Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, let's do this.
There, I'm here.
Are you ready?
I am so ready. It is so hot in this.
Room right now.
Oh my god, it is.
It's getting hot in her you know, it's ridiculous.
Elizabeth, I'm so glad you asked me this question because I do.
Oh good.
Yes. In fact, one of our listeners, Monica del Vallier, she sent this to me and she was like, get Elizabeth with this. Oh she didn't say that at all. She was very nice anyway. Apparently over in Germany there is this really odd legal fight going on, like very odd. There's this landlord who liked a sunbathe in the courtyard of his building. The only one problem is the landlord
but sun bathed nude. So the building had tenants, right, and they're like, oh, we don't want to see all that, like all that and uh, but didn't just have resident tenants. It also had business occupant tenants as well, right, and so yeah, exactly, And one floor was rented out by a human resources company. So that company apparently got tired of explaining the nude landlord to the people who came to the HR company because they're like, what's your policy
on this? Anyway, the company decides to withhold rent, so the landlord takes him to court and get this, the court sides with the naked landlord. They're like, the German court ruled that the usability of the rented property was not impathed by the plaintiffs stunning himself naked in seclatat. So the court did side with the renters, though on one thing, Elizabeth, they decided that the rental could be lowered for three months due to their being noisy construction.
So in Germany, nudity is deemed acceptable for doing business, but the noisiness is comp.
Wow. I just can't, okay, I would think that that definitely interferes with your with your ability to conduct work. One would they make a guy with his ding ding Yeah, and just a lot.
Of him showing off and he's like, really like taking up all the sun?
Yeah?
No, thank you, no sun for the rest of us.
I'll tell you what else is ridiculous?
Okay, please do.
Conning your way into a life as a celebrity restaurant tour.
How do I do this?
This is ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous caper's heiss and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder freezerin and one hundred percent ridiculous Elizabeth, I got us another ridiculous criminal.
All right, an impostor, Oh I love them, impostor?
Before I begin, what do you know about the Romanov family, like.
The Russians, Like they're like the Peter Yeah, sure, yeah, So it was the Russian royal family before the revolution, and the last Romanovs was Peter Yeah, Nicholas, Nicholas two second and his daughter Anastasia becomes supposedly the last of.
The Romanov Nicholas or Nikolay second Alexandrovitch Romanov was the last, like you said, last emperor of Russia. He was booted during the Russian Revolution in nineteen seventeen.
Bolsheviks were out putty.
He abdicated for himself and his son, and then he and his family were imprisoned in the Russian Provisional Government by the Russian Provisional Government excuse me not in it and exile to Siberian right. The Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution and then the family was murdered seventeenth of July nineteen eighteen.
We want to step outside the captain for a second.
I have a quiet moment. What about resputant, Yes, the unkillable one, an illiterate Siberian dude.
That guy was like when I was a kid, I read all sorts of weird stuff, and I read a lot about resputing and all the stuff about him not being able to be killed. That's impressive, right, But the stuff about what he was doing before he got killed is way more impressive. The guys insane. He comes out of nowhere. He gets up to the being with the czar arena and he's like, I can fix your hemophiliac boy. They're like, I gotta have him. I don't care.
Then he got better everybody.
He did, and then he starts to like sleeping his way through the court. He's like, I don't care, my boy.
So he's a as you're talking about. He's an advisor to the Romanovs's.
Yeah.
When the n was near for the Romanovs, people panicked and a group of nobles were led by Prince Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch and then as well as right wing politician Vladimir Pershkevich.
Okay, I'll just take your word for that.
Sure, ar me too. They decided that Rasputen's influence over this Zarmina was threatening the empire. Yeah, so they came up with a plan to kill him December nineteen sixteen, and he was murdered. That's not our one percent, that's like this as a historical.
And they did it so many times it would be like two percent.
Yeah, And that was the thirtieth of December nineteen sixteen, at the home of Felix Yusupov. I just wanted to get those established because they'll come up later. So let me take you back now to eighteen ninety.
Oh please, I thought i'd have to ask.
Let's go. It was in that year that Herschel Gaguzen was born in Russian territory. The location would later become Poland and then after that Lithuania. But that's not important here.
Who cares.
I just want to lay some groundwork.
I want to be through like you, I appreciate that Lithuania was a huge force and then all of a sudden, now with just a.
Little nublins huge little Herschel. His dad died when Herschel was very young. His father died trying to make peace between street fighters during a visit to Warsaw.
Wow, that's tough stuff. A peacekeeper who died.
From It's I get the end of stand by Me, where I'm going to spoil it for everyone. Where the kid grows up to get stabbed in a restaurant.
Wait a minute, I haven't seen that. I should have stopped you, I know.
So anyway, his mom, Herschel's mom's like, I can't handle this kid. He's a whole message trouble. So he's ten years old. She's like, tells her cousin, Joseph Bloomberg, take Herschel with you to New York City. I heard that's where you're going. Joseph's like, all right, take some with him. They get to the US and Herschel he changed his name, Well, it was changed for.
Him, as was the habit Island style.
Yeah, they couldn't pronounce names out at Ellis Islands, so they gave people monikers that were anglicized close enough for government work as I liked.
Yeah, what was his new names? Erin Oh, I don't know if it was Herschel Harry.
Yes, he went from Herschel Gaguz into Harry Gurgison.
They added, Okay, Harry.
Gurgison sounds like a grim diagnosing totally.
I hate to tell you this, Elizabeth. You have Harry Gurguson, Gurguson.
I don't think it's a real name. I mean there's Gerguson, yeah, and there's there's Gurgic like Gary slash Jerry from Parks and Reck, a show I've only heard about and have not watched twice in its.
Entire No, no, of course not.
