BBC Archive | 1962: ROSA LEWIS and the CAVENDISH HOTEL | Tonight | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive @BBCArchive | Uploaded September 2024 | Updated October 2024, 11 hours ago.
The end was nigh for the Cavendish Hotel, based in Jermyn Street, London, with the building described as a 'gilded house of pleasure' was due for imminent demolition.

Before that happened, Michael Harrison fondly looks back at the hotel run by Rosa Lewis, the Queen of Cooks, where "the visitors book read like a mixture of Debrett's and the New York Social Register" - as high society, secrets and scandal were fully entwined.

Rosa died in 1952, but her life story served as the inspiration for the 1970s BBC drama, The Duchess of Duke Street.

Clip taken from Tonight, originally broadcast on BBC Television, Monday 19 November, 1962.





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