Sunday Dispatch (London), May 11, 1947
During all the years I knew Gordon Selfridge—and it is 24 years since I first met him—I never ceased to be amazed at his vitality.
It was limitless. And he could not realise that other people needed the sleep and rest which he went without so easily.
When my sister Jenny and I, and Mr. Selfridge’s daughters were aboard his yacht he would sit up talking until four or five in the morning, but at seven o’clock, as fresh and energetic as if he had had ten hours in bed, he would be knocking at our cabin doors, calling out: “Get up, little girls. Get up. Don’t you want any breakfast?”
Colourful Life
It was this tremendous vitality that made it possible to him to such a rich, colourful life. I have never known a man who worked so hard at business—and at enjoying himself. He would be at his office at half-past seven or eight in the morning, would return home well after most other business men, and then, without a pause, would start changing into evening dress to go out or to entertain.
And if my sister and I were tired because we had been rehearsing for nine hours he would say: “Tired little girls? You shouldn’t be tired. Why, look at me. I’ve worked as long and as hard at the office today as you have at rehearsals and I’m not a bit tired.
He never wasted a minute; the one thing he could not do was just to relax for half an hour.
Yet, despite all his work and all his going out, he somehow collected a library and did a great deal of reading: from London he would send Jenny and me lists of books which thought we ought to read.
Orchids were his hobby, and for them he always found time. The life story of an orchid was a fascinating thing as he told it. And it was a great day when he discovered a new book about orchids; he had hundreds of volumes on them.
Bit Of A Snob
Just as he could not understand other people getting tired, so he could not understand why everyone would not be successful, and had no use for people who were not. “Anyone can succeed,” he would say. “Push and hard work are all that you need to get ahead.”
And he certainly loved to have famous and successful people with striking personalities as his friends. He was, in fact, just a little bit of a snob; an it gave him enormous pleasure that at his large parties the leading statesmen of Britain (or France if he were in Paris) would be present with leading actors and actresses, musicians, authors, playwrights.
He never went out to lunch, but entertained in the middle of the day at his magnificent offices. And nearly always celebrities. After lunch the guests would write their names with a diamond glass cutter on a window pane. That window pane must have borne one of the most astonishing collections of great names in the world. I often wonder whether it survived the blitz.
Gordon Selfridge held strongly that there was only one way to do anything—the best way. He was extremely fond of theatre, and would ask all kinds of questions about shows we were working on in Paris before they were produced. “Nothing but the best, little girls,” he would say. “Either do it well or don’t do it all.” And that was his motto in business.
Rarely Gambled
The first time I saw him was in London when he came with his daughter to the Kit-Kat Club when my sister and I were appearing there. Soon afterwards we met him and his family again in Trouville (he played chem-nde-fer1 for quite large sums, but only occasionally), and that was the beginning of a long friendship.
He became very fond of my sister and asked her to marry him several times. But although she greatly admired him she always felt that the difference in their ages—his daughters were among her closest friends — was too great.
His generosity was extraordinary. Not once but a good many times I have told him the hard-luck story of some American girl stranded in Paris without any money to go home. Without even asking the girl’s name he would say, “How much does she need?” and give me the money to pass on to her. There was thoughtfulness in his generosity too.
Our Ice Creams
Jenny and I were of ice cream sodas—American style—which were almost unobtainable in France; but Mr. Selfridge had them in his store in London, and every week he would have a container flown to my sister’s château at Fontainebleau.
When he had Lansdowne House in London he was always willing to lend his ballroom for charity dances. I have never known him refuse.
He took an interest in everything, and was particular about small things. His clothes, for instance, were impeccable, would never go to the store except in his silk hat, cut-away coat, and striped trousers.
And meals, He would go a long way to a restaurant where things were just as he liked them. But he smoked very little and would go a whole evening with a single glass of sherry or champagne.
He disapproved very strongly of anyone who he considered drank too much. And he disapproved equally strongly of anything he thought vulgar. In all the years I knew him I never heard him say a vulgar word. Nor would he tolerate it from anyone else. Sometimes he would visit us in our dressing-room; there would be all sorts of people there, and once or twice one of them said something he thought was below par. Always he would reproach us.
“Little girls,” he would say, “you must never let anything vulgar pass without showing that you don’t approve.”
Loved A Joke
Vulgarity is not dignified,” he would say. And he loved dignity. It was, I think, the dignity he found in English life that made him love his adopted country so much. “Dignity is a great thing,” he repeated often. But you must not think of him as a humourless man. He liked a joke. I remember that, some 15 years ago, my husband and sister and I went to London for one of the 2,000-guest balls he gave annually. That evening his daughter, Princess Wiasemsky, gave a small dinner party and there was a little confusion when we went on to the ball.
Mr. Selfridge and I arrived before my husband and sister, who were in another car. “Now until Rosebud (his pet name for his daughter) arrives you’re going to be hostess and help me receive the guests,” he said. And I’m going to tell then all you’re Jenny. We’ll fool them.” So until the rest of the party arrived he passed me off to dozens of people as my sister and was vastly amused that they did not know which of us was which.
He loved his family as deeply as any father I have seen and always took them about with him. And he had been devoted to his wife, who died some years before we met him.
Made Millions
I remember him telling me the story of how, when she was ill, she had insisted on coming downstairs to act as hostess to a dinner party; and how after the guests went she returned to bed never to get up again. She died of pneumonia. He told us, too, of what a brilliant woman his mother, a school teacher, had been. Like him. she lived to be ninety.
He liked to tell the story of how he had been a dollar a week boy in the basement of Marshall Field’s store in Chicago—how he had risen to make two million dollars, and then had told Marshall Field (the grandfather) that he wanted a partnership—and had been refused. “Well, I will build a store as big as yours,” he said. He did, too—even to the annexe which. he wanted because Marshall Field had an annexe in Chicago.
Yes, he admired success, loved it, achieved it. And with all my heart I admire him for it. He was a great man.
NOTES:
1 Chem-nde-fer is a form of the card game baccarat.
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