CHIPPENDALES, PLAYBOY and the murder of Dorothy Stratten

Chippendales was born in 1979 from a West Hollywood club called “Destiny II” owned by Somen ‘Steve’ Banerjee and Bruce Nahinwned when promoter Paul Snider suggested that they have an all-male strip revue. Destiny II’s owners were trying anything to attract attention to their club, so they decided to try out Paul’s idea. He was inspired by an all-male strip club in Canada that catered to gay men. His idea, however, was to have an all-male show for women. Paul’s idea turned into an international sensation but ended in murder and mayhem for him.

The club’s new name wasn’t born from two dudes named Chip and Dale, it was inspired by the Chippendales furniture that decorated the original club.

Paul also had connections to the Playboy empire. His girlfriend Dorothy Stratten was the Playboy Playmate of the month for August 1979 and Playmate of the Year for 1980. Paul was the one who submitted her photos to Playboy in 1978. Dorothy said in a Canadian interview that she had to be talked into posing nude by Paul, she had originally not wanted to do it. “It took him a little while to talk me into agreeing to taking some test pictures,” Dorothy said in the interview. “I had never taken my clothes off for anyone I didn’t know… It took me about two weeks to agree.”

After Dorothy was accepted into the Playboy inner circle the couple was spending a lot of time at the mansion hobnobbing with Hugh Hefner and his crowd. Dorothy even suggested to Paul that Chippendales borrow the idea of adorning his dancers with cuffs and collars like the Playboy bunnies. Thankfully for Chippendales, Hugh Hefner didn’t mind the influence of Playboy’s style on Chippendales.

“Everybody loved Dorothy. People saw her and they knew: ‘This girl has it.'” Sondra Theodore, Hugh Hefner’s girlfriend at the time, said about Dorothy in Discovery +’s Curse of the Chippendales. She thought Dorothy had the potential to turn her Playmate of the Year title into something bigger. The attention Dorothy got from Playboy was already leading to acting roles in TV shows Fantasy Island and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,” and a sci-fi comedy movie called Galaxina. Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich later said he had fallen in love with Dorothy and had written a role for her in his movie They All Laughed,

Paul and Dorothy got married in June 1979, but their relationship faltered after Dorothy was awarded the 1980 Playmate of the Year title in April 1980. After Dorothy became a Playboy darling, Paul started to get jealous. Hugh Hefner started overseeing her career, and at her acceptance speech for Playmate of the Year she thanked her Playboy photographer Mario Casilli, calling him her “other half.”

Hugh Hefner actively tried to block Paul Snider from Dorothy’s life after she was named Playmate of the Year. He tried to keep Paul from being photographed with her because Hugh Hefner wanted all the credit for “discovering” Dorothy. They were also not pleased with Paul’s behavior around all the beautiful women at the mansion. He was even caught cheating with Dorothy’s makeup artist.

Paul coped with the positive stress of Chippendale’s success and the negative stress of being blocked from his wife Dorothy’s stress by overindulging in alcohol and other drugs, which enhanced his growingly arrogant behavior. At some point, his substance abuse and attitude got so bad that Chippendale owner Steve Banerjee fired Paul, who had never signed a contract. He left Chippendales with nothing even though he had been the one who came up with the idea of a male strip show.

Paul now had no income at a time when his wife’s career was accelerating. The final straw for him may have been when she turned down a merch poster idea he designed for her. “As she started to slip away, he started to realize he owned nothing,” Mariel Hemingway said to 20/20 about Paul’s state of mind at the time. “He wasn’t doing anything, nobody was admiring him. Hugh Hefner’s not going to call him back… and then this deep, deep, deep, freaky thing that was going on inside of him took control and he lost it.”

Paul was desperate and had nothing left to cling on to. Doors were opening up for Dorothy while they were shutting for him. Dorothy was also moving on from him completely and in with director Peter Bogdanovich. Paul and Dorothy were going to get divorced.

On August 14, 1980, a little more than a year after Dorothy and Paul had gotten married, Paul tortured and then shot Dorothy Stratten when she showed up to negotiate a divorce settlement with Paul. He then killed himself. Their housemates Dr. Stephen Cushner and Patti Laurman were upstairs watching TV when it happened. They thought the former couple was working out their divorce and getting along when things got quiet, but when they came downstairs they discovered a gruesome scene.

Paul had bought the shotgun from the classified ads and had picked it up the night before he murdered Dorothy.

Secrets of the Chippendales Murders is airing Monday nights on A & E at 10/9 c

Curse of the Chippendales series is streaming on Discovery +

Podcast Welcome to Your Fantasy about Chippendales is streaming on Spotify