Carmen d’Alessio doesn’t stop. She can’t be stopped -- for proof, see part one of our interview. There isn’t a club operator today in this city of New York that has the vision to support her ideas and therefore her crowd. She is loving Greenhouse and has a weekly party there, but it can’t be the same. Andy and Liz and Truman have all moved on to greener pastures, and I haven’t heard about Mick or Bianca at a club for quite some time. Well maybe Andy is Julian Schnabel now, and Mick is Dave Navarro, and Leo and Mark Wahlberg will be looked back at in time with the same luster ... but I just don’t think so. It was bigger then. Carmen -- the survivor, the originator -- is still here with us plying her trade, devoted to showing us just how much life should be in nightlife.

Steve Rubell once asked me to obtain an elephant for Brooke Shields’ birthday party at the Palladium. Well, I got that elephant from -- I think -- Dawn Animal Rentals. It was a baby girl and the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. A twinkle in her eyes to rival Carmen’s, she played with half the staff while waiting for her grand entrance. So there I was: the club’s “director,” and I was going over the details of how the cake needed to be placed on the special rig on the baby elephant's back, and the lighting cues, etc. While I was doing this, I thought some insect was buzzing in my ear, and I kept on reflexively swatting at it. Well everyone was giggling and holding back laughter. I turned around and saw that it was the baby elephant tickling me with her trunk. She raised up her trunk in glee with an unmistakable smile on her face, and we all laughed and touched and petted her. It was grand. And you'll never guess whose idea that was.

Tell me about your time at Studio 54. First, as a preamble, I want to make the story clear. There are a few ingredients that put the whole concept together. Number one, the five languages. I was a real international jetsetter before Studio. Number 2, I did work for fashion as well, I did PR for Yves Saint Laurent, then Valentino, so I was living five years in Rome. I came back, and everybody saw me moving around with the jet set, so it became natural for a club owner -- Peter Martins, who was Brazilian and had a club called Tropicalia -- to ask me to throw parties. Little did I know that I was as going to be throwing parties, having drinks with my friends, dancing the night away, and making money. I loved it! Then, as it turns out, Maurice Browns came to check out this girl that was making so much fuss. I was in W, in WWD, Daily News. Even magazines in planes were writing about Tropicalia ... in fact that’s how I met Rick. He was in his private Warner Brothers plane, and his friends told him you have to stop in New York to see Tropicalia, and the rest is history. Infinity was a total success, and it made the cover of the Wall Street Journal.

I was with Maurice and Vivianne recently, and they were actually shocked at the success of Infinity. It was phenomenal, making more money than any other club in the world. I was the one that did the opening night. In fact, Ian and Steve went to check me out there, and they demanded to know who was the person luring so many people. So that’s the way they met me. I was larger than life and they had to have me. But I didn’t want to pay them any attention because they were still at Enchanted Gardens in Queens. And they pursued. The situation was getting nowhere, because I suggested that they should look for something local. But one day, Ron Ferry, who had designed Enchanted Gardens, and was a very dear friend of mine, invited me for lunch and who comes for coffee, Ian and Steve. The first time I met them in person. Steve was charming, so convincing, such a big smile, he told me, “I would like to invite you to dinner anywhere you want, you and your husband.” So they wine and dine us, the whole goodies, then we ended up at the Enchanted Gardens, which at that point I thought was really an attractive place.

But let’s face it, Enchanted Gardens was way out in Queens. So these guys took a way out in Queens concept, managed to make it work there, and then they opened up the best club that ever existed. I say there’s no way I can help, I don’t know anybody in Queens. What can I do? And then I thought, I’m just going to throw some crazy at them, and they’ll have to turn me down. So my first idea was to do 1001 Nights -- let’s bring elephants, camels, the tents, everybody in turbans, bellydancers. Let’s do it.

OK! We did it, and it made the cover of Newsweek, so from there on it was history. I did a fashion show with Halston, and the models were The NYC Ballet. Then I had Grace Jones for the first time…then I was offered the Studio. It was a completely different group, it was Frank Lloyd from Marlborough. He was going to be the original owner and Uva Harden. Uva was going to be the general manager, and it was Uva who called me to do PR. So that was going to be the original team, but eventually because of money issues, they needed backers. And I brought Ian and Steve to see the place, that’s the way it happened. This was illustrated in Any Warhol’s Exposures. It says, “Carmen brought, hand in hand, Ian and Steve to the big Apple.”

