Department: Life & Times

 

Mes chers amis,

Readers of my recent review of the Candid Arts Café will know that the love of fine art is woven into the very cloth every true Romanoff is cut from. While the last century has rarely seen a time when a member of our family could afford the genuine article, my great-uncle Mike Romanoff had the good fortune to examine many masterpieces at very close quarters.

At the end of WW2, Uncle Mike returned from the European battlefield aboard the Queen Mary alongside 15,000 of his comrades from 101 Airborne Division. True to his noble blood, Mike had distinguished himself in the field. For many months, shouted obscenities, near-constant fire, dirt and vermin had been part of his daily routine – he was in charge of the company canteen. It was an experience that would stand him in good stead when he founded Romanoff’s at 326 North Rodeo Drive, Beverley Hills.

Quayside on New York’s Ellis island, a large marching band awaited the returning warriors together with three dozen Blondes, courtesy of the famous Powers model agency. When the girls released a cloud of coloured balloons, our affection-starved veterans promptly replied with several thousand fully-inflated condoms.

Stepping off the boat, Mike was in for another pleasant surprise, in the shape of his old friend, film director John Huston. Huston wasted no time and took Mike for a welcome drink at his favourite bar, Moriarty’s on 58^th Street.

Over their drinks, Mike recounted enthusiastically his visits to art galleries in Paris, Rome and London.

“Geez, I don’t know about that, Mike,” Huston said. “But they’ve just opened the greatest cat house right here in New York, better than anything in Rome or Paris. What do you say?”

Mike, recently engaged to beautiful Gloria Lister, was reluctant. He agreed when Huston promised him a treasure of impressionist art into the bargain. A phone call and short taxi ride later, they arrived outside an imposing building on Park Avenue. Huston pressed the bell and a long-legged Brunette in a French maid outfit opened the door. “Oh – Mr Huston. What a lovely surprise!”

The maid led them to a most elegantly furnished drawing-room and served their drinks. Huston casually pointed to a Renoir on the wall. “This is a top-class joint, you understand. The Madam is famous for her girls – the most beautiful on the East coast.” He winked at Mike. “All services rendered – but she ain’t cheap!”

Mike was examining the painting with bulging eyes. “I can imagine – a genuine Renoir!”

“Well,” Huston said, lighting one of his trademark Panatellas,  “I hear she has this famous collector in her clutches. Pays her with the occasional impressionist. She’s even got a Monet hanging over her bed. You should see the wall – she gets so much action, the picture frame has smashed holes into the plaster.”

At these opportune words, the Madam herself stepped into the room. Petite and exquisitely dressed, she extended a hand which Huston enthusiastically kissed.

She turned to Mike. “I’m so excited to meet you, Mr Romanoff,” she purred. “We do have the occasional Royal personage amongst our guests, but nobody quite of your standing. Can I offer you anything?”

“Well,” Mike replied. “I’m sure this place is clean enough but I’d rather not give anything nasty to my fiancé. I just came over to have a look at the Renoir. Where are the ladies, anyway? I suppose all busy upstairs, banging their brains out?”

The Madam looked at Mike, horrified. It was at that moment that a grinning Huston introduced her formally – she was, in fact, Nin Ryan, New York City’s most sophisticated socialite.

I remain your devoted

 

Max Obolensky

 

*

 

My dear friends,

Readers of my recent article about the rediscovery of Troy will have an accurate picture of the prohibition-like conditions the committed imbiber faces in this great city of ours. Alas, the hardships that we Romanoffs have to contend with in the long years of our exile – present and past!

My late great-uncle Mike came up against the seemingly endless years of US prohibition. Unlucky punters craving a drink between 1920 and 1933 had to make do with speakeasies, those honourable establishments trying to evade the prying eye of the law behind the more mundane façade of the ice-cream parlour, diner or drugstore. This proved easier than expected – the US Congress gave their ‘anti-saloon league’ such a meagre budget that only 1500 prohibition agents were available to police 125 million parched souls. One agent, however, took on the challenge in spectacular fashion: Isidor ‘Izzy’ Einstein.

