I ,..n«w«___
How Rich Mr. Breese
Just Can’t Live Down the
Memories of the Spicy ■.
Dessert He Served at
$
His Famous Dinner
Mr. James L. Breese
Mr. Breeae’s
niece, the
Countess of
An caster,
who has de
cided that
the hero of
the "girl-in
the-pie"
dinner is
not the right man
to look after her
financial affairs
Even this bit of statuary on Mr. Breese’s Long Island
estates suggests the beauty who popped out of the pie
and whose memory has been bobbing up to make things
difficult for Mr. Breese ever since
Indy Innes-Ker,
who joins her
(sister, the
Countess of An
caster, in a
legal fight to
have Mr. Breese
ousted as trustee
of their poperty
"Out of the pie she suddenly
sprang, a charming blue-eyed
vision wearing surprisingly lit
tle clothing even for an
artist's studio
£ £ tA« pfe vvu opened, the
£/*/ birds began to ling;
' ' Sow wam't that a pretty
dmh to let before the king1"
That was how it happened in the nur
ery atory, but when the great pie that
filled the center of the table at the fa
mous studio dinner given* by James L.
Breese, millionaire artlat and society
man, It was something quite different
from birds that leaped up through that
urprising expanse of uppe r crust.
It was a girl—aa pretty a girl, so
y of Mr. Breese's delighted guests
irclared, ss ever displayed her charms
■ strictly stag dinner party.
Out of the crust she lightly sprang.
itirrr.'.r.x blu* *y*d vision vny nt unt
ird fvi*n for an artiftt’a atudio.
•>.*» did riot >■ in/ ttn ♦.Vjr* )>irdn from
tiie pie oi tne nursery rnyme did. Uh,
no. Even if she had had the voice of
a Tetrazzini her notes would have been
drowned in the bibulous shouts of ap
probation that greeted her unexpected
appearance from that mysterious pis in
the center of the table.
All this happened in the days before
the Volstead act had placed any limita
tions on the thirsts of New York's plaaa
ure-loving men about town. At the
table in his studio where rich Mr. Breese
was entertaining a score or so of his
men friends at dinner enough cocktails,
champagne *.nd other beverages had been
flowing for hours in a flood almost great
enough to float the room and its occu
pants.
And the host, with his usual thought
ful care for the happiness of his guests,
had timed the appearance of the girUin
the-pie to match the moment when the
alcoholic stimulation of his friends
should have reached its height.
How well he had judged their capacity
was evidenced by the outburst of en
thusiasm that greeted the golden-haired
model as she emerged from the nie and
skipped up and down the table, now and
then overturning with her twinkling feet
a glass of wine or a demi-tasse or a nony
of some rare tordial that would to-day
he worth many times its weight in gold.
But all the roof-raising shouts and
bursts of hilarious song that greeted the
progress of the scantily clad ^ancer to
and fro on the table were not for her
grace and loveliness. The guests were
not too captivated with her to forget to
applaud the cleverness of the host who
had planned this delightful surprise as
the climax for one of the best dinners
they had ever eaten—and drunk.
“For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s
a jolly good fellow.*’
As the dancing girl jumped breath
lessly from the table and scurried out of
reach of the numerous arms outstretched
for her, the guests burst forth into an
inebriate but well intended vocal tribute
to their host.
And as he heard their loud voiced at
tempts at harmony Mr. Breese with all
his natural modesty could not repress
an intense thrill of pride and satisfac
tion. He had intended to make this din
ner a memorable affair, one that his
friends would always recall as a red
letter event in their lives; and, as be felt
sure from the enthusiasm they displayed,
he had succeeded beyond his fondest ex
pectations.
What a lucky inspiration, he thought,
that girl in .he pie had be^n. She had
added just the dash of spice that was
needed to make his dinner an outatand
Ing success, something unique in the
history of New York studio parties.
So rich Mr. Breese felt on the night of
his dinner—but if he had known how
that girl-in-the-pie was going to haunt
him all the rest of his life he doubtless
would have wished he never had seen
her, never thought of engaging her to
amuse him and his guests with those in
timate glimpses of herself.
The girl herself long since passed into
that mysterious oblivion where ali the
youthful Broadway beauties go, but still
the memory of her has kept bobbing up
from that day to thi» to make Mn
Breese’s life miserable.
That dinner party was too amazing a
one to be kept long a secret. Before the
heads of the guests were fairly over the
ache it gave them the girl-in-the-pie be
gan bobbing up again in the pages of
'.he newspapers.
The imaginations of reporter, and edi
tors made the affair little short of a
Roman emperor's orgy and in : me of the
accounts printed even the gauzy draper
ie. the artist’s model wore when he
emerged from the pie were stripped from
her.
This publicity gave poor Mr. Breese
no end of annoyance. There were both
ersome explanations tff be made to mem
bers of his family and friends, who were
considerably shocked by what they heard
about his dinner party. He began to be
pointed out in
restaurants and
other public
places as the man
who had given
the “girl-in-the
pie” dinner.
And so it has
been from that
day years agu
rig.it down to the
present time.
Wherever he goes
whatever he has
done he has been
always pursued
hy the memory
of the girl that
popped out of
that ffrcat pie on the table* In bis studio.
Other men have sown their wild oats
and reaped the harvest and then for
gotten about the whole thing. But no
such luck for Mr. Breese. Other lively
incidents of the days when he was hav
ing a prodigal fling at life have passed
out of everybody’s memory, but that
“girl-in-the-ple" refuses to let herself
be forgotten.. Her ghost keeps rising up
to disturb Mr. Breese’s peace of mind in
a great variety of ways.
