The Hulu limited series Welcome to Chippendales is based on the true story of Somen "Steve" Bannerjee and his improbable rise as an Indian immigrant working at a gas station to the man who made male strip clubs a classy destination for women.
Bannerjee's path to wealth and fame was actually a harrowing story fraught with arson and death, and this is the story that has been fictionalized in the Hulu series starring Kumail Nanjiani as Bannerjee, Murray Barlett, Annaleigh Ashford and Juliette Lewis.
Welcome to Chippendales is based on the book Deadly Dance: The Chippendales Murders by K. Scot Macdonald and Patrick MontesDeOca.
As with many docuseries like The Staircase and A Friend of the Family, the lines between reality and fiction tend to blur. Let's break down the facts and fiction behind Welcome to Chippendales. All of our sourcing is based on Deadly Dance.
Who was Somen "Steve" Bannerjee?
Somen Bannerjee was an Indian immigrant who came to America in search of a better life and the ever-elusive American dream. He was born in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1946. Bannerjee was the fourth generation of printers in his family, but printing was far from his dream.
Unlike the series, which shows him working at someone else's gas station, in reality upon his arrival in Los Angeles he started going by the name Steve and bought a Mobil gas station in Playa del Rey near Los Angeles International Airport.
Being a gas station manager was never his ultimate goal. While he made good money, he saved it up in hopes of obtaining something bigger. He dressed fashionably and read business journals, educating himself both intellectually and socially to present the image of a man of means. Interestingly, in his native Bengali his name Somen is pronounced "show-men." He wanted to live up to his name.
The series paints a very inspiring picture of Bannerjee in the first two episodes, but it turns out that Bannerjee's cutthroat tactics were already in place early in the club's history. We're sure to learn more about his criminal history in future episodes.
Was Chippendales originally a backgammon club?
In the series, Bannerjee's dream is to open an elegant, exclusive backgammon club where players could gather. He saved his money from the gas station so that he could leave his job and purchase the building that would house his new club, Destiny II. It doesn’t take long for Bannerjee to realize that LA didn't need a backgammon club and soon the club undergoes a transformation from disco to male revue.
In reality, Bannerjee and several business partners purchased the failing dance club Round Robin. After a few weeks and not enough income to support the club's costs, Bannerjee changed the name to Destiny II and came up with drink specials to lure women to the club; if more women attended the club, that meant there would be plenty of men lining up as well.
After a costly remodel, things improved a bit, but not fast enough for Bannerjee's business partners. He ended up buying them out to become the sole owner. He immediately implemented a new price scheme for drinks, making them cheap early in the evening and slowly raising prices throughout the night in hopes that inebriated customers wouldn't notice. That worked, too, but it still wasn't enough.
Bannerjee, who went to other bars and clubs to find ideas to steal for Destiny II, discovered a strip show for women at a biker bar in Redondo Beach. Now that he didn't have to answer to business partners, Bannerjee put ads for male dancers in the paper and started hiring.
Thus Chippendales was born.
Did Paul Snider work for Steve Bannerjee?
When Nanjiani's Bannerjee connects with Paul Snider (Dan Stevens) and his Playboy bunny girlfriend Dorothy Stratten (Nicola Peltz Beckham), he offers Snider a stake in the business in return for his help marketing the fledgling club. By the end of the first episode, Snider and Stratten are found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
In August 1980, Stratten and Snider were found dead in her home. The 1980 Playboy Playmate of the Year had been estranged from her husband, Snider, who didn't want to lose her. Instead, he brutally attacked and raped. He then killed her before turning the shotgun on himself.
Snider's connection to the club came from him producing a female mud wrestling show for the club over a period of several months and his contract was eventually cancelled when the show didn't make any money.
Bannerjee was furious that the media was linking Snider to the club, which only stirred up negative sentiments about the club and hurt business.
New episodes of Welcome to Chippendales drop every Tuesday on Hulu and we’ll keep updating this article as the show airs.
