Michael Romanoff

Michael Romanoff, born Hershel Geguzin on February 20, 1890, in Lithuania, was a Broadway performer, Hollywood restaurateur, actor, and con man who died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California, on September 1, 1971, at the age of 81. He emigrated to New York City at age ten and later changed his name from Hershel Geguzin to Harry F. Gerguson. He is widely known by the name Michael Romanoff, under which he built his public persona and career.

Romanoff appeared on Broadway in 1934 in the musical Say When. His connection to the stage extended beyond Broadway, as he is referenced in the 1941 film adaptation of Hellzapoppin', the screen version of the Broadway musical revue, in which a character modeled on his persona appears as a penniless Russian claiming false royal lineage to gain entry to high-society gatherings.

Throughout his life, Romanoff falsely claimed membership in Russia's imperial House of Romanov, at various times presenting himself as Prince Michael Dimitri Alexandrovich Obolensky-Romanoff and a nephew of Tsar Nicholas II, as well as under aliases including Count Gladstone, William Wellington, and Arthur Wellesley. The deception was widely understood to be fabricated, though press coverage generally treated it as a source of amusement rather than scandal. According to U.S.A. Confidential by Mortimer and Lait, published in 1952, Romanoff had previously worked as a pants presser in Brooklyn. The New Yorker ran a five-part profile beginning October 29, 1932, tracing his history through that year, including his deportation to France in May 1932 to serve time for fraud. U.S. immigration files also contain a record of a Harry Gerguson escaping from a hospital in 1923. Romanoff married Gloria Lister in 1948.

David Niven devoted a full chapter of his memoirs to Romanoff, recounting an episode in which Romanoff asked Niven to pass his regards to Commando chief Bob Laycock, whom he claimed to know from Eton. When Niven dismissed the claim, Romanoff produced a set of hair brushes bearing the Laycock family crest. Niven subsequently learned that Gerguson had participated in a cricket match at Wiseton, Nottinghamshire, the Laycock family home, as part of a coal mining team.

Romanoff is perhaps best remembered as the proprietor of Romanoff's, a Beverly Hills restaurant that operated from 1941 until New Year's Eve 1962. From 1941 to 1951, the restaurant was located at 326 North Rodeo Drive, before relocating in February 1951 to 140 South Rodeo Drive. The establishment attracted a prominent Hollywood clientele and served as a gathering place for figures including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, Sid Luft, and Myrna Loy. Romanoff himself was known to snub his patrons and preferred to take his lunch in the company of his dogs. The restaurant's décor featured comfortable booths, a waxed dance floor, and well-trained waitstaff, and its monogram consisted of a crown above two back-to-back capital letter Rs. The menu included items such as Waldorf salad, filet mignon, eggs Benedict, and frog legs, but the restaurant became particularly known for its individually portioned chocolate soufflés. Noodles Romanoff, a dish of wide egg noodles, sour cream, and grated Parmesan cheese, originated at the restaurant in the mid-1950s and later became a commercially distributed frozen food product sold in grocery stores. In 1959, Romanoff opened a second venue, Romanoff's On The Rocks, in Palm Springs, with Paul Whiteman and Red Norvo leading the house band; that location closed in 1962.

Romanoff appeared in at least twenty films and television productions, typically playing himself or taking bit roles as princes, noblemen, maitre d's, and other sophisticated European figures. He made an uncredited appearance in the 1960 film Strangers When We Meet and played the maitre d' in a studio recreation of his restaurant's interior in the 1967 Fox film A Guide for the Married Man. He was a guest on The Jack Benny Program radio broadcast on January 8, 1950, appeared on the December 8, 1950, episode of Duffy's Tavern, and was a contestant on the November 28, 1951, radio edition of You Bet Your Life, with the television broadcast airing the following day. On April 14, 1957, he served as a mystery guest on the television panel program What's My Line? His persona was also referenced in the original 1947 version of Miracle on 34th Street, in which a doctor compares Kris Kringle to a well-known restaurant owner who insists he is a member of the Russian royal family. In 1980, actor Alfred Ryder portrayed Romanoff in the film Bogie.