'Halston' on Netflix: Did Someone Really Die in the Studio 54 Vents?

Halston on Netflix features some moments of very disco-era debauchery, but one moment seems particularly lurid. Episode 4 begins by telling the story of Studio 54, a legendary New York nightclub famous for its celebrity clientele and excess.

The episode, titled "The Party's Over", also makes reference to a famous story about the discotheque. In an early scene, we see a woman turned away from the club, only to try and sneak in through the air vents. The next day, Halston (played by Ewan McGregor) learns that the woman died in the vents of the club.

Did someone really die in the vents of Studio 54?

Many websites that have written about the excesses of the club mention the story of someone dying in the air vents, but almost none of them tell us the source of the anecdote. Many might therefore be inclined to think it is an urban myth.

However, it seems like it really did happen. Or, at least it did according to club promoter Baird Jones.

In Anthony Haden-Guest's book The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night, Jones details the lengths that some people would go to to try and get into the club frequented by celebrities such as Grace Jones, Andy Warhol and Halston.

He said: "We would have this situation where people would climb down from the building next door in full mountain-climbing gear...They would tangle in the barbed wire and fall to the cement pavement which was ten feet below.

He then goes on to tell the story that inspired the scene in Netflix's Halston: "This guy got stuck in a vent trying to get in. It smelled like a cat had died. He was in black tie." The identity of this person, however, has never been publicly revealed.

In the show, the gender of the deceased person is flipped, so that it is a woman trying to get in.

The reason for this gender switch seems to be that it sets up a piece of black humor that itself sets up a major plot point of Episode 4.

Joe Eula (David Pittu) tells team Halston: "They found a dead body in one of the air vents. Some crazy girl from Mamaroneck. She was trying to get in...and that's not the worst part. She was wearing Calvin Klein."

As much of that episode is about Halston losing ground in his business to rivals like Klein, this sets up the episode in a way that the figure in the vents being a man would not, as Halston did not design menswear.

Though the death in the vents seems to be a real one, the scene in which the team read about it in the paper seems to be an imagined one.

Halston is streaming now on Netflix.