Monday, February 15, 2010

Michael and his fiancee live on $8.50 a day

February 15, 1948

The former King Michael of Roumania, who forced to leave Roumania at the beginning of this year, is living modestly with his mother, Queen Mother Helen in the Derby Hotel in Davos, Switzerland. They pay $8.50 a day for room and meals, and 85 cents more for heat. Charging for heat, according to the Chicago Daily Tribune, is "an old European custom."
This rate is about half of what most guest pay at "more fashionable St. Moritz, winter playground of wealthy Europeans."
Michael is living in one room "with a bath about the size of a piano box."
Michael's fiancee, Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma and her brother, Prince Michel, are paying similar rates.
European nobles and royals, who are "long on titles but short on cash," receive special rates at the St. Moritz hotels. Hotel managers figure they "will attract the type of American guests, mostly from the east, who break out in goose flesh just from drinking in the same saloon with unemployed kings, dukes and princes."
No one dresses for dinner. Queen Helen and Princess Anne are usually attired in slacks and sweaters. King Michael prefers a "sports jacket and flannels.
Michael's fortune was taken by the new Communist leaders in Roumania. One close source said that Michael will "have to live modestly, but it won't be necessary for him to go debt."

2 comments:

Bea said...

Marlene, do you know why Queen Helen was with them? Couldn't she have gone back to live with the royal family in Greece or did she have to work like King Michael?

Marlene Eilers Koenig said...

I do not think Helen did not want to leave Michael until his wedding. They had been through a lot together. After the wedding, she moved into her new home in Italy. Mother and son had been through a lot in the final year or so of Michael's reign.