I can’t resist another strawberry dish. I thought because of all the rain we have had, our local strawberries might be short on flavor. So far, the berries I have eaten seem to be chock full of it. I’m savoring them.

Besides, this particular strawberry dish allows me to delve into Hollywood history, one of my favorite topics.

I always feel as though I would have thrived in the golden age of American film. I picture myself swimming in a big pool with Randolph Scott, singing around the piano with Judy Garland at parties, or dining at a star-studded restaurant like the Brown Derby or Romanoff’s.

Of course, I’m more likely to have been the girl making the milkshakes at Schwab’s soda fountain than the girl who was discovered and signed to a movie contract there, as Lana Turner supposedly was. Still, a person can dream.

On to strawberries … Strawberries Romanoff, to be precise. This was the signature dish of the restaurateur Prince Michael Dimitri Alexandrovich Obolensky-Romanoff (1890?–1971), the proprietor of Hollywood’s most fashionable eatery in the 1940s and ‘50s.

Romanoff claimed to be the nephew of the late, deposed Czar Nicholas. He was in fact a former pants presser and con artist born in Lithuania under the name Hershel Geguzin.

He came to this country at the age of 10 and soon changed his name to the more American-sounding (and less obviously Jewish-sounding) Harry Gerguson.

He adopted myriad aliases — personas, really — over the years. In a 1942 profile in the “Saturday Evening Post,” Alva Johnston wrote:

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

Greenfield resident wanted by FBI for illicit marijuana operation

Greenfield Truck & Equipment to open on Beacon Street

Sunderland office building latest to be considered for South County Senior Center home

Real Estate Transactions: July 11, 2025

Conway becomes first in county to adopt nicotine-free generation regs

Greenfield Fire Lt. Taylor retires after 33 years

Your Daily Puzzles

Cross|Word

Flipart

Typeshift

SpellTower

Really Bad Chess

“He was the man who killed Rasputin and the son of the man who killed Rasputin. He was Prince Obolensky, Count Gladstone and Count de Rochemonde; Captain Dmitri, Captain Shaughnessy and Captain Chitterin; Rockwell Kent, William K. Vanderbilt and William Rockefeller. Also Prof. John William Adams of Yale.”

Gerguson spent time in Paris, London, and Wichita (!), leaving a trail of unpaid bills behind him. Eventually, he settled on Hollywood. There, in the land of make believe, where re-invention was standard practice and everyone loved a rogue, he adopted the name and title under which he became widely known.

His wardrobe and deportment matched his new name. Film historian Martin Turnbull writes: “Evidently Harry Gerguson positively reeked of Old World manners.

“He became known for his trademark spats, moustache and walking stick, and an impeccable (albeit faux) Oxford accent all of which helped to charm his way into Tinseltown society, and became much sought after for fancy soirees and polo matches.”

In the 1930s Romanoff worked as a consultant on European affairs for film productions and even found small parts in movies. He played croquet all over Beverly Hills, perhaps most famously with producer Samuel Goldwyn, with whom he had frequent disagreements that never seemed to last long.

The website of the National Croquet Museum, noting that Romanoff was inducted into the U.S. Croquet Hall of Fame posthumously in 1980, observes, “One feels they are still arguing somewhere on a more celestial playing ground.”

In 1941, the prince opened Romanoff’s Restaurant in Beverly Hills.

The place did not succeed immediately. Legend has it that the first evening’s customers had to dig deep into their wallets to pay the bills for Romanoff’s groceries. Nevertheless, it caught on.

Turnbull explains, “The Prince may have been a phoney-baloney, but it’s hard to fake genuine good taste and Romanoff had it in spades.

“The French cuisine he developed was the finest in the city, and drew all the local gourmands, who tolerated Mike’s insults and his habit of having his bulldogs dine with him at his table. They happily paid his high prices, but were treated to high quality food.”

Humphrey Bogart had a regular table, although he and Romanoff didn’t see eye to eye on fashion. Romanoff asked that his male customers wear ties, which Bogart disliked.

Romanoff’s celebrity customers didn’t necessarily believe his story of being descended from royalty. Most of them were happy to slough off their original identities, too, however, and just about everyone fell for his charm.

The New Yorker ran a multi-part profile of Romanoff in the 1930s. It wrote of the fake Russian, “He is widely admired today, not for his title but for his own sake. He has convinced a fairly large public that a good impostor is preferable to the average prince.

“Some of those who have been victimized by Romanoff treasure the experience. Some, who know him to be a fraud, a confidence man, and a pilferer, consider him the salt of the earth.”

The part of me that longs to be part of Hollywood’s golden age would love to have the chutzpah to call myself a European princess — or at least a countess. Today, however, it would be far too easy for people to find my birth certificate and trace my true ancestry.

No one ever found Mike Romanoff’s (or even Hershel Geguzin’s) birth certificate. In fact, because of the lack of that certificate, it took an act of Congress for him to become an American citizen finally in 1958.

Celia Rasmussen recalled the prince’s influence in the Los Angeles Times in 2002:

“Those were the days when a star was a star and a restaurant was not just a hangout or a famous dish but an establishment in which to see and be seen.

“Romanoff, crowned by Life magazine as ‘the most wonderful liar in the 20th century U.S.,’ helped to mold the culinary and social character of Beverly Hills for more than two decades.”

I can’t become the sort of famous, fabulous liar Romanoff was or help mold anyone’s culinary and social character. Happily, at least I can enjoy his restaurant’s featured dessert, Strawberries Romanoff. This is an easy yet elegant way to serve this season’s berries. Be sure to wear your spats as you eat.

Ingredients:

1 cup strawberries, washed and hulled (Cut them up if they are huge.)

2 teaspoons sugar

1 tablespoon sour cream or crèmefraiche

3 tablespoons lightly sweetened whipped cream

1/2 teaspoon Grand Marnier or another orange liqueur

a sprinkling of brown sugar

a strawberry or mint sprig (or both!) for garnish

Instructions:

Combine the strawberries and sugar, and let them sit for 1 to 2 hours.

In a separate bowl, fold the sour cream or crèmefraiche and the liqueur into the whipped cream. Dollop this mixture on top of the strawberries. Top with the brown sugar and garnish.

Serves 1. This recipe may be multiplied.

Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.