I don't know if it's true that I'm half Leslie and Nope and half April Ludgate. I don't know who those people are. Who am I? Where am I? What is this?
Can you be more than half anyway?
Gurguson?
So also, I like Gurgison is a name, because then it's like, oh, I am the son of gurger Well, no Gurgu, Sorry you found it, son of Grogu.
Okay, so Gurgson. I don't. I'm sure that it's an actual surname that exists, but I don't. I don't care to know more. Who knows Harry hated his last name like we do. One time he punched a New York Times cinema critic for addressing him as mister.
So he hit him.
Yeah, so he came up with better names, a bunch of them. He had aliases like Arthur Wellesley, Willoughby, d Burke, Williby I don't know, and Count Gladstone.
These are all better names. He should be naming people should.
They should That's the job he should have had. While he was faking it on the name front. He also decided to play fast and loose with his history as well. Good for him, So he told people he went to Eton and when he also went to Harvard, and he went to Heidelberg. He went to Oxford and Princeton.
He's very smart and Yale. He must be very educated, so many degrees.
He liked Oxford the best, and that's what he used most of the time when he was telling his stories.
Oh so he didn't say all of them, which.
Felt I kind of like to imply that he used them all that back to his childhood. So the Bloombergs, they said, do New York, and they got really sick of hairy I bet they did, Like get your hairy Gurgison. That gurgu is like an invitation star wars, like you go to like a dollar store and there's a coloring book with like a little monster and his name is Gurgu.
And your aunt who doesn't know anything about star Ya And just like the thing you like with the girl.
Gona didn't nice you, gurg No. It's like it's like you go into party city and you get a costume that looks like baby Yoda, but it's a gurg copy, right exactly. You don't want to tangle with the mouse house.
Uh.
Anyway, they get.
Sick of hairy Gurgu, and he's over them too.
I bet he is.
He just stands in the doorway and goes whatever. They sent him away to a Hebrew orphanage, and then he ran away, and then they sent him off to five other places that he ran away from. He's just a troublemaker. And you know, I like that they put it in his permanent.
Record, something you're always worried about.
But here's the thing he's gotten in his permanent record that he's a big pilot trouble the gurgoos. But he's also super likable, really engaging and charming, except for family. If he liked someone, that's the thing he doesn't like because exactly if you liked someone, he could ingratiate himself to that person immediately you put it on for him. Yeah, and he was like a really good mimic and also a good storyteller. So you combine all those things, that's
a con man. That's a con man. Society ladies would be doing charity work at orphanages, and they loved him so much, like, come with us, We're going to take a weekend to our country home.
You're not quick to adopt you, but what we're going to come with you a little. We're going to tease you with fun and good talks.
It'll make me feel good for the weekend.
I'm going to use you, Okay, I'm going to rent you out so I feel good to come with me. A boy boy of gurgoy.
One early benefactor said he was one of the most convincing liars you ever met.
Like they're just loving this.
So Gergason, he spends years living as a runaway, a stowaway, a deportee. He got deported ten times.
Teenager.
Yeah, he was a straight up jailbird. And he also escaped from Ellis Island. Escape from Ellis Island. That's the knockoff escape from New York, New York. So he's a confidence man, he's a fraud, a check bouncer, a thief. He would sleep rough in like barns, doorways, park benches. You know, he's just it's him versus the world, versus the world. So he gets arrested and jailed four times on charges of fraud because he would buy like stuff
at jewelers or tobacconists, boot makers, British tailors. He gets goods and services there. When the bill comes, he's like, I forgot to tell you. Russian nobles settle their accounts with trades people only once a year, So get back to me. Then, I'm only going to pay once once a year.
So is he hoping that they've never met another Russian nobles.
I'm a fancy one.
Couldn't you ask any Russian hazes. Probably I'm just.
Saying they don't buy into it. They're like, no, that, no, I don't care. Okay, this is the Saint Russia pal pay up. So he referred to all his bad check charges and stints in correctional facilities in various cities and counties and countries as being quote in residence.
Well and then I was in Juliet.
When he was in prison, he carried a walking stick during the exercise time, not as a means of defense because but he wanted to look distinguished in prison. I guess he couldn't get his hands on a monocle.
Yeah, you want to the top half.
Hello, I am offensive.
Affecting a limp and an accent. So when he was in his prisoners love his fancy man. They just love that. They that all the time. Like if I go to prison, first thing I'm looking for and I'm going to be power the fancy I'm going to beat him up so people know I am the new fancy guy.
King of the fancy hill. So when he's in his early thirties, Zeren, he got a job as a pants presser. And just like you, that's weird. It's a job a pants presser in Brooklyn. He's Gurgu the mimic, right, son of Gurgu. He listened carefully to like the fancy sorts that he encountered in this high flying Brooklyn pants pressing scene,
and he developed like a British upper class manner. So not only the accent, but just the you know, the wealthy and the apectations of aristocracy carry themselves a certain thing, a continental notion. So March twentieth, nineteen twenty three, he turns up in Hillsboro, Illinois, with an Oxford accent, a sophisticated malacca walking stick, and at last a monocle.
Finally got'll play in Illinois.
Yeah. Well, so he'd stolen a man's military papers, and he used them claim that he was a British lieutenant or as they say, lieutenant. Yes, yes, the Saint Louis papers. They announced a few days later, but the city was entertaining royalty and ran photos of son of Gurgu.
We got guys photos.
There's a caption on the photo, Prince Michael Romanov.
Oh okay.
The some problem though the locals recognized him because he wasn't new in town. He'd actually lived there before as Harry Gurgson. The Gurgs exposed as a fraud.
He's like dark.
So at one point during his struggles, American artist Rockwell Kent befriended him, and Rockwell provided Gurgison with both lodging and employment, and Gurgison returned the favor by passing himself off as Rockwell Kent.