Uncle Mike met this staggeringly talented detective one night in 1923 at Moriarty’s, New York’s famous speakeasy on 58^th Street. Around one o’clock in the morning, as drinkers of all social strata toasted their good fortune with bad Scotch, there was a loud knock on the door.

‘Who is it?’ demanded the imposing doorman.

‘My name is Izzy Einstein. I want a drink.’

‘Slow down, buddy. What’s your business here?’

‘I’m a prohibition agent. My boss sends me.’

The doorman laughed and let him in. ‘That’s the best gag I’ve heard in a long time. Hey boss! This guy’s a prohibition agent. Says he wants a drink!’

Bar owner Dan Moriarty nearly burst his sides. ‘Anyone can say that. Come on, buster, let’s see your badge.’

Izzy coolly produced it.

‘What do you know – it even looks genuine,’ Moriarty said as he poured Izzy a drink.

‘There’s sad news,’ Izzy replied with his trademark phrase as he clapped the handcuffs on Moriarty. ‘It is genuine.’

 

‘You just don’t look like a government man,’ said a doubtful recruiting agent when Izzy first applied for a job. It was true – and the secret to his success. In his early 40s, bald and 5’6’’ tall, Izzy weighed a stately 225 pounds. His body mass was centred at waist level, making him walk like a majestic drake. Apart from English, he fluently spoke Yiddish, German, Polish and Hungarian and could make himself understood in French, Italian and Russian. He also had the rare gift to make other people trust him unquestioningly.

One night, at Reisenweber’s restaurant, he appeared in a tuxedo with a glamourous blonde girl on his arm. When he ordered two Martinis, the headwaiter cautiously asked for a reference. Izzy fished a business card from his waistcoat pocket but it turned out to be the one he had earmarked for the raid on a Jewish altar wine merchant. It gave his name as “Isaac Cohen – Rabbi.” Without batting an eyelid, the head waiter served the drinks. Izzy later said: ‘The guy deserved to be busted. Imagine a Martini-drinking Rabbi with a blonde – but without a beard!’

Another cornerstone of what he termed the ‘Einstein theory of rum snooping’ was Izzy’s choice of disguises. Wearing a porter’s white jacket, he once shut down a saloon opposite a hospital. For music bars he would play his trombone to suspicious door personnel.  In Coney Island, he entered a drinking joint in a wet bathing suit, shivering and gasping for a ‘cockle warmer’. Once he closed down six gin palaces in one night using his ‘docker stopping off for a nightcap’ guise, complete with a large glass of pickled gherkins. His repertoire included a violinist, a Polish count, a Texas rancher, a gravedigger, a French maitre d’, a travelling cigar salesman, a Chinese launderer and a Democratic party delegate from Kentucky – as the latter, he raided the 1924 Democratic National convention.

During his illustrious 5-year career, Izzy Einstein arrested 4,392 prohibition offenders and confiscated nearly five million bottles of illegal alcohol. My uncle Mike, whose  penchant for Russian vodka often saw him cross Izzy’s path, met the legendary agent shortly before his enforced retirement, once again at the re-opened Moriarty’s. New owner Jimmy Schenck was keen to avoid his predecessor’s mistake and plastered the bar’s walls with ‘wanted’ posters of Izzy’s likeness. One evening, a corpulent figure appeared at the bar and asked for Whisky. Schenck refused.

‘I don’t like the look of you. Haven’t I seen your face before?’ he asked.

‘Of course. I’m the famous prohibition agent Izzy Epstein.’

‘Sure, smart guy. Thing is, the man’s name is Einstein.’

‘My name is Epstein. I’m never wrong when it comes to my name.’

‘Your name maybe, but the bum you’re pretending to be is called Einstein. E-I-N-S-T-E-I-N. Got it?

‘Friend, it is Epstein.’

‘Einstein!’

They resolved their dispute like gentlemen – with a bet. Sad news – Izzy lost, paid for the double whiskeys he had staked, and took Schenck to the downtown jail.

 

Yours truly

Max Obolensky