Society Harlequin

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 602, 2 March 1929, Page 19

Society Harlequin

{Continued from page 18.) new admirers, Harry had his picture taken in his soubrette costume. Later, after his brilliant marriage, the newspapers continued to use the picture and make sport of the resourceful Harry. He was said to have spent thousands of dollars to kidnap and destroy existing copies of the photo- i graph that testified to his ability as a , female impersonator. At Newport the playboy to the millionaires was credited with a new stunt every day. A wrist-bag, bangles, monogrammed socks when worn by Harry Lehr were front-page news. One day when Mrs. Fish was fretful for something new, he bought a largesize doll and paraded Bellevue Avenue with her, conversing in baby talk. His escapades in the presence of Emperor Wilhelm, now plain Hohenzollern, are said to have led to the removal of the American Ambassador, who had sponsored the jester’s presentation. One of his most audacious coups was his championship of Mrs. Fish against the Grand Duke Boris, who was the much feted guest of the Ogden Goelets. Mrs. Fish in a moment of frankness informed Mrs. Goelet that the scion of Russia’s royal family was a dissipated fellow, who was after her daughter’s money. Mrs. Goelet was properly offended and failed to include Mrs. Fish in the banquet given to the' Duke. Harry, nothing daunted, arranged a rival banquet for the “Emperor Leero.” At this affair he appeared in a Roman toga with a gilded crown, rakishly set, and announced himself as the guest of honour. The burlesque dinner was more amusing than the formal affair, adds the “World” writer, so Mrs. Fish and her field-marshal came out ahead on the social battlefield. Reading on: In 1925 two New York women decided to try one of Harry Lehr’s old stunts on Harry. They made a tour of Paris and gathered together a menagerie of pets—lizards, monkeys, rabbits, dogs—and planted them in the Lehr apartment. “Happy” Harry, who before the war had been a constant host to animals of all sorts at distinguished dinner parties, was filled with rage. He refused to speak to the two young pranksters, and stormed against their “ridiculous and insulting” conduct. Harry, the court jester, was dead; but Harry, the husband of wealthy Mrs. Lehr, lived on. In later years he separated from her, ! and was said to have received only a : small allowance. He suffered from | cancer on the brain, and returned to Baltimore for medical aid. No one I visited him, and his gilded friends of ! former days seemed to be indifferent | to their old court jester, who was ill and in need of funds.