That's the deal. You let me stay with you, I'll go be you you.
On another occasion, he stole military brushes from Paul Mellon of the Pittsburgh Melons.
Wow, like me, Sally, wealthy family.
They get their riches from banking and oil and brushes. Sure well the brushes. They were gold backs and monogrammed with the initials PM.
And made out of elephant eyelashes.
Gergison said the initials stood for Prince Michael. They're not cyrillic Prince Michael. In nineteen Prince Mike, it's Mesian name Mike. In nineteen twenty seven, he turned up in Hollywood for.
A little bit good cause.
Of course, that's where all the good bs artists go.
There's a magnet there that draws him.
He worked as a technical advisor for a film about pre revolution Russia somewhere he'd only been from the ages of zero to ten. So the truth always comes out though, And he was exposed as a fraud by a former Russian general.
And he doesn't have a Russian accent. He's affecting. He's British now.
He's British now because he says he went to Oxford. But here's the thing he wouldn't speak Russian while they're on the set, because you know, he was raised speaking Polish, not Russian.
He was lithuaniann't speak Russian, I bet not.
I mean, what is that? So he's there there, the Russian you know, general or whatever. He's like, you know, chatting him up, and he's just deer in the headlights. So Gergison would also try and pass.
On stoic Russian word exactly.
He tried to pass himself off as the son of Prince Felix Yusupov, the man who killed Resputant. So he's like playing both sides of the fence. That's the cat I mentioned earlier. He was to be deported a number of times, as I told you. The first time was on grounds of moral turpitude when it came out that he told this story about having spent eight years in a German prison for killing a German baron in a
duel at Heidelberg. Not true, but obviously, so he escaped and he disappeared from Ellis Island.
And he's telling people I killed this German baron because you know, I rolled tough like.
That, and they're like, well that that that lie that's wrong. If you had actually killed and we'd be fine with that, but you lied about it. Now we must support you. So he escapes and he disappears. He claimed that he swam to New Jersey from Ellis Island, and then the legend was that he swam to New Jersey in a silk top hat. Wow right, I mean this made everyone believe he was an accomplished swimmer if you're going to do that swim.
And a snazzy dresser.
He was not. He was a snazzy dresser, not a swimmer. So that lie was uncovered later in his life when he fell into a swimming pool and just sank. So the immigration men who were supposed to be watching Gergison said that he actually stowed away on a ferry boat. After his escape from Ellis Island, he began going by Prince Obolenski.
Like Prince Albert and the can.
Well Maybe newspapers ran interviews with him about the trials of a nobleman attempting to find employment so hard. Luxurious weekend getaways came from the stories, but no jobs. However, at one point a wealthy friend sent him to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, where he enjoyed life is a representative of the university's chess team. Put the monocle back on. I'm serious, fancy striped trousers and a silk hat. He's like the monopoly man one
around have it Yard. He ended up being expelled because they found out he was not an exchange student from Oxford.
When did he start selling peanuts?
Exactly?
That's right.
The monopoly man does not wear a monocle. Yeah, anyho, So, yeah, they're not You're not on exchange from Oxford, You're just old Harry Gergerson. April nineteen thirty two. He takes off for England on the White Star Liner Olympic. He gets to Southampton and he declares himself a superstow away. Well, I don't know, I guess super sen.
He gets money for doing that.
I'm glad he said it after he arrived. But you know who heard it and wasn't glad? Scotland Yard. Oh yeah, they knew right away that he was trouble. He got wind of them, you know, yeah, them getting wind of him exactly, and so he ran off to Paris. Scotland Yard. They know how to get in touch with people. They're willing,
so they called the Parisian police. Gergison figured he'd head back to the States, where municipalities are less likely to communicate with each other, so he stows away again, this time on the liner Ill Difference. He changed cabin Snightley to avoid getting caught. Obviously, during that time he reads up on Russian history because he's like, if I'm going to be a roll enough, I kind.
Of need to know what happened sometimes I should probably know that.
Let me do some focus on the Russian royal family. Following the Revolution, the Russian aristocracy fell into chaos and disrepair, and so for him that's an opportunity.
Whoever, seven thousand other country he can't get.
Caught because they can't talk to any royal families. They're dispersed, they don't have official time.
Russian Revolution created more Russian nobility than I think we could ever understand.
So while he's crossing the Atlantic, he decides to become someone new, someone exciting. He says, he's the nephew of the late Czar Nicholas.
Of Good Call. Go to the top.
Let's take a break. When we come back, you're gonna find out just how that claim went for old gurgu.
Hello, Harry Gurguson, Prince Obolenski, and now Prince Michael Romanov Prince Mike.
Yes, my dude, Yeah, No matter the name, the guy's an incredible character, ridiculous criminal. The first class passengers ate up his story at being Prince Michael Romanov nephew Tizar Nicholas. The second he got a little loose with his bragging though he was in the smoking room smoking it up. I like to imagine it either like a nineties sleazy hookah bar, like a vape shop, for the inside of a van in the parking lot of a fish concer.
Now we're talking.
Yeah, So anyway, he's in the smoking room, he tells all the swells and fat cats that he's friends with the captain. Someone, of course, later mentions this to the captain.
On that boat, not a captain, that captain.
Hey, cap'n ron, it's so coolier pals with a missing Romanov. The captain then sends a stewart to investigate, like, who's this quote.
Unquote friend, who's my friend?
Gregson gets caught and revealed as a stowaway. Here's an aside, though later in his life. He had this influential friend, and that guy drafted a to whom it may concern letter for him to carry around anytime he got on an overseas voyage, and the letter bagged officials of all nations not to harass the quote prince as he had. He was not a stowaway, but rather a researcher of stowaways. Wait what the old the old Pete townshend.
