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‘As long as there is an Olivelli’s there will always be an England’ from the legendary Marx Brothers. |
Sorry Groucho, there may not always be an Olivelli's
A popular post-war hub for some of the era’s biggest names in entertainment, including the Marx Brothers, is facing an uncertain future, writes Simon Wroe
AS long as there is an Olivelli,” Groucho Marx once wrote, “there will always be an England.”
Groucho’s words, as always, require salt. Yet for the time they were written, during a visit to Olivelli’s famous Bloomsbury hotel and restaurant in the demob-happy period following the Second World War, they stand as the opinion of hundreds of actors, showgirls, comedians, singers, daredevils, dandies, boxers and magicians, each of whom regarded Olivelli’s as a second home, for some more beloved than their first ones.
Were they still alive today, Groucho and his fellow guests – Duke Ellington, Mae West, Edward G Robinson and Mickey Rooney to name a tiny few – would no doubt be dismayed to learn the England they knew and loved may soon be no more: the Store Street business now faces the wrecker’s ball. One can imagine Edward G, an actor famous for his tough-guy roles in Little Caesar and Key Largo, might have a thing or two to say to the developers trying to build luxury flats on the site.
Of course, things have changed since the hotel’s halcyon days in the 1940s and 50s, when a young Danny Kaye washed pots in the restaurant and gave impromptu concerts to the diners, and circus troupes brought baby elephants to dinner. The stars slowly drifted away after Mr Olivelli’s death in 1959; under the aegis of its current owners, the Spina family, the hotel has survived modestly as a fairly traditional, slightly weathered rooming house.
The only clues to the bright lights of Olivelli’s past are the photographs that still line the walls in the adjacent restaurant, now part of an Italian chain. Pictures of Bob Hope with the Beverley Sisters; the famous strongman Charles Atlas; the musicians Tex Ritter, Stephane Grappelli and Mantovani; and the actor Peter Lorre examining the sharpness of the head chef’s knife with deadpan sincerity.
Many are inscribed with fond messages in praise of the establishment’s food and hospitality. A note from Liberace is addressed: “To my new friends the Olivellis, who are affectionately known by so many (and rightly so I am positive) as Papa and Mama.”
Olivelli’s Hotel and Restaurant was founded in 1934 by the Sicilian-born Rita and Enrico Olivelli. The drama students at nearby RADA soon discovered it and the actors of the West End followed suit.
Mr Olivelli affected a curmudgeonly manner with the theatrical types and would often play the weary misery-guts as a foil to their high-jinks.
Written over the downstairs bar in one photo is a sign which reads: “You actors… stick your max factors / I’ll tell you where like a man / long years of grumbling, made me a wreck it is clear / it will please both me and momma / just bugger off from here.”
Underneath the grouching though, Olivelli was a kind man who afforded his guests every courtesy. According to 83-year-old Irma Spina, who took over the running of the hotel after Olivelli’s death in 1961, Enrico would never begrudge down-on-their-luck actors and artists a free feed; many destitute bohemians would eat their every meal there “on the house” for weeks.
When his American pot-washer Danny Kaye (who would go on to become an international film star and singer) showed promise as a performer, Olivelli and his guests paid for his fare back to the States to follow his dreams, says Mrs Spina.
“It was a wonderful place, so full of life,” she remembers. “There was always champagne and dancing – the parties would go on all night. Everybody loved Mr Olivelli.”
If Olivelli’s is razed to the ground or refurbished beyond recognition when the lease expires at the end of this year, it is fair to assume that England will somehow muddle through, despite Mr Marx’s proclamations. But it will be a slightly quieter, duller England because of it. |
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