I’ve met Andy a handful of times, and I always was blown away by him. The few sentences he spoke to me had such a profound effect on my life. But you dealt with this person constantly. What was the real Andy like? I’d met him in so many fabulous circles, the first time I met him was way before Studio, in Europe when I was working for Valentino. It was during the movie Frankenstein and ... we connected beautifully, because Andy was someone who really appreciated the international jet set more than anyone I’ve ever met. In fact, in the book Exposures, because of course he mentions me in every book, he writes that I am the jet-set. That is something that I would like to have on my tombstone, “Here Lies the Jet Set,” because he used to say, “She has gone everywhere from Rome to Rio. Anywhere there is a party and until the party lasts, she’ll be there, because she has a list of the rich, the beautiful and the young.” So there we have the essence of our friendship, the fact that we went through life appreciating the same things and we would be together from the moment I opened the Studio and on, he would favor me with his presence. We would sit down and check the beautiful guys, till at one point we even talked about doing a modeling agency together called Twinkie. We would enjoy just sitting in Studio and checking out the young guys and we had the same taste. He’s a Leo and I have had a lot of people in my life that have been very strong personalities that have marked my life, and all of them all Leos. Mick Jagger is a Leo.

And of course another important influence in my life was Malcolm Forbes. If you tried to get into Malcolm Forbes’ office through the front door, it would take you years, but you could walk up to Malcolm at the club. He went out all the time on his motorcycle and you could walk up to him and talk to him about the Yankees, or anything else, and he listened. We had a lot of beautiful experiences, but one of the ones that are more memorable was when Gloria and Johannes von Thurn und Taxis invited me for ... These were beyond and above. He was the richest and he was 100% gay, but at one time he fell for Gloria because she was also bisexual. They were a combination and they both liked to party. They came to New York and I had a sit down dinner for them at Studio ... and I have to say this about Ian and Steve, the sky would be the limit. I would sit down in meetings with them every afternoon, a little joint here, and then they started the meeting. And I would say Valentino wants to have a party, he would like to have a circus. Fine! Lets bring Barnum & Bailey. Next, Armani wants to have a party but he would like the whole studio converted into an Italian palazzo. Fine! Next. And that’s the way we would do it, the fantasy was beyond belief and there was no limit.

And they made money! No one ever since then has ever spent so much money and has made fantasies become realities in such a manner.

Steve came to me one day and said, "We’re having Brooke Shields’ birthday party, get an elephant. We’re going to put a cake on top of the elephant." That was my party! I needed a baby elephant for Brooke!

Well, I got the job of getting the elephant. I remember also having a birthday for Mick Jagger, Baryshnikov, and Boy George.

This was all at the Palladium, it’s just different now, Carmen. Is it because the celebrities are different? No, it’s because in those days, I would approach the celebrities, but I wasn’t going to suggest just a night at the club. I’m offering you a party -- what would be your fantasy. When you tell me your fantasy and I make it come through, it’s easy. How about Bianca Jagger with Lady Godiva on the white horse? How many times would you see that again? Never. We created history, and we created history because we did surrealistic things, until it came to the Palace in Paris trying to copy us, because from that moment on everyone wanted to come here. The moment I exposed them to Studio 54, I told them, this is going to be a studio not just a nightclub ... to do fashion shows, TV shoots, etc.

Is that where the name came from? Where did the name come from? It was originally the famous opera house of San Carlos, then the place where filmed The $64,000 Question, it had a great history. The fabulous thing is because I had the fabulous background, they were just coming from Queens, so I installed in them the sense of glamour. When we were going out before Studio opened, I was taking them around to meet my friends. I was taking them shopping, to Barneys, to wear Armani, to look very chic and forget about polyester. I was changing that whole image, particularly in Ian who decided that that was his vocation. I introduced him to Philippe Starck, to Norma Kamali.