Say just wait, tell met somebody to give him a letter that says, basically, oh please don't interrupt him. He is studying this stuff. Yeah, he's research And who was the person who gave him his letters?
Doesn't matter, It doesn't matter.
How do I get one of these letters?
I gave it to him. I'll write you one. So Gergison was taken back to an old haunt by the police. When the ship talked in NYC, the Big Apple, the city never sleeps Ellis Island.
So yes for a name.
An order was passed to deport him back to France. Okay, we don't want him here, will detained?
Wait to port him back to France. He's not a French whatever'll.
Kick him out. Whatever where was the last place you were? You go back there. So he asked to be to have this monitored escort take him into New York to collect his effects. And on the way he and his guard, James Drury, they stopped at a speakeasy.
You know, yeah, I get it.
So while the guard is distracted at the speakeasy, he makes his escape. The escape was highly publicized. Four people ended up being suspended over at Ellis Island, probably unquote paid leave you know whatever. This, though, was the start of Gurgison's notoriety. A dozen agents were sent to search for him. They hit up every speakeasy in the Upper east Side. They had to check them all, some more than once to be sure.
I'd see the floor show, the floor show.
One day, Gurgison was in Jim Moriarty's speakeasy off Fifth Avenue, and Moriarty got a tip that immigration police had arrived looking for Gergison. So he tells Gurgu slip out through the kitchen. This is what Gurgison said back to him, A romanov kent' escape through the kitchen. Moriarty, clever irishman responds, your uncle Tazaar.
Did ohaykay leave it to an irishman.
So out to the kitchen he went Gurgu. He roamed free in New York for days, but was eventually caught. He'd been hanging out at a speakeasy on East fifty eighth Street. He was made there, but agents watched him as he went to an apartment building on East sixty eighth. So he goes ten blocks home. That's where they nab him. He was carrying a lot of money, and this made investigators pretty sure that he had accomplices assisting him in
his life as a fugitive. They wanted to find these friends, so those people could be charged with conspiracy to aid a fell in an escape. No luck couldn't find him.
Ah, they got greedy.
Yeah, So Gurgison he goes free on bail twenty five hundred dollars, and he appeared before vaudeville audiences while awaiting trial.
He's like, let me do a quick set, let me get to a quick five. I got the time. Guys want to work some stuff to go back to court till four.
So the headlines of the day Gergison indicted on perjury charge and he will halt vaudeville career to face accusation of false swearing at Ellis.
Island, wow.
Yeah. He pleads guilty to perjury and violation of the immigration law in January of nineteen thirty three. At the time, Federal Judge John C. Knox was informed that the Department of Labor decided to forgive, though not forget Gergison's transgressions.
The Department of Labor can do.
This, Apparently I had no idea Gergison. He gets sentenced in April of the same year to ninety days in the Federal House of Detention. And he also had Tomis Pinky swear to stop using the name Prince Michael Romanov.
Okay, so like, okay.
This guy is not I don't wouldn't hold any any of his words exactly.
He doesn't have whatever.
So the sentence gets suspended. He doesn't even do the ninety days. He's given three years probation. His attorney said of him, he has violated the law, he admits that, but there's nothing vicious about him. And he has an amazing number of friends.
He's well liked, he's part he's a good dancer.
He dresses well, so he could have been sentenced to fifty five years.
Yeah, but no. Luckily he cooks well. So people are like look, he has the best inner parties. What can we do?
Here's what the judge says. I did not see any reason for treating this case in a matter altogether different from others. I admit it is peculiar in many respects, but he had little cause if indeed, there can be a cause or justification for perjuring himself.
So the judge's writing excuses from two.
Yes, he's likable, what can you do?
I just can't help it. I just love this kid, you know, he's.
So magnetic knocks. The judge said that if Gergison violated his probation at any point over the next three years in any way, quote, sentence will be imposed to such an extent that it hurts.
I'll make you come back here and smile more at me.
No, he's gonna put the hurt on.
Yeah, I don't believe it.
February thirteenth, nineteen thirty four. Where were you, zaren.
Okay, nineteen thirty four. I was in Zurich. That doesn't matter.
Go on.
United Artists. They're premiering their latest film, Catherine the Great in Manhattan, The.
Great Manhattan Movie.
He's gonna say, Katherine Orgate takes man so Monroe Greenthal, the United Artist chief of publicity. He wanted to have a famous Romanov why not? So he figured, I'll get the famous Romanov impost At the premiere, he reaches out to Gurgison and invites him as an honored guest.
Like, I just need publicity, I don't need truth.
Yeah, baby, Gurgu though, He's like, I got conditions. I'll do it, but.
Hold on, I'm gonna need a white furt coat.
I'm going to give you a list of what I'm going to need for this one. A stunning blonde that's a literal, a stunning line. Two one hundred and fifty dollars spending money, wow, his little cash. Three a Rolls Royce complete with a liveried footman and chauffeur. Four. The footman has to be dressed in a tan stovepipe hat, tan coat with gold buttons, a scarlet vest, and knee high tan boots with bufftops.
That's what we do it in fake Us.
They gave him everything. They let him have it at their premiere. He and his stunning blonde. They went to the Stork Club afterwards. Sorry and El Morocco. They did it up. He toasted double health to his great great great aunt Catherine. He spent all his money except thirty dollars, and that's what he used to tip. The footman and the chauffeur took care of everybody good for him. When he was dropped off at home, he found the key
hole plugged up and his apartment was inaccessible. Baby gurgu hadn't paid his rent, oh yea, so he spent the night at what our researcher Andrea called his old winter palace. The safe the subway get it so. For a short time, Gurgason assisted antiques dealer h michel Ayan with selling hand painted gold masters. However, he ended up spending several months in jail after he was caught pocketing the money. So he's making the sales and it doesn't make it to
the register. The guy said later that nothing hurt him more in life than having to prosecute Gurgison. Why because this is what he says, quote, he is one of the most remarkable men alive. I believe his name will go down in history. Maybe mine will go down in history with him. What this guy's magic zaren? Apparently Gurgason. He gets a job as an assistant gardener at an estate on the Hudson River. He has elegant manners Oxford accent. People are wondering, who is this gardener?
