The Limelight

A single photo taken in June 1981 skyrocketed the focus on the club, when celebrity photographer Guy D'Alema captured an image of Anita Bryant dancing the night away with evangelist Russ McGraw, known in gay communities as an activist.

Other celebrity sightings included Tom Cruise, Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson, Pia Zadora, Shannon Tweed, Gene Simmons, Rick Springfield and Mamie Van Doren,[3] to name but a few.

The club also served as a location for Hal Ashby's film The Slugger's Wife (1985), which starred Rebecca De Mornay.

"[5] In July 2010, several former Limelight employees – including Randy Easterling, Jim Redford, Noel Aguirre, and Aron Siegel – along with a few of their regular customer dancers – including Jonathan Spanier and Bret Roberts – produced "One More Night at the Limelight", a 30th Anniversary Party, at The Buckhead Theatre, formerly The Roxy Theatre.

[8] The steps to the entrance led to a hallway lined with museum cases that housed carnival like models dancing and generally moving about.

The alternative music scene was critical at the Limelight as it played late into the 5 a.m. hour in Chicago on Saturday nights.

[citation needed] From 1985,[9] the Limelight in London was located in a former Welsh Presbyterian church on Shaftesbury Avenue, just off Cambridge Circus, which dates from the 1890s.

In 2013 the Walkabout eventually ceased trading and the premises is empty and awaiting conversion to a new performing arts use by the charity Stone Nest.

The club in New York City, situated on Sixth Avenue at West 20th Street, was the most significant and infamous of all the Limelight locations.

In the early 1970s, when the parish merged with two others, the church was deconsecrated and sold to Odyssey House, a drug rehabilitation program.

His lawyer Ben Brafman claimed that the 80-page affidavit used to arrest Gatien contained no proof that directly linked him to drug distribution at the clubs.

He argued that it was "selective prosecution", due to the fact that Gatien ran such a huge operation, he could not be held individually or personally responsible for isolated pockets of drug dealing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Friendberg called the Limelight "a drug supermarket" where "massive amounts" of ecstasy as well as cocaine, special K, and rohypnol were used as "promotional tools to lure patrons to the club."

In the end, the government agreed on not accusing Gatien of personally selling drugs or profiting from the dealers operating in his clubs.