THE DOWNFALL OF

By ALVA JOHNSTON

• Born a Romanoff at the age of thirty, America's leading impostor (New York rogues' gallery No. 63,967) has now disintegrated into an honest businessman.

RI CE MICHAEL ROMANOFF, the leading impostor of the twentieth cent ury, has gone to pieces. The most iridescent scapegrace of our time has disintegrated into a successful businessman. This character, who was worthy to associate with the King and the Duke on Huck Finn's raft, today owns and operates Romanoff's Restaurant at 326 North Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, California. Mike, now fifty-three years old, was the cousin of the late Czar Nicholas. He was the morganatic son of Czar Alexander Ill. He was the man who killed Rasputin and the son of the man who killed Raspu­ tin. He was Prince Obolensky, Count Gladstone a nd Count de Rochemonde; Captain Dmitri, Captain Shaughnessy and Captain Chitterin; Rockwell K ent, William K. Vanderbilt and William Rockefeller. Also Prof. John William Adams, of Yale, Arthur Wellesley, Willoughby de Burke, William A. Wel­ lington, Fleming, Brighton, Ferguson and Gerguson. The entire cast of characters has now boiled down into a restaurateur. . "Restaurateur ,. used to be the most abusive epithet In the prince's vocabulary. The first Hollywood ex­ posure of the scintillating mountebank was made in 1927 by Gen. Theodor Lodijensky. an aristocratic Russian refugee who ran the Russian Eagle Restaurant in .L ew York City and later in Hollywood. The general presented film executives, who employed the

Prince Michael Romanoff; alias Count Glad. stona, Prince Obolensky, Captain Dmitri, Prof. John W. Adams, Arthur Wellesley, Willoughby de Burke, William A. Wellington.

9 casa L ISTa. The proprietor dines with three of his stockholders. Sad~faced Mr. Confucius, the dog who is listed in the tele­ phone book as owner of Romano"'s Restaurant, remains disconsolate even in the presence of Bob Benchley's wit.

prince as an authority on Russia. with evidence that A few years ago, when his life was one exposure after The little prince has foiled the Federal authorities as Mike was neither a prince nor a Russian; that he had another, Mike used to say that he was a social barom­ frequently .88 the little tramp has baffled Mack been in jail five times in England; that he was de~ eter- that only the phonies and upstarts couldn't Sennett poli~emen. !he ruling motive of both was to scribed by the French police as a habitual perpetrator afford to be seen with him. Today he is a sort of find a place III a SOCial system which ceaselessly threw of "escroquerie," meaning "picayune fra ud"; that he barometer of sycophancy-social climbers feel they them out. was known to the New York police as Harry Gerguson, have made the grade when they receive a curt nod or J ohn H a.y Whi~ney made his investment partly be­ of the lower East Side origin-No. 63,967 in the a few gruff words from the illustrious publican. ca~ of fne~~ship fo r Mike a nd partly becall se of a rogues' gallery. His list of backers is perhaps the most glittering drivmg ambitIon to get rid of his wealth. As SOOD as The film executives called in Mike to listen to catalogue of big names that ever supported a small the shares ~hre~tened to pay dividends, he gave them General Lodijensky's story. enterprise. back to Mike m terror. So did Benchley. By gifts The prince was amused. "I believe you're a restau~ Most of the backers, however, contributed only and purchase, Mike eventually acquired 51 per cent of rateur," he said. fifty dollars apiece-the price of one share of stock. the stock. The aristocratic RII~ian cringed as if Mike bad put Few of them expected a restaurant to develop out Benchley ~as, backed Romanoff enterprises for t.he brand of Cain on him. The executives squirmed. of it. They regarded it as one of Mike's scientific years. For Mike 8 use on one of his stowaway voyages The prince dismiR9ed them with a careless flip of his methods of making a touch. Many framed the cer~ to France. Be-?c.hl.ey wrote a To Whom it May Con­ hand-a characteristic Romanoff' gesture said to have tificate as a landmark in the art of dignified mooching. cern letter. enJolDlng the officials of all nations not to originated in Peter the Great's habit of throwing beef The biggest investors were Robert Benchley and John bother the prince. The letter stated that Mike bad bones over his shouJder at state banquets. Hay Whitney, $350 each; Charlie Chaplin and Rex ~ot stowed away thoughtlessly, but was engaged in Mike became a scourge of restaurateurs when he St. Cyr, $250 each; Ja.nes Cagney, $200. LDlJ>O.rta-?t