I'm wondering, what's your backstory?
So the laundry made she sees something on his silk undershirts and she brings it to the mistress of the house. The women look at the embroidery and knew right away what it was, the Romanov coat of arms. This man had his undershirts embroidered with the Romanov coat of arms.
And people recognize the roman of me.
So the women see it, They're like, wait, he's Russian Royalty right under our roof, mulching our roses. Are you kidding me? So Gergison. He is confronted by the lady of the house and he admits, yes, I am actually a prince. Okay, you got me. You know, he's all humble about it. They can't have him working outside like a peasant. He's moved into the guest chambers and he stays there for months. Later, he gets exposed as a fake, but everyone was so charmed by him that no one cared.
Absolutely want the story. He makes me feel some kind of way, I'm good enough.
That he starts to leave, and they beg him to stay, please stay. When he did leave, you know they're they're absolutely just crushed. This is what it said in an article in Time. Quote, Mike Romanov was the real tinsel, a phony who wore his phoniness with such transparent innocence that it turned away wrath.
I'm about it was he and I forget me for asking this, But was he like charming looking too? Did you see a picture of him? Was to say, because I'm wondering if he looks like, you know.
Like not really, I don't I don't want to say it, but yeah, not really, because like you know.
Like Peter O'Toole could get away with stuff that I think Robert Mitcham could not. Just based on Robert Mitchum looks like a mug and you're like.
Oh, this guy, I could see it.
Yeah, I want to do you think that helped?
Yeah, he's not like intimidating handsome fellow.
Yeah, and probably not excessively like Harry and low brow.
So he's like oh yeah, no no, So nineteen thirty six, he knew where he had to go, where he belonged.
Nineteen thirty six, the Olympics.
Right, Hollywood, Oh god, he should tried. Yeah, represent Russia. So he passed through Hillsboro, Illinois on his way to Hollywood.
Remember that place.
That's where he tried to float the whole Prince Mike thing for the first time.
He was like catching like route sixty six, baby, yeah.
I don't know.
Is that to Chicago?
Yeah?
Sure? Okay, So yeah, so he's there. They're they're seeing him as a minor celebrity. They don't care he had done this. He was given the honor of standing on a platform in front of the courthouse to give out cash prizes on their trade day. Yeah.
So they had like a special like this is our field day and everybody gets out and has fun. We have this local celebrity stand on a box and give people checks and pretty much. Yeah.
Yeah. So, while making his way west on this.
Whirlwindow people did before there was TV in the internet.
Okay, he stopped to dine at Antoine's, a restaurant known as the best in New Orleans. He thought the meal was a disappointment, but he still had a great time. He loved sharing stories over you know, wine and food, living it up. He wanted to make this his living. He decided he was going to open a restaurant Romanovs. He envisioned his place would be the place to see and be seen in Hollywood.
Wait a minute, he did it.
He did it.
Yeah, Oh my god, this is the time. This is amazing.
He rented a room for two dollars and fifty cents a week, and he shared that room with Prince Yuka Trubetskoy.
You say that three times.
No, I can't even say it the right way. For one time, this guy was actual Russian aristocracy.
Okay, so he got himself a real Russian Yes.
And that guy would go on to marry Marcia Stranahan, the heiress to the Champion's spark Plug's Fortune.
Not the Champion spark Plug Fortune.
And Prince Yuka. His brother. Prince Igor was a race car driver and would later become one of the many husbands of the Woolworth five and dime heiress Barbara Hutton. Wow, he's in like the heiress aristocracy.
So he's good at tennis that kind of stuff, I guess.
He would later be roommates with the agent Pat DeCicco, who would become the first husband of the then seventeen year old heiress Gloria Vanderbilt. Wow, future mother of Anderson Cooper.
See, I think I'm hanging on all the wrong. I don't know any heiresses anymore.
Gerguson then lived with Decicco's cousin, Cubby Broccli.
What.
Yes, Cubby would become famous and very very rich by producing the James Bond movies.
This is crazy. Yes, Barbara BROCCOLI's connected to.
The h Gergison. He referred to himself as a social barometer. He said only the phonies and upstarts couldn't afford to be seen with him.
I'm a test for reel.
Yeah.
He was able to cement his place among Hollywood celebrities. John MacLean, whose mother, Evelyn Walsh MacLean, who owned the Hope Diamond and showed up in our episode about Gaston me. He decided to host a ball as a means of repaying past hospitalities. The grand affair was orchestrated by Gergison and took place at the Clover Club. A little about the Clover Club located at eighty four to seventy seven
Sunset Boulevard. It was originally a palatial private home and it was raided in February nineteen thirty for illegal gambling, and it was called the Sphinx Club. Then in March nineteen thirty three it was operating as Club Sokolef and it was rated again, this time for liquor violations. In August of nineteen thirty three, it was the Han Club. Nola Hahn was another game ambler associated with that address. Soon after it was you know, got the name the
Clover Club. The place was raided all the time her thirties and forties. It was like other upscale Hollywood night clubs, you know, dining, dancing, paparazzi, occasional fisticuffs. The illegal gambling rooms were hidden. Only those in the know, including a lot of Hollywood elites, got access. There wasn't any stigma attached to the club, though, so society and Hollywood gossip columns at the time reported breathlessly on the events being
held there. But it was repeatedly closed down for violations and then reopened until, you know, usually by a new mafia owner.
