His spirit moved from Mannheim Road to the White House: William Robinette, RIP.
Dancing Mr. President and Mr. Bill. (Courtesy of Robinette family.)
William Robinette was more than the ringmaster of the amazing Stay Out All Night Disco in west suburban Stone Park.
He was a ringmaster of life.
Mr. Robinette died Tuesday afternoon after an extended illness. He was surrounded by his family and grandchildren. He was 73 years old. On March 12 he celebrated his 52nd anniversary with his wife Darlene.
Affectionately known as “Mr. Bill”, Mr. Robinette was an accomplished bassist-vocalist who in the early 1970s played in the touring bands of the Marcels and the Vogues. In the 1980s, he was a WWF ring announcer at the Rosemont Horizon and later portrayed Santa Claus for President Barack Obama. I never saw him without a kind smile.
I came to know Mr. Bill during the late 1980s when he was the red cummerbund and tuxedoed manager of the Stay Out All Night, 1616 N. Mannheim Road in Stone Park. The Stay Out opened in 1979 and stayed open until 1994. Mr. Bill ran the party for the entire run.
The kindest of souls.
With a capacity of just under 300, the bar was known for a last call that was 8 a.m. on weekends and 7 a.m. on weekdays. The Stay Out owned a 23-hour liquor license. Time was irrelevant and where else can you say that? There were no windows in the club and Mr. Bill sold cheap sunglasses to customers leaving in the morning.
These convenient hours made Stay Out a popular destination for circus people, professional wrestlers, strippers, grifters, third shifters, and bad disco dancers. The all-night DJ was Ron Day. During this exciting period of my life, I may have imbibed a little too much. I visited the Stay Out with my late editor-wrestling fan Lon Grahnke, beloved club owner Bill FitzGerald, some of his waitresses, and a few wayward journalists.
Others that dropped into the Stay Out included Weird Al Yankovic, actor Forest Whitaker, Herman’s Hermits, who did an impromptu rockabilly set, and former Utah Jazz forward Tom Chambers who was a schoolmate of Stay Out doorman/Windy City Wrestling tag team champion Hurricane Smith. Chambers’ photograph hung in the club’s VIP room which was previously a coat room. Long after the Stay Out went dark, Mr. Bill found delight in teasing me about the secret camera he kept in the VIP room.
“Some of my best memories are when the Ringling Brothers folks came out after the circus (in nearby Rosemont),” Mr. Bill told me in 1994. “They’d juggle ashtrays. Perform handstands on our chairs. Or the time wrestler Arn (“The Enforcer”) Anderson left his underwear under the table in the VIP room one night. Nutty stuff.”
The club even had its house band, the four-piece Stay Out All Night Band.
In 2018 I invited Mr. Bill and the band to my WGN-AM radio show for a reunion gig, which is probably another reason you don’t hear me anymore on WGN-AM. Mr. Bill tore up the studio by singing a gritty version of Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally.” The band sometimes was horn-driven so it pleased Mr. Bill the night that David Clayton-Thomas of Blood, Sweat, and Tears stopped into the Stay Out.
Stay Out Band, L to R: Mr. Bill, Jimmy Johnson, Bob Cesario, and Bert Johnson.
For my WGN show Mr. Bill brought along confidant and original Stay Out drummer Bob Cesario, whose late father Vic “Caesar” Cesario was a Chicago jazz musician who played drums for Marilyn Monroe and wrote President Richard Nixon’s campaign song “Nixon’s the One.” Vic produced and financed the 1986 Stay Out Band album “Staying Out All Night.” Cesario recalled how the Stay Out band would begin their sets at 2 a.m. and play until 6 a.m. Then Cesario would scoot off to his gig at the Cook County Sherriff’s Department where he was known as “The Singing Sherriff.”
Cesario met Mr. Bill in 1978 when the club was being transitioned from the Earth Lounge, a tough country-rock bar to the Stay Out. Cesario was a bouncer at the Earth Lounge. “Bill was the greatest manager of any club there was,” Cesario said on Wednesday. “Bill always put on a contest and that was his way of having fun. And he drew people. He did comedy shows. He was very friendly. He was nice to everybody. That’s what made the club popular.” The Stay Out hosted a Sunday comedy night that attracted acts like Emo Phillips, the late Judy Tenuta, and a young Jeff Garlin.
Mr. Bill and Priscilla Presley at the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles.
Popular Dean Martin-Sinatra song stylist Tony Ocean, a.k.a. Moe Carrera, knew Mr. Bill for more than 35 years. “We hung out at the Thirsty Whale (in River Grove) all the time,” Carrera said on Wednesday. “I was playing and I was in the audience. I was in a (pop-rock) band called Broken Heart in 1985.