The flrst Mrs. Breese, who died in
1917 and was a prominent figure in the
smartest New York and Newport society,
is said to have been greatly annoyed
during her long and brilliant social
career by the frequency with which she
was referred to as “the wife ot tho man
who gave that dreadful ‘girl-in-tha-pie’
dinner."
A guest at a great fete given foT the
benefit of the Red Cross at the splendid
Breese estate on Long Island was admir
ing the beauty of one of the sculptured
nude figures which dot the grounds and
add so much charm to the effect the
elaborate landscape gardening has pro
duced.
"Oh, yes,” said another guest, quick to
recall the famous studio dinner, “she
looks very much like the girl who popped
out of Jimmie's pie. And
who knows but It was
the same girl who posed
for the stajjie?"
The latest penalty rich
Mr. Breese Is being
called on to pay as an
F indirect result of the bizarre
and startling climax he pro
vided for his dinner Is some
thing for him to worry about
a great deal more than merely
unpleasant notoriety. It is In
volving him in what promises to prove
long and costly litigation, it may in the
end make serious inroads on his wealth
and it already has alienated from him
many distinguished and once devoted
members of his family.
Mr. Breese’s titled nieces, the Countess
of Ancaster and Lady Alistair Innes
Kerr, and his grandnephew, William L.
Breese, seem at last to have decided that
the hero of the “girl-in-the-pie” dinner
is not the proper man to have control
over their financial affairs.
In a suit filed the other day In the
New York Surrogates’ Court they al
leged Mr. Breese “unfit for the due exe
cution of his office of trustee’* of the
estate of his mother, Mrs. Augusta
Breese. The suit takes the form of an
application for the removal of the mil
lionaire artist and trustee.
The application lists a number of se
curities contained in a trust fund under
Breese’s administration, which was orig
inally valued at $109,000. Mismanage
ment of this property is alleged, and it
is further charged that Breese has made
personal use of portions of this fund.
A similar/application has also been
made charging “dishonesty, imprudence
and want of understanding” in connec
tion with the artist’s administration of
a trust fund established by his grand
mother, Mrs. Eloise L. Lawrence. It is
alleged that Mr. Breese hypothecated
bonds valued at $804,000 and also more
than 2,000- shares of Brooklyn Rapid
Transit and United States Steel pre
ferred and common stock.
The purpose of this hypothecation, h
is charged, was to furnish collateral to
brokers with whom he had speculative
accounts for loans and margins.
On Mr. Breese’s behalf it is said that
during the period when, it -is charged,
he speculated with estate funds—instead
of losing the securities through specula
tion, he won $2,000,000.
It is said that while there is no indi
cation that he lost one dollar of the
trust funds intrusted to him, it may be
that the funds of the trusts and ht* own
fund:, have been hopelessly intermingled.
This tangle will have to he straightened
out—If at all—through the accounting
that will probably be demanded from
Mr. Breese.
On the other hand, if it is shown that
Mr. Breese won the $2,000,000 in the
slock market through speculation with
the trust funds, demand will be made
that he turn over these earnings to the
trusts whose funds made the successful
speculation possible. In case of loss,
however, the liability would fall
llreese, it is said.
For the nieces and nephew
trying to have Mr: i eavt.
the trusteeships it is, you see,
of “heads I win, tails you lose."
The law provides that they
a share of any benefit that may have
accrued to the millionaire artist from his
stock speculations, but they oannot be
held liable for any loesee he may have
suffered while playing the market, as
they allege, with*part of the trast fund.
It is a 'perplexing legal tangle and one
that may cost the hero of the “girl-in
the pie" dinner a great deal of expense
and annoyance.
One thing it can hardly fail to do la to
bring him back from France, where, for
more than a year now he has been living
with his second wife, the former Miss
Grace Lucille Mormand, whom he mar
ried two years after the death of tha
first and more socially distinguished one.
At the time of his second marriage
Mr. Breese was sixty-flve years old and
his bride was twenty-three—about the
same age, .nany think, of the pretty
model who hid herself away inside the
pie and later popped out with such sur
prising results.
Until he went to France Mr. Breese
and his youthful bride had apartments
at the fashionable Ritc-Carlton in New
York. He has a town home just off Fifth
Avenue and also country residences in
the carefully guarded millionaires’ col
ony at Tuxedo and at Southampton.
In his younger years he name of
James L. Breese was for a long time
synonymous with the bizarre in artistic
and social entertainments. Always lav
ish and exotic in his tastes, he reached
the pinnacle of his career as host and
entertainer when he planned the appear
ance of the model from beneath the big
pie’s crust.
At the time this seemed a very happy
idea and. he was much pleased with the
suecess of it, but there are many who
think that he long since wished it had
never occurred to him.
Both the Countess of Ancaster and
Lady Alistair Innes-Ker are charming
women and they enjoy a position in
fashionable English society that has long
been the envy of many socially ambi
tious Americans.
Their quarrel with their uncle la be
lieved to be a grievous blow to some of
tho fondest hopes of his girlish second
wife. She is thought to have counted
very strongly on the assistance of her
husband's nieces in establishing herself
in society abroad.
The bitter legal fight makes It look
as If Mrs. Breese also would have to
share some of the unpleasant conse
quences of that “girl-in-the-pie.”