NIGHT CLUB SECRETS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21467, 15 April 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

NIGHT CLUB SECRETS

PRINCES AND PEERS MRS. MEYRICK'S STORY MORE REVELATIONS Manv remarkable revelations of Lon. don night-life, of princes, peers and financiers on pleasure bent, of squandered fortunes and enormous profita made from night-clubs, appear in « Secrets of the 43," the reminiscences of the late Mrs. Meyrick, the '• Night"' dub Queen." The proofs of the book, the publishers state, wer& finally corrccted only a few hours before Mrs. Meyrick's death. Whole chapters of the book read more like Chicago than London. ordinary law-abiding citizen will read with astonishment of gangster raids, robberies at the revolver's point, win-dow-smashiiigs, doors battered down, and similar acts of violence happening frequently within a few hundred yards' of Trafalgar Square. " No. 43 " was the addrc.ss of .Mrs. Meyrick's most famous night-club in Gorrard Street " I went into nightclubs," she says, " simply because I discovered that men will pay anything io be amused. The provision of pleasure and amusement is the one trade in the world in which the buyer rarely counts the cost. . . The Englishman may take his pleasures sadly, but ho does not take them in niggardly. fashion." Clarence Hatry's Visits Between 1919 and 1932, Mrs : Mey. rick admits something like £500,000 passed through her hands. Door-money alone brought in £IOO,OOO. She sold £50,000 worth of champagne. A good week would bring in £IOOO, of which £SOO would be profit, and at her death the whole lot had melted aua\. Clarence Hatry, the financier who came to grief in January, 1930, was one of Mrs. Meyrick's visitors. He always, she said, had a touch of theatricality about him, and she repeats this story from a very close friend: " When disaster first threatened Hatry it seems he confided everything to an acquaintance of great wealth and appealed to him for help. ' Give me 48 hours and I'll save you,' was the reply. But in less than half that time the acquaintance had ruined Hatry by communicating to most interested parties the facts which had been confided to. him. The day after Hatry's arrest the false friend received a bulky package. It contained a roll of foolscap paper, and in the middle of the first page was written the single word 'Judas!'." There is a glimpse of another financier—the ill-fated _ Alfred Lowenstein —protesting furiously against being asked to pay a 10s entrance fee and getting in without it. Later he gave Mrs. Meyrick advice about investments which would have been worth £150,000 if she had sold out when ha told her to. King Carol of Rumania One of Mrs. Meyrick's most frequent visitors, according to her story, was King Carol of Rumania, who, she says, never touched alcohol, was careful in his expenditure and was always quiet and dignified. " King Carol was very reticent about his affairs," says Mrs. Meyrick, " and only once did he mention the beautiful Madame Lupescu to me. But when he did mention her his romantic dreamy eyes lit up with tenderness. He called her ' Bebe,' and he said to me, She is so very charming. If you could meet her you would love her too. My wife and mother do not understand.' And he concluded with a shrug of his shoulders. On another occasion he said, ' -Sirs. May-rick, do not envy kings! Our lives are not our own. We have no freedom in love or anything else.' " A very different personality was Prince Nicholas, King Carol's brother. Once he told Mrs. Meyrick that ha hated to be reminded of his rank and asked her to instruct her staff accordingly. Mrs. Meyrick agreed, and ho went downstairs to dance. In less than five minutes, however, she was astonished to see him come rushing back into her office in a fuming rage. " Mrs. Meyrick," he exclaimed, hi 3 voice shaking with anger, " here is one of your girls downstairs who refuses to dance with me. It is monstrous. I am insulted. She cannot talk to a Prince like that. You must come down at once and tell her who I am. You must make her dance with me." Royalty in the Kitchen On another visit a messenger arrived for the Prince, but he was nowhere to be found. Eventually the news arrived that ho was in the kitchen. " We walked in," savs Mrs. Meyrick, "and there an amazing sight met our eyes. Perched on the edge of a wooden chair sat the Prince, and opposite him was oyr cook, with a fryingpan full of crisp, sizzling potato chips, with which she was feeding her royal visitor." To Mrs. Meyrick, Ivar Kreuger, another habitue, was "just a splendid friend." He once said to her, " Moneymaking is a child's game—a game for fools." Quiet and shy as Kreuger was, he loved beauty in the abstract, and on one occasion this was illustrated in a most charming fashion. Mrs. Meyrick noticed him watching with every sign of pleasure the dancing of one of j her hostesses. • When the dance was over I he requested lier to introduce him to j the girl. On being presented to the girl, ha folded up a £SO note and handed it to her with this delightful little speech: "Please take this. Thrills of enjoyment are getting few and far be- ; tween, and when one enjoys one should J male offerings. Do accept this little ! offering—it was worth far more. You're j a wonder!id dancer. Have you thought lof taking up ballet, dancing;' 1 S*o? I hat s a pity, because 1 would havebeon pleased to arrange it." £2C,CCO In Three Weeks Another strange visitor was a mar who called himself " Lord Allingtoii." He was really an architcc c's assistant from the Midlands who had been disappointed in love. At the sanve time a relative in Canada had Jct't him. £20,000. He spent the lot in three weeks. A dance hostess or.ee gave him an aspirin for headache. The next day ho sent, her a car full of red roses. He would give a page a tip of £1 for sending a telegram, and t!io baud a tip of £SO because he liked a certain dance. .Another queer character who was known as " Hobby," had tho pleasant habit of giving £'loo notes away. On one occasion Mrs. Meyrick overheard a young peeress talking to Valentino behind a screen. " It was perfectly obvious," she says, " that tho voting woman was wildly in love with Valentino, and it was equally evident that he did not in tho least degree reciprocate her passion. She behaved, exactly like a silly girl, trying to draw him out on the subject of love and telling tedious stories about the marriage proposals she claimed to have received. As for Valentino, his tones, though always perfectly polite, pla'j l ,- v revealed his reluctance to pursue the conversation along the lines she won ( have it take. It was positively pa"' 1 to listen to her making such a ft of herself."