Yeah, they didn't have like a Mickey Cohen paying everything off.
Now, they'd just passed it around, like Detroit mafia would open it and then they'd pass it to another. This was the perfect place for such a party, Carrie Grant, Jimmy Stewart. They had two bands. Hogy Carmichael played the piano. The party lasted until dawn. Both dinner and breakfast were served.
That's a party, yeah, that's a baller club and they got a good breakfast.
Vanity Fair did this interview where Dominic Dunn was reminiscing with people.
Are oh wow. Quote.
Jimmy Stewart brought Rita Hayworth, said, Janet de Cordova, Jane Greer, mRNA Dell. And I saw Annabella break up with Ty Power that night, said Audrey Wilder. Lyla Lee came in with Howard Hughes. Janet de Cordova said, and Lyla and I were both wearing red, and Howard Hughes said, you can't both wear red dresses. And he called Howard Greer, the designer, and Howard opened up his shop and sent over a blue dress for Lila. As my conversations with them ended, each woman said, I loved Mike Wow.
So he's just he just fits in well.
His life in the glamorous, you know, Hollywood entertaining scene is just beginning. Nineteen thirty four, Gergison starred alongside Bob Hope in the Broadway musical Say When Wait What?
He's with Bob Hope in a Broadway musical.
Also in thirty four, the New York Times ran a story that he was being charged with conspiracy regarding a divorce case.
Okay, so Edward B.
Gould hired Gergison to drug and seduce his wife? What which would allow Gould to divorce her having to pay alimony?
Why did he think he was the one to drug instid Why not?
You know, to Mike Mike's you know, baby Gurgu is like your man in.
The pocket, exactly home you need him. Mike can't do it, missus Gould.
She had been receiving four hundred and fifty dollars a month under a separation agreement, which is an incredible amount of This is what the New York Times said. Quote. Missus Gould charged that the defendants confederated, with one calling himself Prince Michael Romanoff, to place the plaintiff in a compromising position which would create the impression that she had been guilty of misconduct so that her husband could divorce her and the four hundred and fifty dollars would be forfeited.
The Prince was hired, administered a drug or narcotic to the plaintiff, and then took her to an apartment where the alleged misconduct was simulated.
So he's now a professional honey track.
Yes, okay, Well, the divorce action gets dropped.
Edward B.
Gould gets sent to a sanitarium. Thank god, Prince Mike, he's ready to move on. When we come back from this break filled with very important ads that keep this show running free and fun. I'll tell you what Gerg's next chapter held. Zarin Elizabeth nineteen thirty nine.
I remember it well.
Harry Gurgus, Yes, opened a restaurant right on. Actually, Prince Michael, Dimitri, Alexandrovitch Obelenski Romanov opened a restaurant.
That's not enough names.
I know whose money did he is?
I don't know people, I'm tired and I'm high. Lana Turner and her husband Johnny stopped close.
This is who did he get? Lawrence Rockefeller, Alfred Vanderbilt, Charlie Chaplin, Carrie Grant, Daryl Zannik, what, Jack Warner.
I'm surprised by.
Caesar Romero and Jock Whitney manymore, a lot of them.
I'm not surprised because they're rich and they liked it, like just be fooled, I think ultimately. But Xanik, that guy, he was like Cagy, you know, like he don't get past Darryl Zannik.
No, and he had but you know, they had big money names from both coasts doing big, big money. Baby Gurgu opened Romanovs in nineteen thirty nine at three twenty six North Rodeo Drive.
It is insane. It is the story of Romanovs.
This is nothing today. Roman You'll find out. Okay, so today the location is the Salarentz Store.
Okay.
At the time, though, it was a luxurious palace dedicated to fine dining, conitial conversation, and celebrities. Ah, the celebrities, they'ren So many celebrities.
I gotta collect them all.
I gotta I gotta say it again, so many celebrities. I can't. I can't emphasize that enough. Mister Confucius was the name of Gergison's bulldog, Mister Confucius.
Mister Confucius not like Senior Confusions. But I know what I'm naming my next up. Seriously, I love that.
Mister Confucius was listed and the telephone book is the owner of Romanoce. He sold shares in the restaurant for fifty dollars apiece. Okay, and so a lot of people figured the restaurant would tank. And those same people said that the framed business certificate presented as return for stock was a quote landmark in the art of dignified mooching.
Wow.
Yeah. So Whitney backed the restaurant because he had to move some cash around to versify as well. He found out that part of his seed money was being used to pay dividends to the stockholders, so he sold his stake back to Gergison. Yes, opening night, the place was a buzz zaren closure. Ayes, I want you to picture it. Yes, you're Humphrey Bogart. You're attending the opening night of Romanov's, a new restaurant you've invested in.
Yes, I love this.
You walk past the lines of people waiting outside and head into the impressive dining room. The walls are mirrored and they're enormous. Candelabras smack dab in the middle of each table. Diners laugh and chatter as they sip champagne down cocktails, nibblon, imported sardines, green turtle soup, sweetbread, a
La King and frog legs, a real continental menu. All of this you're You're seated at table number one, Yes, which would become your standing reservation, and every day in the future you would go there for lunch and order two scotch and sodas, an omelet, French toast, milk coffee, and a brandy.
I'm so hungry now just hearing my order.
Here at the opening. One table over is Carry Grant. You glance at the menu and you see chicken soufle for two dollars and fifty cents. There's no way that that tightwad Carry Grant would pay two dollars and fifty cents for dinner.
You chuckle to yourself, that's right, straight on.
Your big break hasn't come yet, but you know it will. You've done thirty films so far playing villains as a character actor. You made waves with angels with thirty faces last year, and you know your stars on the rise. You look around the dining room, so many actors, actresses, musicians, various swells just living it up.