research work on the stowaway problem. was born into the Romanoff family at the age of Charlie Chaplin's interest in Mike is obvious. The . Mike IS accepted in Hollywood as the top man in his thirty years. He has probably had more champagne character that Mike created and the little tramp that line. T~e fact ~at his line is imposture doesn't matter. Chaplin created are practically identical twins. They • and pheasant on bad checks than any other living Th~e IS nothing wrong with imposture in the world man. He has been .. in residence," as he calls it, on have the same physique and psychology, the same re­ capital of make-believe. Clark Gable is the first bad-check charges in Paris, Cannes, Grasse, New sourcefulness, a udacity, nonchalance and intrepidity. actor, Myron Selznick the first agent, Louella O. York, Cambridge, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Los Parsons the first lady, W. C. Fields the first comic, Angeles and many other places. Lows B. ~ayer the first magnate, Mike Romanoff During his palmy days, the prince sold hand­ t~e ~t LDlpostor. Nobody makes invidious dis­ painted old masters for Fifth Avenue dealers. He tmctlons among their fields of endeavor. spent several months in the Tombs after pocketing . Some of the czarlet's admirers credit him with mak ~ the proceeds of a sale of art for H. Michaelyan. The - mg snob~ ~d title worship ridiculous in America. dealer said later that nothing had ever hurt him hke They cODSlder 1t a healthy thing that a bootleg prince prosecuting the prince. from the lower East Side shouJd make himself more .. He is one of the most remarkable men alive," :amous and sought after than any of the genuine said Michaelyan ... I believe his nB me will go down in LDlported noblemen. history. Maybe mine will go down in history with Mike sold a little more than $6000 worth of stock L: .. ~m. and mduced a capitalist to build the restaurant. Michaelyan is a disappointed man. He has little ~hor~ge of funds caused the prince to act as his own chance of going down the ages with a restaurateur. m.tenor d~ator .. He beautified. the place chiefly Others who hoped for an honorable mention in the With portrruts of rumself. He got most of Ills table­ Romanoff epic have the same complaint. w.,are from a five-aDd-ten store, traded the furniture of There are extenuating circumstances. Mike grOS'3es his ~partment for a refrigerator, borrowed a few bottles more than $25,000 a month. He has more celebrities of liquor, and obtained the use of $250 for one night in his restaurant than his adopted ancestors ever had 80 that be could make change. ' in their palaces. N evertbeless, there is a tragic side The first night ~a8 big. The high spot of the evening The prince, who can smell rubber from afar, to it. It is like Casanova's sad end as a respectable carne when a W81ter presented the first bank check librarian or Micawber's finish as a prosperous judge. is rarely victimized by checks that bounce. from a customer to the new restaurateur. The prince • • 10 The proprietor and his home-designed coat of arms. Neither mad nor Russian, the Mine host permits himself to be greeted by a guest, movie starlet Patricia ersatz: Romonoff pays diligent attention to business, grosses $25,000 a month. Dane. Not easily awed, Mike sometimes snubs Hollywood's greatest stars. who has been no mean artist in passing bad checks nation with a population of one. He is a miniature Mike's face gives no due to his origin. Amateur himself, seemed stunned to find himself on the re­ commonwealt.h li ke Andorra or Monaco. ethnologists have puzzled about it for years. H e made ceiving end of suspicious paper. He peered at the Mike made a tactical error in his approach to the a mistake when he stepped into the vacancy in the check like a connoisseur expertizing a dubious Rem­ Government. H e had a library of letters of recom­ Romanoff dynasty, as there is no trace of the Slav in brandt. Pinching a corner of it between his thumb and mendation from American notables. They portray the him; he would have been morc plausible as the Great forefinger, he held it up to the light and peered at it little prince as a sainted and spotless character. It Mogul or the Akhoond of wat. His eyes are black, again. His eyes became unfocused and his jaws happens that supernatural virtue is not the best his complexion leathery, his hair tightly crinkled and worked. It was like the fluttering of the eagle that qualification for outwitting foreign agents and fifth black. except for a sprinkling of gray, his nose long, was hit by an arrow tipped with its own fcathers. columnists. If the testimonials