Nightclubs: In Old Morocco

To a right-thinking person, an eminent clergyman has said, the place most like Heaven is a crowded streetcar. By these standards, the opening of Manhattan’s new El Morocco last week was crowded enough to be Paradise, but with not quite the same crowd that the clergyman had in mind. Sequined, sheathed and chinchillaed, they made up such a jam of international jetters that there was scarcely room for another square-cut diamond. There wasn’t room, in fact, for Princess Lee Radziwill to get in the door; the bigger Begum Aga Khan managed it, but she had to have a table set for her on a landing of the stairs.

The Maharani of Baroda’s guest list included both outdoor Americans, such as Ceezee Guest and Wendy Vanderbilt, and indoor Europeans, such as Count Vega del Ren and the Baron de Rede. Mary and Sonny Whitney dropped by on their way up from their place in Lexington, Ky. (horses), to their place in the Adirondacks (hunting). Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and Princess Maria Pia, the Porfirio Rubirosas, and the Fiat-fortunate Gianni Agnellis were on hand. Onetime silent screen star Hope Hampton, who has been making opening-night scenes as long as most people can remember, was there in $3,000 worth of white beads; Mrs. F. Raymond Johnson, whose husband is a Revlon vice president, wore her gold, green and blue sequins on her eyelids; Maxine Leeb (who got married there last June) turned up in a bodice of bird breasts; Mrs. Huntington Hartford, a shy ex-model, all but hid her light under a bushel of ostrich feathers; and Senator (for a few days more) Kenneth Keating wore his well-known white-on-white hair.

Undercover Activities. What were they all doing there? Casing the joint. For zebraed old “Elmo’s,” Manhattan’s choicest dance-and-supper spot from the early ’30s until the death of Proprietor John Perona in 1961, was opening under new management.

The new management’s name is John Mills, and he is big: 6 ft. 4 in. and 250 Ibs. He is also big in the nightclub business, being proprietor of London’s most successful version of the El Morocco formula: Les Ambassadeurs, with its subsidiary discothèque called The Garrison and its gambling room called Le Cercle. Almost everyone Mills asked advised him not to buy Morocco, which had been falling off since John Perona died and his son Edwin moved the whole place two blocks farther east. And the rise of discothèques such as Le Club, Shepheard’s and II Mio had diverted the patronage of the restless junior jets. But on the basis of his London record, it could be presumed that Mills knew what he was doing.

On the basis of his early history, no one could have seemed less likely to become a master manipulator of the smart set. Born 50 years ago in Warsaw into a wealthy Polish family, he was educated in Switzerland and Belgium, where he ran a family-owned cigarette factory. At 21 he was heavyweight amateur boxing champion of Europe. When World War II broke out, he joined the Polish army in France, did time in prison camps, escaped, and eventually found himself under orders from Polish intelligence. When he managed to smuggle himself to London, Intelligence arranged for him to open a Polish officers’ club.

The food and service were so good that more and more British and Americans began to cultivate Polish friends in order to be invited there. In 1944 Mills bought the exuberantly Victorian mansion just off Park Lane built by Banker Leopold de Rothschild and started a restaurant called Les Ambassadeurs. He operated it as a club, as most London nightspots are because of drinking-hours regulations, made membership available to nearly anyone with an air of urbanity and $30 as initiation fee, payable at the door. Its 10,000 members now include the Duke of Edinburgh, Sir Winston Churchill, the Sheik of Kuwait and Cary Grant. The place exudes an atmosphere of luxury, with its heavy carpets, dark brocades and carved woodwork.

Drums for Tables. John Mills plans to base himself permanently in Manhattan, leaving his even bigger son Robert, 6 ft. 8 in., to run the London end of things. His changes in El Morocco will not disturb old Moroccans’ sense of security—the white rubber palms with plastic banana leaves still loom against the royal blue star-strewn sky, the zebra-striped banquettes still make the locale of every photographed celebrity instantly recognizable.

But a notable change has been made. Push through a pantry and you are in a replica of London’s Garrison—hot red walls, Wellingtonian sconces, military drums for tables, and real plastic flowers sprouting from the ceiling. Here the young and not so young swingers may Frug, Watutsi, Swim—or just twitch—while an intellectual-looking French disque jockesse spins the 45s.

Presiding over this pleasure dome last week, Kublai Khan Mills was beginning to feel that everything was once again coming up roses. The Begum was using his Rolls-Royce, an oilman had borrowed his Bentley, and all seemed right with the world. The world, that is, of what Mills likes to call VIPIs (Very Important People Indeed). “I think we’ve made it,” said Big John Mills. “Now where are we going to put the sauna?”