The owner of the legendary nightclub Studio 54 has revealed his plan to “end” his life amid a devastating battle for health.
A king of nightlife in the 1980s, Mark Fleischman met people like Ron Wood, Keith Richards, Rick James and John Belushi.
He owned the latest incarnation of the Studio 54 nightclub and, by his own admission, enjoyed more of his fair share of illicit substances. Threesomes were common, as well as drinking and drinking with Robin Williams, tennis star Vitas Gerulaitis and other members of his beloved “Dawn Patrol” after hours.
On July 13, however, Fleischman will drop his latest drug: a lethal dose of barbiturates. With the help of Swiss nonprofit group Dignitas, Fleischman, 82, will commit suicide legally, reports the New York Post.
“I can’t walk, my speech is fucked up and I can’t do anything for myself,” said Fleischman, who is confined to a wheelchair. The mail. “My wife helps me get into bed and I can’t get dressed or put on my shoes. I’m taking a gentle exit. It’s the easiest way out for me. “
Fleischman, who now resides near the beach in Marina Del Ray, California, said neurologists have been unable to diagnose his illness, which began in 2016 when suddenly his left leg began to crawl.
“It’s worse than not being able to walk. Marc has no balance. He drops things and doesn’t know where his body is in space, ”said Mimi Fleischman, his 27-year-old wife. The mail. “Doctors originally thought he had some form of Parkinson’s. But that’s not it. No one knows what he has.”
His commitment to assisted suicide, Fleischman said, is not reckless and has been leaking for at least two years. “I made the decision slowly,” he said. “Two years ago, I decided it wasn’t worth living. jo [attempted to take my own life] ended up in the hospital. “
Emergency doctors brought him back from the brink of death, but soon after, “I read a book about ending my life. [My wife and I] he started looking for a place where it would be legal to find someone to do it with. “
Initially, Mimi tried to ward him off from the decision, but has decided to respect his wishes. “It’s going to be horrible,” he said. “She is my partner and we are dedicated to each other. So it’s also the end of a part of me. I have to honor what he wants. [But] he gives me no choice. He wants to end his life and this is a worthy way to do it.
Assisted suicide is illegal in California and must be resident in any of the 10 states where it is legal. Instead, Mimi found Dignitas for Mark.
Dignitas was launched in 1998 and is dedicated to helping people commit suicide when their health is deteriorating. In Fleischman’s case, members of the organization reviewed his medical history and held a series of conversations with him.
“They want to make sure I’m making the decision for myself,” he said. “After reading my material, they asked me some questions to make sure I was serious. I had to provide a notarized affidavit in which I said I wanted to die. I had to go to a psychiatrist and he confirmed to me that I am healthy. I provided all of that and they told me they wanted me there. “
The organization will provide Fleischman with his medication to end his life and a place to consume it.
“Then,” he continued, “they take care of the body. They will burn me and send the ashes to Mimi in California. It all costs about $ 15,000. “
Fleischman, who has no biological children with Mimi, will travel to Zurich in business class. “I fly on July 8 and we die on the 13th,” he said The mailexplaining that, in the typical Fleischman style, it will be a high-pitched affair.
“We stayed in a beautiful place, a complex on the lake,” he said, adding that he has no “last meal” plan (“I eat well every night”) or any itinerary in mind. “I played tennis and they have tennis courts. Considering I’ve never been to Zurich, maybe we’ll see some of it. Then, on Wednesday, I find myself in the apartment that Dignitas has. I have a drink, I fall asleep and that’s it. “
Fleischman will not be alone. “Mimi,” he said, “will be right next to me.”
Now that he has passed psychological tests, Fleischman said, “I have what they call a temporary green light.” If, for some unforeseen reason, this changed before their scheduled date, “I will tell them that I will jump out the window and leave a nasty note about how they tricked me into coming to Europe.”
As for why he published the news, Fleischman said, “At 82, I decided, why keep it a secret? I lived on my own terms. I’m not afraid of anything. Not even death. “I look forward to it. I don’t believe in the afterlife. But I want to know what happens when I die. I’m curious. If I come back like anything else, I think it will be a wolf or a polar bear, an animal that has a good life.”