had set forth the Iact straight and somewhat dented by knuckles and mono­ Finally Mike pulled himself together, gave a brisk that Romanoff had fooled more people than Ignatius grammed by seal rings. His voice. a bassoon with an nod and scribbled "O.K. MR" on the check. T . T . Lincoln or any of the other great international Oxford accent, throws no light on his origin. Neither Mike astonished students of his career with his spies, his services might have been snapped up. does his carriage, which is the typical royal slouch, diligent attention to business. H e is a perfect restau­ head bent forward, arms hanging well in front of the rateur, except that he has never learned the technique The Romanoff Riddle body, exactly as seen in the old newsreels of George V of measuring out his courtesy in exact accord with tile and Nicholas II. customer's importance. Afler one has been an heir IKE gave a convincing specimen of his talent for The most useful key to the Romanoff mystery is apparent, the difference between a star and an extra Mexposing masqueraders. One of the popular held by the residents of Hillsboro, Illinois, a town of is negligible. The best tables a nd service go to the figures in lively spots in Southern California was known 5000 about fifty miles northeast of St. Louis. The prince's oldest followers. whether they are riding high as Lieutenant Commander Bernstein. When the man prince arrived tbere in 1904 as one of a batch of ew or not. One night a waiter hurried to inform the was at lhe height of his vogue as a war hero wounded York orphans who were being settled. in rural com­ prince that Jack Benny, Robert Taylor and Barbara in the Pacific, Mike said, "He's a phony." munities. Mike, then known as Harry Gerguson, was StanwYCk were wait.ing for a table. The waiter, fresh People were shocked. They asked Romanoff how he taken in charge by Judge Kronck, a St. Louis lawyer from New York, where many a restaurateur would pay came to say such a lhing. who had retired to a farm near Hillsboro. The judge $1?OO to get such a party into his place, expected the .. I know a little about phonies," said Mike diffi­ sent him to a rural school. Here Mike adopted his pnnce t.o rush up to them, bowing and scraping and dently. "This man sometimes forgets to limp. Be­ first alias. The name of Gerguson sounded uncouth to making a t.remendous fuss. sides, his checks bounce." Mike's fellow students and subjected him to ridicule "The hell with 'em," said Mike. A few days later the FBI arrested Bernstein for He changed it to Ferguson. Mike's neighborhood consisted chiefly of vacant masquerading as a naval officer. After a few months. Mike, or Harry, quit the Kronck lots when he opened his restaurant. Within a year the Even in his own phoniest days, Mike was considered farm and returned to Hillsboro. Here he ran errands street was dotted with little temples of commerce. an infallible aut.hority on other phonies. On his first for meals, and slept in the Presbyterian churchyard. J ewelers, art dealers and smart haberdashers moved arrival in New York as Prince Michael Romanoff in The idea of a boy's sleeping out in lhe open-an in,. so that, their shop windows could catch the eye of 1922, he was in the midst of a large migration of unheard-of thing in Hillsboro-excited general sym­ ~Ik~'~ r.ich clientele. He doubled property values in Russian noblemen, genuine and otherwise. He con­ pathy. Family after family informally adopt.ed the his VICInity. ducted a sort of Heralds' College in New York speak­ boy, but these arrangements soon broke up, both sides Living up to his responsibilities as a pillar of the easies, authenticating some of his rival princes, expos­ complaining of intolerable grievances. co~munit.y. the prince gave a party in his restaurant ing ot.hers. At the period when princes were being im­ For a time Mike worked as a pants presser on Main whlch produced $2200 for Russian relief and another ported from the Caucasus by matrimonial brokers for Street. This experience is t.hought to have been in. which raised S11,ooo for the Red Cross. the heiress market, l\1ike was called on to appraise one valuable to him in later years. :Mike insists that he Mike left his restaurant last fall and went to Wash­ shipment of them. was a student at Oxford for three years, but other ington with some recipes for winning the war. During "They're perfectly genuine," said Mike. "Genuine aut.horities say that he worked there as a presser in a his stay in the capital, the prince tried to interest the Caucasian princes. Everybody in the Caucasus that clothing-repair shop. while using his talent as a mimic Government in his schemes for counterpropaganda owns two cows is a prince. It is a valid title, like your to acquire the British upper-class manner. At Hillsboro and counterespionage. His ideas were listened to, but title of mister." he attended the seventh grade and is remembered for ~e failed to get a war job which he had hoped for. It ·Vhen one of his rivals died, Mike reported that the his devotion to the Frank Carpenter geography books. 