- white shoes.

“Those? They’re out of date or out of style or something. But at this hour anything is possible.”