You look over at.
The small swing band playing in the corner. Those guys haven't made you think they get to make something everyone enjoys and stay anonymous.
Play it again, shwinging band.
Your wife is tossing back French seventy five's and chatting with the woman next to her. The two of them break into cackling laughter. You see movement out of the corner of your eye, and you notice Prince Mike dart in your way the Mayor d in tow. They rush by you and stop next to Cary Grant. In his loud, whispered English accent, the Prince hisses at Grant, we don't have a cash register. You then hear Grant and the Prince go back and forth about the matter. You said
everything was completely taken care of. Yes, but this is just one little thing. Why did I invest in this? If you don't know what you're doing, Please you have to help. We can't make change for the guests. Okay, fine, I'll send my butler to my house. And what help would that do. I'm gonna have him bring back a big box of cash, and for some reason, I keep it at my house a war chest, so to speak. Okay, that's great, I can get you anything else as I'm there. No, no't run really go to the place.
Like you're supposed to do.
About a half an hour later, Butler screeched up and Grant's chauffeur driven car and came running in with boxes of cash.
All was well at Romance.
The restaurant was known for its signature dessert or it's like I like to say yes, strawberries Romanov.
Oh, it said that.
He said he invented it. Prince Mike said, I invented strawberries Romanov.
He invents a lot of things.
I believe him, and you know a lot of people believe him too. The real story was that it was originally created in London by August Escufier, you know, a ghost. Call him on Instagram.
Oh yeah, we're old school from all the same.
The American version was popularized by Gergison in the US of A via his restaurant is that where you.
Put like you you core a strawberry and you get some whip cream. You put that in the cord strawberry and then you put them on your finger and you go, look at my fingers? Is that what that is?
Just shove it in, Just shove it right, shove.
Its strawberry's rose.
And then you cut into a little jagged Yeah, that's exactly what that is. You must have been to Romano. It involved cream and then you whip in some ice cream because that's not enough cream, and then you serve it to someone with blactose and tolerance the Gurgison what did he say? Quote everyone has the idea that it's a good chef that makes a restaurant. I know of no greater fallacy. A restaurant is only as good as its owner's personality.
He's talking about a Kahn con and restaurant. I get it. Whatever.
Carol Marcus Siroyan Mathow was a debutante who arrived in Hollywood. That's an expensive name, uh huh, with fellow debutante pals Una O'Neill and Gloria Vanderbilt.
O'Neil, the one who would marry Charlie Chaplin.
So this is what Carol Marcus Siroyan Mathow said. Quote, Mike was the sweetest, nicest man who ever lived. Una and I were out here alone when we were about six teen or seventeen. We wanted to go to Ronoff's to see all the stars. We often went there for lunch. We never got a bill. Mike would say, you're too little, Bibis, you can have anything you want here. He'd sit down
with us and ask us where we were going. When we told him, he'd sometimes say, oh, no, don't go there, or you mustn't see so and so he really cared.
Yeah, sounds like it totally guys who want to hang out with sixteen and seventeen year old girls and tell them what to do. That's called exactly.
You know that famous photo of Sophila Ren and Jans Mansfield where Loren is like half spelling at Mansfield's overflowing bosom.
Yeah, aage on full display taking it.
Romanovs no, yes, believe me. In nineteen thirty two, MGM purchased the movie rights to Gergison's life and it never got made.
I bet not when they realized, like, we cannot fact check this.
Well, it's due in part to the fact that his life violated the three unities of drama. Unity of action, unity of place, unity of time.
There's no unit, there is no there's no it's not a unity of opposites. You can't even because it's a push and he just moves.
He's all over the place. They also couldn't make a decent comedic finish to the film because the Hayes Code, which prohibited profanity, suggestive nudity, violence, also deemed it necessary that transgressors are punished in the final reel.
Oh yeah, oh definitely, yeah, you can come up.
In That doesn't happening for old Prince Mike Nope. Later, one of Gurgison's oldest friends, French screenwriter and director Harry de Rost, He actually wrote an ending for the film about Prince Mike. He had it where the Prince turns up in Russia and is captured by Soviet soldiers. As he has led to the firing squad, he's told, if only you will say I'm Harry Gergison, you will go free and be welcomed as a comrade. The Prince refuses with a scornful shake of his head and is executed coblamo.
Seven times, just like respute.
There it is. He actually appeared in eighteen movies between nineteen thirty seven and nineteen sixty seven, sometimes credited, sometimes not, sometimes this as himself, sometimes not. He officially became a US citizen by order of Congress in nineteen fifty eight with.
President Order of Congress.
Uh huh, with President Dwight D. Eisenhower signing the bill for citizenship.
Get out of town.
I will not.
Ike went for this. Yes, he's like I like this guy. Everyone likes I like this guy. I like Mike.
Well. By the late fifties, though, Romanov's started to lose its cluster.
Yeah.
Yeah, the new generation of Hollywood celebrities were just over it.
Branda did not want to go there.
No, A lot of them weren't comfortable with Gergison's friendship with Jay Edgar Hoover.
Oh yeah, that's it a tough one in the fifties.
They didn't like his sort of ultra conservative stance that he had. He was handing out right wing literature with his menus, so they're just like open it up and it whoa, hey, there's some hate speech.
Yeah.
More importantly to celebrities, though, forget the ethics of it. The front and back room were like became a competition regarding seating. So a lot of times if a patron was given the table in the back room, they would just leave. Everyone wanted to be in the front.
To be they could be seen.
Okay, Yeah, Gergison, he looks around. My restaurant's not doing well. I'm going to open a second location.
That's probably the answer. Yes, So he had one failing one, why not go for something?