18 difficult for t.he Government to deal with the prince. father of the deceased prince had inquired anxiously~ He read these incessantly in class and stole them Mike's international status is that of an independent "Do I inherit the title?" from the school library in (Continued on Page 96) 11 96 March 20, 1943

in a German prison for killing a German THE DOWNFALL OF baron in a duel at H eidelberg. A little later the prince disappeared from Ellis PRINCE MIKE Island; the Romanoff legend has it that (Conf;nued from Poge 1 J) he swam across New York harbor with a silk hat on, but the immigration men order to read them at home. Continuing said he stowed away on a ferryboat. these studies in later years, h e became an encyclopedia of travel. Experts who at­ liHle Brother of the Rich tempted to tr ap Mike in his tales of ad­ venture in strange places found that i t A few days after his escape, Mike was like t rying to t rap Baedeker's. changed into Prince Obolensky. New Mike had a characteristic dream ]ue York newspapers printed a sympathetic at Hillsboro, but he developed no fancy interview with Obolensky on the troubles lineage there. The nobility had been of an impoverished noblema n seeking queered with the youth of America a employment . Everybody t hought it a few years earlier by the epidemic of little hilarious joke, he said, when he offered Lord Fauntleroys. The most illustrious himself as a secretary, a clerk or a laborer. creatures on earth in the imagination of The interview won him some gaudy boys of fourteen or fifteen were the con­ week ends, but no work. From there he gressional pages. One day Mike bade went to St. Paul, where he was feted by farewell to his schoolteachers a nd friends, railroad and lumber kings. One of his saying he was on the way to Washington rich friends sent him to the Graduate to accept an appointment as a congres­ School of Arts a nd Sciences at Harvard. sional page. He turned up a few days H e represented the university on a chess later at Litchfield, ten miles from Hills­ team a nd made a prodigious figure on boro, where he remained until he was the campus with his monocle, silk hat haled "into court for punching the super­ and sponge-bag knee pants, until he intendent of schools in the nose. He was was expelled fo r falsely representing him­ then sent back to a New York orphan­ self to have been a n Oxford student. A age. In 1910 the Hillsboro paper an­ brief period of splendor at Newport nounced that he had turned into the ended in exposure at R eginald C. Van­ son of the late Prime Minister William derbilt's bal masque. The gilded youth Ewart Gladstone. of Dan Moriarity's speak-easy in New On March 20, 1923, Harry came back York made a comrade of Mike. Paul to Hillsboro with a monocle, Malacca Mellon, son of Andrew W. Mellon, took stick and Oxford the prince on a vi.:; j .. accent, and deliv- to Pittsburgh. Old ered a platform lec­ familie..~ along the ture on the war. IF YOUR POST Hudson adopted He was a British M ike for spells of lieutenant and had varying length. another man's mil­ IS LATE D u ring vaca­ i tary pa pers to ... ,Despite the fine job which tions from t he es­ prove it. A few tates of million­ ., our overloaded trans porta. days la ter the St. aires, the prince Louis newspapers tion syste m is doing, all kinds li ved by the sweat announced t hat St. of transportation in wartime of his fountain pen. Louis was enter­ are uncertain. Military s up­ H e seemed to ha ve taining royalty a nd plie s, of course, must take pre­ a n honest con vic· prin ted pictures of cedence over civilian ship­ tion that he was Prince Michael ments. The Curtis magazines the injured party Romanoff. are s hipped from Philade lphia ever y time he Hillsboro people in what would normally be cashed a bad chec k; recognized the face that he was doing ample time to reach you on the in the pa pers as himselfan injustice that of little Harry regular publication date. If by parting with Oerguson, or Fer­ your Post is late, it is from his a utograph so guson, and the conditions beyond our control. cheaply. After he prince was exposed had t horoughly pa· by the St. Louis pered New York, Post-Dispatch. he went west in On October 20, 1936, the little prince 1927 a nd papered H ollywood. He re· stopped at Hillsboro on his way to t urned to H ollywood in 1931 a nd repa· Hollywood. Running true to form, he pered it. H e made the name of Romanoff was a greater celebrity after exposure so unworkable in Southern Califo rnia than before. H e received one of the t hat a nother impostor calling himself highest local honors-that of standing Prince Michael Romanoff, drowned him" on the platform in front of the court,.