Fleischman’s frankness places him in the minority, as most people who opt for assisted suicide play him close to the vest. For a while, he planned to do the same.
“I was going to Zurich and‘ would have a stroke ’while on holiday,” he said. “I think people are ashamed [of assisted suicide]. But there is no shame in what I am doing. He is correct and reasonable at my age. I’ve done everything, I’ve been everywhere and I’ve met everyone I want to meet. “
In fact, he considers that the very splendor of his existence makes it difficult to continue living in the current conditions. “If I hadn’t lived the way I did and had as much fun as I did, it could be different,” he said. “Right now I’m like a vegetable. It’s so hard to even get in the car. “
Fleischman grew up in Great Neck, Long Island, participated in the 1950s Harlem jazz scene and graduated from Cornell Hotel Management School. Always drawn to the elitist route, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy Officer Candidate School in the early 1960s as a means to avoid recruitment. He ran the officers’ club at a naval base in New Jersey and was released from service.
In the mid-20s, Fleischman, with an investment from his father, took over the Forest Hills Inn, a 300-room hotel located near the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium.
In the late 1970s he had a regular party at Studio 54, where he met club owners Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell. After the two were convicted of tax evasion in 1980, Fleischman met with them and their attorney Roy Cohn at a meeting in prison. It was agreed that he would take ownership of the club. He took on the debt of Studio 54 and, in a later agreement, transferred ownership of his executive hotel on Murray Hill to Schrager and Rubell, who turned it into the now-closed Morgans, which is said to have been the first boutique hotel. of New York.
Fleischman recalled that owning the studio was a blast. He was partying with Andy Warhol, Calvin Klein, Halston, Liza Minnelli and Cher.
“When you owned Studio 54, you suddenly became a semi-celebrity,” Fleischman said. “At 4 in the morning, I was taking a bunch of people in the limousine and we were going to Crisco Disco” -a place after hours, so called because of a favorite lubricant among Manhattan gays- where they drank a mixture of cocaine and ketamine powder made by the club owner. “There was great music and sex everywhere. I would go look for women. All the women who went there were easy.”
After five years, from 1981 to 1986, Studio 54 and the lifestyle that accompanied it had taken their course for him: “It can destroy you. You can only live like this for a while.
“I liked being tall. So I would drug myself and drink. Possibly, that [health condition] it’s because I drank a lot and took drugs. “
Still, he added, “I don’t regret any part of my life.”
A lined up Fleischman went straight to rehab stays at the Betty Ford Center and Rancho La Puerta in Mexico. He married Laurie Lister, director of the publishing house, in 1986. They had a daughter Hilary, who is still close to her father, but did not comment on the record about her decision, and they divorced in in the early 1990s after Fleischman returned to the nightlife business. with a Midtown hotspot called Tatou.
After moving to Los Angeles, he married Mimi in 1994 and partnered to open the hip-hop-focused Century Club in Los Angeles. He also entered the fitness business through a training studio, Bar Method. It all followed after an unfortunate project with Donald Trump. When the former president owned the Plaza Hotel in the early 1990s, Fleischman made a deal to open a club called Gauguin there. “While we were under construction, the hotel was awarded,” Fleischman revealed Page six. “Trump hadn’t told me. The bank came in like a ton of bricks.”
The basement club opened but was short-lived. “I lost a few hundred thousand [dollars]”And my investors lost more than a million,” Fleischman said.
In 2017, Fleischman published some sincere memoirs, Within the study 54 about his wild time, even taking out a $ 1 million ($ 1.44 million) defamation insurance policy in case someone sued him for spilling all the stories. Also in the book, he writes about the suffering he saw his father endure before he died.
“I saw my father sink. My legs were in a lot of pain. I couldn’t walk either,” Fleischman said. “He told me, ‘I want to die.’ I believed him.”
After losing his parents and brother, Fleischman has shared his suicide plans with the rest of his immediate family members. Everyone, he said, “can read about it.”
Mimi doesn’t think her husband is encouraged.
“As you prepare to go through the Pearl Gates, you may change your mind, but I don’t think you will,” he said.
“The more I think about it, the more I want to do it,” he said. “I fly directly to Zurich from LA. There will be no last party.”
This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission.