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The Plant has now reopened under its new management. "The only question from musicians was whether there would be marshals here, standing around in trench coats," says Claire Pister, the studio's manager. But the G-men, who generally visit only to pick up the mail, boast that the studio is doing better business than before they took over the place.
COSMETICS Dr. Barnard's Youth PotionAs the surgeon who performed the world's first human-heart transplant, South Africa's Christiaan Barnard helped his patients feel years younger. Now the doctor is taking a cosmetic approach to the same idea. He wants to help people take the years off their faces. Next month Barnard, 63, will visit Wall Street to tell investors about his new line of skin-care products, called Glycel, which promises to help erase wrinkles through a scientific process. Barnard and a team of biologists developed the formula at an institute in Basel, Switzerland. Barnard's business partner is a former banker who now owns La Prairie, a Swiss clinic where youth formulas were tried out by the likes of Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle.
Barnard claims that his new formula encourages skin-cell regeneration. He and the research team discovered the key ingredient in the hearts of cattle and tested the potion for five years on some 250 women. Glycel will be marketed by Alfin Fragrances, a Manhattan-based perfume maker. Alfin expects to introduce Glycel by February in about 500 tony stores. The product line will reportedly range in price from a $30 skin cleanser to a $195 package of five items.
MANAGEMENT Too Little Kick from ChampaleTerence J. Fox made his fortune producing Champale, a malt liquor that mimics champagne. Now Fox's downfall may come from a more expensive kind of kick: cocaine. Last week Fox, the chairman of Greenwich, Conn.-based Iroquois Brands (1984 sales: $142 million), pleaded innocent to charges of possessing $8,000 worth of cocaine. Police arrested the executive, 47, and a female companion in a Hartford hotel earlier this month after the officers allegedly spotted the drug lying openly on a bed. Police claim they also found equipment used to smoke the substance, a process called free-basing that produces an intense high. Hotel workers became suspicious of Fox partly because he registered under a false name, Michael McCarthy, but used a credit card with his real name.
The board of directors at Iroquois, which besides Champale sells such products as Romanoff caviar and Major Grey's chutney, has decided to let Fox keep his job for the time being. The chairman owns about 20% of the company, which he built from a small brewery that he took over in 1965. Fox could legally retain his title even if he goes to jail. But if convicted of the crime, he could serve as much as seven years in prison.