­ self at R edondo Beach. house and giving out the cash prizes on Mike is probably the only impostor in Trade Day. hi:otor,r ~ho is benefited by exposure. HIS victims usually like him better as In Search af an Accent Gerguson than as Romanoff. Phoenix, St. Louis and a few other places still Mike was nineteen years old when he feel shooting pains in t he old wounds graduated from the New York orphan­ when Mike reappears, but he is usually age. Having obser ved that the Oxford presented with t he keys of the cities accent was the heaviest social artillery which he ravaged. a man could have, he crossed the Atlantic H otel men honoI'"' Mike because he on a cattle boat in order to acquire it. saved them millions of dollars by forcing He spent years in England doggedly them to. reo rg~ze their protective .s:ts­ polishing himself. In 1915 he tried him­ tern agrunst agile fountain pens a nd Itin­ self out prematurely on English society erant potentates. under the name of Willoughby de Burke Mike outmaneuve,red the Federal and landed in jail. Ordered out of Eng­ authorities for the last time in 1932. land in 1921 for impersonating and Claiming to be an American newspaper· marauding, Mike became a spot of color man assigned to interview Andrew W. at the Ritz bar in Paris, where he was Mellon, he stowed away on the Europa taken up by wealthy Americans. Bad­ at Cherbourg and eluded the imnugra­ check trouble in Fra nce caused him to tion inspectors in New York harbor. migrate to the United SLates. The little prince was unable to live with· On his arrival here, he was detained out Royal Yacht pipe tobacco, w~c11 at Ellis Island. The authorities thought costs ten dolla rs a pound-a habit which that, although Mike had been in a New he contracted, he said, from David, as he York orpha n asylum at the age of three calls the present Duke of Windsor. :He his birthplace was Vilna. He was ordered went to a Fifth Avenue shop for a tin of deported for moral turpitude on his it and was arrested. statement that he had spent eight years (Continued on Poge 98) • 98 THE SATURDAY EVENING POST March 20, 1943 - (Continued from Page 96) career in Hollywood. Oviatt turned him EI Morocco, where he drank double .. Mike told me so, confidentially," Federal Judge John C. Knox and Assist­ into a sparkling bird of paradise. and healths to Great-great-great-aunt Cath­ said the prod ucer. ant U. S. Attorney William B. Herlands later told everybody that no other cus­ erine until he had faithfully disbursed The prince triBes a little with his took a sympathetic view of the case. tomer had ever been so punctual in his all the spending money except thirty former greatness. Over the entrance to Herlands described Mike as "8 product monthly payments. Dave Chasen let dollars, with which he tipped his waiters, his restaurant he erected a plaster shield of our public institutions" and said that Mike eat and drink on the cuff fOl" chauffeur and footman. Going home. he with a coat of arms consisting of cham­ he had .. never had a chance." He pre­ months at a time, but the prince turned found that the management. had plugged pagne glasses, corks, a cocktail bar dicted that the defendant would go up periodically with a surprisingly good the keyhole to his door for nonpayment sinister and other emblems of his current straight if released on a suspended sen­ check and settled his account.. From of rent. He spent the rest of the night in vocation. tence. Judge Knox ordered that no fur­ time to time M ike confounded old his old Winter Palace. the subway. When be had a touch of influenza, he ther effort should be made to deport friends by repaying personal loans. His Mike is definitely bourgeois today on called on Dr. Lee E. Siegel, saying, "The Mike, but sentenced him to three months improved credit helped Romanoff when the subject of bad checks. All the humor little monarch is ailing." in jail for perjury. Romanoff, in order to he opened his rest.aurant in December, has gone out of the No Funds stamp. "What was that?" asked t.he physi- shield friends who had helped to smuggle 1940. His $25,OOO-a-mont.h gross is painfully