The story of ‘Disco Sally’ the Studio 54 pensioner
The ideals of music all suggest that getting old is too boring to consider, but that’s a little off course. There are two schools of thought about the process of getting old, and one can probably guess which one Disco Sally belonged to.
The first is that you’ve had your fun. That you should age with grace and dignity, winding down your life with as little fuss as humanly possible, getting your affairs in order and at the very most, indulging in the occasional bingo night when you don’t have to help out with the grandkids. The second is that the moment you get old, you should stop giving the slightest of fucks about what anyone thinks of you and do precisely what you want.
Sure, if what makes you happiest is the occasional bingo night with the ladies and helping out with the grandkids, have at it and cherish those moments. If what makes you happy is getting loaded and dancing at the single coolest nightspot in the western world, have at it and cherish those moments. That’s not hyperbole either; that was the experience of Sally Lippmann, who wrote herself into Studio 54 folklore as Disco Sally, one of the coolest septuagenarians to ever live her side of David Byrne.
She was living proof that the disco capital of the world was genuinely for everyone. A cursory glance at the Studio 54 dancefloor every night would have shown a relatively wide range of humanity, but it would have also been terrifyingly young. Then, you’d see Disco Sally leaping into the arms of a muscle-bound hunk a third of her age and realise that yes, Disco really is for everyone with no exceptions. Even those with first-hand memories of the First World War.
So, who was Disco Sally?
What makes the story even better is that Sally Lippmann led a pretty incredible life outside of her twilight years. This was far from the normal, oft-told tale of rebellion in later life, where someone realises they’ve never done anything in their salad days and decides to live hard while they still can. Sally was a lawyer, a successful one at that, married with a family who loved her. Her husband passed away when she was 70, and she looked set to take the quiet way out. Then the strangest thing happened.
In her grief, she discovered something that could make all the sadness go away. The sweet-sweet sounds of disco and the sweaty-sweaty smells of the dancefloor. She discovered the New York nightlife scene at quite possibly the best time to do so, the late 1970s and went all in on it. Not only giving it her all on the dancefloor but dressing the part too, sometimes turning up with a phallus-shaped wreath on her head to complement her dazzling dress.
The love she found wasn’t only for the music, but also for the people there. She met her second husband, 28-year-old Johnny Touzos, on the scene and married him in 1980. She even had a club opened in her honour a few years afterwards. However, this wasn’t to last, and she passed away two years later at the age of 82. The absolute dictionary definition of going out on a high, and a reminder to us all that it’s never too late to do the things that give us joy!