He needed to get money to open Romanofs too, because he's not making it in Romanovs one. So he sent a telegram to Alfred Vanderbilt.
I figure it's gonna be Albert Einstein. I don't know, Alfred vander all right, need money.
He's Vanderbilt's on vacation in Hawaii asking if he could borrow money. Hey, Alfred on the beach.
Put down the pineoff for a second.
Yeah, coking up? And so this is what happens.
Though.
Twenty five thousand dollars was delivered the next morning with a note, I'm always pleased to serve my king, Vanderbilt.
Did you hear that sound? That was my brain bending being bruised? And wait the moon?
What my king?
Okay, I've hesitated to say it before, but can this guy do some trick with his hung I mean, like, what is the deal here?
No, he's just fantastic. Everyone wants to be around someone fantastic and interesting.
Guess, but I mean, I don't even think Rihannica pulled this off. May maybe maybe she is. Maybe that's how she got Fandy. I don't know the.
Move, though. The new restaurant did not improve things. In nineteen fifty seven, when you Humphrey Bogart pass, things started to decline in the new Romanov Empire see Never Fear Frank Sinatra's here. After Bogart died. After you die, Old Blue Eyes started inviting Prince Mike to movie shoots and like, jaunts are all over the world.
Yeah, yeah, because he the original rat pack was Humphrey Bogart's poker game. And then Frank Sinatra gets in as a young stars and then.
This takes Mike with him.
He's like, I'm taking it all. I want you back of it. The Russian guy.
Now that Gerson wasn't at the restaurant, neither were his famous friends, so people stopped going. Of course, just Lookie lose up in there, Gergrison. He starts spending more time in Palm Springs, thanks Frank, and he decided to open a third location, Romanovs on the Rocks. The Desert Sun ran a piece in nineteen fifty nine, saying, quote the little guy with a big smile and the Big Menu opened his rock rimmed restaurant last night, with the usual run of who's who on hand to make things festive.
One time film extra Mike Romanov unveiled his Romanovs on the Rocks with no fanfare, no frills, just the unimpeachable decorum that has marked his restaurants here and in Beverly Hills. The Little Prince made a point of explaining that he had no immediate plans for entertainment in the huge and severe dining room and bar that overlooks the Palm Springs region. The words were scarcely out of his mouth before diners Sammy Kahan and Jimmy van Housen were seated at the Romanovs piano.
Are you kidding?
I Am not kidding him?
What the hell these are? Like? Oh my god, I know.
It's like a veritable who's Who. Yes, The Desert Sun said he opened another place in San Francis, but none of his restaurants were doing well. All of them closed in nineteen sixty two. The original closed New Year's Eve nineteen six.
I didn't know other one in San Francisco.
Yeah, briefly, probably like five minutes. The restaurant did provide him with an opportunity to meet an actual Romanov. Get out Prince Alexander Romanov said of the occasion, quote, I was taken to the restaurant and all the stars were there. I thought he was exceedingly ugly. We just said a few words to each other. My host has said about me to him. Alexander is a real Romanov, he replied,
but I'm the only Mike Romanov. Gergison passed away at good Smaritan Hospital September second, nineteen seventy one.
I'm the look on poor Alexander's face when that guy said that to him. He's a Russian road in Hollywood and he's got this guy going.
I Am just like rolled his eyes and sniffed.
Now.
Gergison left no memoir, no based on a true story, film, no documentary. He did, however, become immortalized on page by a biography published in nineteen ninety seven called Romanov Prince of Rogues, The Life and Time of a Hollywood Icon.
What's your takeaway, Oh man, I'm surprised that, like, like okay, I'm not surprised that Humphy Boerger was taken. He came from money. So he's just like all the other Vanderbilt you know. No, he wasn't as wealthy as but he was like, you know, mainline Philadelphia money, I think you Yeah, So he could be conned like all of them. But carry Grant was in the circus because he was basically like an orphan on the streets.
Of London and notoriously stingy and.
Notoriously stingy and cunning and all of that that comes with the life of childhood poverty where he's not going to like take something for granted, he's not He will be generous, but he's not going to be a fool, right, So it surprises me that he got so in bed with him and did not sense that something was hinky. I mean that really surprised.
Well, I'm guessing he made money while he did, no.
But just that even would want to spend so much time around somebody's such an obvious faker when yeah, he you know, he's looked the guy who's known for like wanting to do acid early with this therapist because he was always after that truth. You know, he was somebody who was a seeker. So I'm surprised at a seeker. I'm not surprised. Hoy Boger, I love Boger. You know this, but you know whatever. But like Carrie Grant, I'm like,
you got Archibald Leitch. That's ridiculous. Yep, what's yours? Elizabeth? You see how I did that? That's how that's done to.
No, I'll tell you what my takeaway is, though, I would give anything to have that kind of quality where people just like you, no matter what I can.
Tell you, it's a burden. It's just you would hate it.
I want to interview more. I interview you more about that. I am so hot and tired in here, I can't speak. It is. It is like ninety degrees in this.
Story, like just a puddle of guru.
I'm total. I'm big gurguru right now.
That's it, Okay, I'm done whatever.
You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime dot com and we have t shirts if you're into that sort of thing, but I don't know if they're still on there. They're limited time only. Our merchan is a limited time only. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. Email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Leave us a talkback on the iHeart app, reach Out Baby,
Tune In Next Time. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Duttan and Zarren Burnett, produced and edited by Czar Dave Kusten, Emperor of the Holy Flavortown Empire. Research is by Duchess Marissa Brown and Baroness Andrea Song Sharpen Tear. The theme song is by Romanov's house band Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Executive producers are Sophia Loren and Jane Mansfield. Cosplayers Ben Bollen and Noel Brown.
Disquime Say It One More Time Crime. Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four More Podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,