cl• an. him in from the Europa, had falsely Some students of the prince's career reduced by bouncing checks and mori­ "The prince is ill," said M ike. testified before a grand jury that he had resented his transformation into an bund signatures. Mike has a lofty con­ Although he could jest in t his way, he entered this country by way of Canada. honest burgher, but the sordid truth is tempt for the presen t generation of dismissed the trained nurse in a royal The judge and the prosecutor personally that the prince always had a bourgeois frauds and mountebanks. They have rage because she was no court beauty. urged Mike to mend his ways. This streak. Every now and then he used never learned their trade, according to humane treatment took effect. Roman­ to disappear (rom New York, return Mike; anybody can read them like a The Royal Purple off has never been in any serious trouble with the proceeds of some obscure trans­ book. One day when he was haranguing Sllee.• action and celebrate Restitution Day by about the incompetency of the curren t M ike will probably never quite get After a couple of difficult years in New paying back loans, squaring bad checks crop of phonies, the prince was asked over being a Romanoff. His imposture York, Mike turned farmer. John Wal­ and reveling in middle-class integrity. what advice he would give to a young was so thorough that he imposed on him­ ters, a New York broker, bought an He was a share-the-wealther when he phony just starting out. self. When he had a room to live in, it estate called Powhatan near Fredericks­ had it. A friend who housed and fed "I would advise him to stay out of it," was decorated with photographs of burg, Virginia, and put the prince in Mike during tough d ays in New York is said Mike. "There's too much competi­ Nicholas II and his family. In one of charge of it in 1935. The farmhouse was Frank Cetty, now a publicity magician tion." these the Czar and Czarina were sur­ in ruins. Sheep were living in it when rounded by relatives; Mike llsed to Mike arrived there under Lhe name of point to a small, blurred, unrecognizable John William Adams. rrhe prince, an in­ figure, saying, "Don't I look rid icu­ defatigable worker when the fit takes lous?" hold of him, repaired the house, cleared Once when he was in Jim Moriar ity'S a field and made a road. His chief com­ speak-easy just off Fifth A venue, im­ panions at Powhatan were a mare named migration officers arrived with a warra nt Betty and a cat named Gerguson. 231$13: for M ike's arrest. Moriarity told t he Friends from Washington, who visited prince he could escape through t he Mike shortly aft.er Christmas, 1935, kitchen. • found that. he had set up two Christmas . "A Romanoff escape through a trees decorated with tinsel, colored kitchen!" exclaimed Mike. globes and artificial snow for the mare "Your uncle, the Czar, did," said and t.he cat, and had made presents of a Moriarity. package of sugar lumps to Betty and a Honoring this precedent, Mike darted quart of cream td Gerguson. Word out through the kitchen. spread, however, that Prof. John Wil­ He once obtained work as assistant liam Adams, of Yale, had isolated him­ gardener at an estate on the Hudson self at Powhatan and was writing The River, where his Oxford accent and lordly Philosophy of History. manners created a mystery. In about a The mystery about the newcomer con­ week the mystery was solved. The tinued until George White's Scandals laundry maid carried Mike's silk under­ hit Richmond. Knowing everybody in shirt to the mistress of the house; em­ the show, Mike went to Richmond for broidered on it was the Romanoff coat one of his big nights. The press agent of arms. The little gardener was badg­ of the Scandals t.old reporters that the ered into a confession that he was p rince was in t.own, and t.he Powhatan Prince Michael of all the RlIssias a nd farmer was unmasked as the celebrated promoted to a guest chamber, where he RomanofT-Gerguson. remained for months. Later he was Mike quit. Powhatan in 1936. Arriving clearly demonstrated to be a fake, but his in New York, the prince said he was en hostess had become so charmed with rou te t.o Hollywood t.o make a pile of him that she insisted on his staying any money, so that he could retire t.o his I I way. His voluntary departure at a latel Virginia estate. Two friends gave Mike date excited general regret. sixty dollars one night on his promise to I .When Mike was unconscious of every­ take a bus westward the following day; i thing else, he was still conscious that he the following day the two friends dis­ was a Romanoff. The classic Romanoff covered