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Up for sale "Restaurateur" Michael Romanoff Hand Signed Album Page.
ES-4572
Harry F. Gerguson (born Hershel
Geguzin, February 20, 1890 – September 1, 1971), known as Michael
Romanoff, was a Hollywood restaurateur, con man and actor born
in Lithuania. He is perhaps best remembered as the owner of the
now-defunct Romanoff's, a Beverly Hills restaurant popular with Hollywood stars in
the 1940s and 1950s. He claimed to be a member of Russia's royal House of
Romanov (sometimes spelled "Romanoff" in English). This was widely
known to be untrue throughout his career, but press reports tended to treat the
deception as a humorous matter. The New Yorker ran a series of five profiles,
starting October 29, 1932, tracing Romanoff's history from birth until date of
publication, including his having been deported to France in May of that year to serve time for fraud. According
to U.S.A Confidential (Mortimer and Lait, 1952), though
Romanoff pretended to be Russian royalty, he was actually a former Brooklyn pants presser. Geguzin immigrated to New York City at age 10. He changed his name from Hershel
to Harry F. Gerguson some time after 1900 and married Gloria Lister in 1948. At
times, he passed himself off as "Count Gladstone the son of William Gladstone, "Prince Michael Dimitri nephew of Tsar Nicholas II, William Wellington or Arthur Wellesley. Romanoff
died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California,
in 1971 aged 81. From 1941 to 1962, Romanoff's was located at 326 North Rodeo
Drive, and had another location at 140 South Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. In
1951, it moved to a new location at 240 South Rodeo Drive.
Romanoff generally snubbed his clientele, and preferred to lunch with his
dogs. KCET's
Hadley Meares writes of the restaurant, which used an elegant monogram
consisting of a crown sitting over two capital letter 'R's back to back:
"The décor was masculine and clubby with comfortable booths, the dance
floor well waxed, the cigarette girls lovely, and the waiters While
Romanoff's featured a typical country club-style menu with items like Waldorf salad, tomatoes stuffed with crab, filet mignon, frog legs, eggs Benedict and sausages on toast, the restaurant
became known for its chocolate soufflés, which were served to each guest in an
individual portion. Although Romanoff's restaurant is also known
for popularizing the "American version" of the famous dessert Strawberries
Romanoff, it was actually created by Escoffier when he was the chef at the Carlton Hotel in
London – where he had originally called it "Strawberries Americaine
Style" - strawberries in Grand Marnier, blended into whipped cream and softened ice
cream.
Noodles Romanoff, a dish of noodles and cheeses that originally appeared
at Romanoff's in the mid-1950s, became a popular item often mentioned in
Hollywood reporting. Later, after Romanoff's went out of business, the dish was
served at Stouffer's Top of the
Rock Restaurant in Chicago. When Stouffer's closed that restaurant, the company
transferred Noodles Romanoff to its newly formed frozen food grocery division.
Soon, various companies' versions of Noodles Romanoff could be purchased in
grocery stores for preparation at home. It was a popular side dish on American
dinner tables through the 1960s, and recipes for it are widely available on the
Internet. The restaurant closed its doors for good on New Year's Eve in 1962; however, the exterior of
Romanoff's can be seen in the 1967 Fox film, A Guide for the Married
Man. Romanoff himself also plays the maitre'd in a sequence in
the film in a studio recreation of the restaurant's interior. In the 1960
film Strangers When We Meet Kirk Douglas and Barbara Rush are seen dining at Romanoff's restaurant.
Mike Romanoff himself make an uncredited appearance.