“When the Thirsty Whale closed at 2 a.m. everybody went to Mannheim Road. The Stay Out Disco! Mr. Bill took a liking to me and every rock band I had I was able to showcase there–before I became Tony Ocean. We were there practically every night of the week.”
In 1992 Carrera’s power pop band Big Bang Rodeo appeared on the television show Star Search and Mr. Bill loaned them his club for a live showcase for Arista Records.
“And I remember when Moe Howard’s daughter of the Three Stooges and Larry Fine’s (Larry of the Stooges) daughter did a book tour,” Carrera said. “They had a trivia contest at the Stay Out sponsored by Pepper’s Water Beds. The daughters were doing the trivia questions. I won the contest which was the bed, the dresser, and everything. My name is Moe, what are the chances of me winning that? There were so many cool things that happened there.
“We did a benefit two or three years ago for Mr. Bill with his some of his Stay Out era musicians at Rosati’s in Streamwood to raise some money because he wasn’t doing too well.
“He was always there for us.”
Passage to adventure. From the author’s archives.
Mr. Bill was born in Cumberland, Md. His parents owned a brass and silver plating shop in Pittsburgh where he grew up. He remained a Pittsburgh Steelers fan his entire life and watched weekly games in Lombard with the Chicago area Steelers fan club.
In 1974 Mr. Bill went into the sound business working for Heil Sound, Centaur System, and Advanced Audio in Iowa. His clients included Boz Scaggs, McCoy Tyner, Herman’s Hermits, reggae star Jimmy Cliff and others. His sound system background brought him to Chicago in 1975 which included doing installations in area studios, roller rinks, and discotheques.
Mr. Bill’s work ethic and marketing concepts at the Stay Out were from a time that is unfamiliar in today’s world. He created the pure Stay Out disco motif that included bordello-red lighting, black foam ceiling, fake ferns and brass railings. Upscale people went to the Snuggery. The working class went to the Stay Out.
“I put the sound and lighting in,” he told me. “I helped design the club. I did all the wet T-shirt contests, buns contests, legs contests, and the dance contests.” Mr. Bill stayed on board throughout the mid-1990s when disco died and the Stay Out transitioned into the Shaboom Nite Club that closed earlier than Stay Out—6:30 a.m.
The Stay Out thrived on a late-night strip that was a blue-collared Rush Street. Besides the Stay Out there were Games People Play, 1741 N. Mannheim in Stone Park, and Joy C’s Cockpit Lounge in the dank basement of the old Air Host Motel, 4101 N. Mannheim in Schiller Park. One of the greatest things about the Stay Out was that it was directly across the street from the Stone Park police station.
Despite the notorious hours of the Stay Out, Mr. Bill was a devoted family man. Mr. Bill was Mr. Rogers compared to someone like Steve Rubell at New York’s trendy Studio 54.
“Family was the most important thing to him,” his son Tim Robinette said on Wednesday. “It always was and it always will be. He always made sure we had excitement. He wanted to make sure we were having a good time, going on trips, and seeing new things. We were blessed to have such an amazing father.”
Long after Mr. Bill exited the nightlife game, he became a nationally known Santa Claus. He even landed a national entertainment Santa Claus magazine shot with Eva Longoria.
Courtesy of Bob Cesario.
His former harmonica player Buzz Krantz always egged the rotund Mr. Bill about taking on the holiday gig. “I said, ‘Buzz, I’ve been a Santa Claus all my life,” Mr. Bill told me in 2018.
Mr. Bill’s manager Cynthia Davis heard about Santa Claus casting calls for the annual White House tree lighting ceremony. Mr. Bill won the audition and made an annual Washington, D.C. Christmas appearance between 2012 and 2016. He also began volunteering to work Santa gigs on Christmas morning at the Omega restaurant in Schaumburg. Who else would go from Obama to Omega besides the fun-loving Mr. Bill?
Reese Witherspoon & Mr. Bill in Washington, D.C. (Courtesy of Bob Cesario.)
Singer Mariah Carey’s team saw Mr. Bill-Santa in Washington, D.C. They were looking for a jolly ol’ Nick who could sing and dance with Carey. “I got the job,” Mr. Bill said. “I didn’t sing with her, but I danced with her. The tree lighting ceremony was great. That’s where I met the president. I hugged the president, I high-fived the president, danced with the president, and sang with the president. It was an awesome time.”
It was a serendipitous time for a jovial entrepreneur to connect with a politician that was identified with hope. For a man who was known for the Stay Out All Night, William Robinette knew the value of every new morning.
William Robinette is survived by his wife Darlene, daughter Tracy, son Tim, and grandchildren Cassidy Ryan, Kyler James, and Troy Marvin. Arrangements are pending.
Rip Bill you always had a smile on your face and made people laugh. Cuz I Will he was a good father and a good husband to Darlene his wife. He would Rock the world and children. He gave his all miss my cousin Lynn .