Mike in the Canadian minister's " It's no use , Mrs. Tuttle; I just don't have a ny butter." line was uttered in the Great Northern box at an international polo game. Other Hotel in ew York, where the late Jack friends ga ve hi m fresh money and a Thomas, author of Dry Martini, Stanley broken-down auto, and M ike made his Sackett and others had taken Mike at way to Hollywood by slow degrees. in Washington. On one of his trips The prince dislikes to take dead beats four o'clock one morning after a speak­ abroad, Mike arrived in Paris with to court. A defendant. most of his life, he easy evening. The prince seemed to be Return From Elba twenty dollars in the toe of his right shoe. still hates plaintiffs. Occasionally, how­ d.>:ing. His friends thought a bottle of The first man he met was Getty. who ever, he gets tough by proxy through a mdk would S?-ve him. As he was being The first man he met there-Leo Mor­ had gone broke writing the great Amer­ hardboiled headwaiter. propped up 10 bed to drink it, M ike rison- lent him ten dollars and took him ican novel. As soon as Mike learned this, Mike has changed with the times. He seized the bottle and smashed it against to the Clover Club, where the cream of he took otT the shoe and split fifty-fifty no longer conspires to re-enthrone the the walt "What the hell!" he shouted. Hollywood welcomed him deliriously. with his for mer patron. Romanoffs. He is satisfied with Stalin "Grade B milk for a Romanoff!" It was Mike's return from Elba. H e was The finest example of Mike's punctil­ and is Jetting him stay. The little prince The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Company such an attraction that the management iousness in money matters took place on was furious when Ambassador Litvinoff, purchased the movie rights to Mike's life instructed a croupier to let him win small the night of the opening of the United on a trip to Los Angeles, dined at lD 19~2. Several scripts were written but Slims in return for honoring them with Artists picture, Catherine the Great, in Chasen's instead of Romanoff's. He the plc.ture was not made. partly because his visits. This was Mike's livelihood for New York, February 13, 1934. Monroe never opened champagne faster than the prlOce's career violated the unities months. After the Clover Club was Greenthal, the V.A. publicity chief, felt when he entertained Soviet officers on a and partly because a good comedy finisb closed. one of the leading night spots that the premiere of the movie about t.he mission to Southern California. was difficult, in view of the Hays rule offered the prince seventy-fi ve doUars a great Romanoff empress would not be Mike has never wholly abandoned the that transgressors must be punished in week to bring a party there four nights a complete without the great Romanoff ermine, however. New people often ask tbe last reel. week in order to give color to t.he place. impostor. Mike agreed to appear if the him if he is really a prince. He replies, Harry D' Arrast, the famous director Mike and his parties were free to eat and picture company furnished him with the "There's been a good deal of discllssion and one of the prince's oldest friends, drink what they liked, but tbe little following inventory- a stunning blonde. about that." He denies vehemently he is wrote a ve~on with a tragic encting prince rejected the employment as too $150 for a night's spending money. a or ever was Harry Gcrguson. and he hit based. on Mlke's invincible belief in his confining. Rolls-Royce with a liveried chauffeur a former ew York Times cinema critic own royalty. In this version Mike turns Mike gradually established a good and footman, the (ootman to wear a in the jaw for addressing him as .. Mr. up i:" Russia and is captured by Soviet credit rating for himself in Hollywood. tan stovepipe hat, tan coat with gold Gerguson." A Hollywood producer with soldJ"". As be is led before the firing buttons, scarlet vest and knee-high tan a seventeen-jewel, S7500-a-week brain FrankJy admitting that he had been a ~,uad. he is told, "If you will only say, dangerous risk in the past, he asked Jim boots with buff tops. All the items were recently told a friend that he had learned I m Harry Gerguson,' you will go free Oviatt, a leacting clothier, to trust him furnished. After the premi~re the prince Mike was a genuine Russian prince. and be welcomed as a comrade." with the meteoric wardrobe which is took his consort, one of the reigning "How ctid you learn that?" be was The prince shakes his head scornfully considered necesse ry to a meteoric Powers models, to the Stork Club and asked. and is executed.