tatler.com October 2019somewhat ruefully that ‘Today and for many
years the Groucho Club has been as clean as
can be. The surfaces in the bathrooms are free
of white powder.’)
But one wonders what the subsequent own-
ers, the Krispy Kreme kings made of Bernie.
The circumstances of Bernie’s departure have
never been properly explained. Former mem-
bers of staff have told me that Bernie left by
mutual consent; he had recognised that he’d be-
come unmanageable. Some of his tamer antics
were entertaining: if a couple came in and he
fancied the man, he’d go over and kiss him on
the lips, which he did once to former Governor
of Hong Kong Chris Patten, back when Patten
was Chairman of the BBC, telling his wife she
had a ‘good one’ there. Patten just laughed.
Bernie had become a star – albeit on a small
stage – but had grown too big for his Cuban
heels. ‘He was proving to be unreliable, not
turning up. But I saw that he still had a bit of
life left,’ a source told me. In an attempt to
motivate him, Bernie’s salary was doubled to
£60,000, for a three-day week. ‘But I think he
felt a bit disenfranchised, and because he was
very famous at the Groucho, he thought he
should be famous outside of the Groucho [as
Bernie saw it, he was a natural television and
radio presenter]. So, he went off to do those
things. I don’t know how successful they were.
But I think as he spent less time in the club, he
fell more and more out of love with it.’
When Bernie resigned in March 2017, he
received a severance payment: ‘I saw him on his
last day,’ says Jeff Connon. ‘We were on the way
up to the Mackintosh room. I said... “Look,
I’m really sorry how hard it has been over the
past few years for us both.” He said: “Jeff,
I completely understand. I know that I’m so
difficult to manage.”’
And then he was gone.
Unfortunately, it seemed, Bernie’s pay-off
had minimal impact on his colossal debts. He
had lived a chaotic life, spent money freely
and financial troubles had always dogged him,
in spite of his comfortable salary. His friends,
with some noble exceptions, had proved re-
markably tight-lipped about all this. What
was it that made so few of his ‘friends’ want to
talk about him? What were they hiding? But
Bernie was unusually close to his family, and
they were happy to chat.Two years after his death, his mother,
Rhoda, and his three sisters still think
the world of Bernie. Rhoda is a typical
Jewish mother; now in her late seventies, she
still serves up an exemplary chicken soup to
visitors to her immaculately kept bungalow in
Chatham, Kent.Bernie still has a literal presence in the
room: his ashes lie in a marble urn in the fire-
place, adorned by one of many portraits. Mrs
Katz is charm personified, a neat, well turned
out woman who recalls a mischievous young
lad who was the scourge of his three elder sisters.
‘He was naughty, very naughty, always trying
to make some sort of trouble. But they adored
him.’ And she talks of her son, whom she al-
ways calls Bernard, with immense pride – and
a lingering sadness that becomes more obvious
when the Groucho is mentioned. ‘I was asked
to go down there, but I said, “No, I will not
set foot in there.” I’ll tell you why. See, I can’t
go down there because Bernard’s not there. He
was brilliant. Gift of the gab. I think he was
the Groucho. Bernard was the Groucho.’ But
the Groucho was also Bernie. Without it, he
was unmoored, both spiritually and financially.
I was told by a close friend that Bernie had
pawned the paintings the YBAs had given him
long ago. Another source suggested his debts
ran into many tens of thousands. Therein lay
Bernie’s undoing. Soon after he had left
the club, a desperate Bernie rang television pro-
ducer Damon Bryant, an old friend. ( Bryant
would later organise the funeral and lead the
procession. ‘I loved that crazy little f**ker. My
kids, who are now 30, grew up with him as
their mad uncle.’)
‘He told me that he had got himself into
£20,000 worth of debt with some Albanian
gangsters. The original debt was about £9,000
but the interest had escalated. So, some of his
friends – me, Jude Law, Bradley Adams and
Paul Rowe – got the £9,000 together and I went
to pay off the Albanians. I met them downstairs
at Quo Vadis and I remember I was wearing a
pair of canary-yellow trousers. My wife still laughs
hysterically about that. I told them that they
had to accept £9,000 – or I would bring in some
of my own friendly Albanians.’
There’s no suggestion that Law, Adams or Rowe
knew what the money was going towards. Though,
it seems, sadly, not to have been enough – and
there’s no knowing what the Albanians truly felt.
I asked Bryant, who, with his friends had
simply tried to help Bernie out of kindness, what
Bernie was spending the money on. ‘Cocaine.
He’d stopped drinking and he was just doing
cocaine on its own.’ There’s no evidence Bernie
was dealing in drugs, but plenty of rumour.
Damon Bryant said that towards the end of
his life, Bernie had found some happiness with
a Spanish boyfriend, based in Barcelona. ‘Diego
had wanted to become a photographer, so
Bernie put him through photography school.’
But, like so much else, that relationship ended
soon after Bernie left the Groucho.
Another friend, Lily Law, had worked with
Bernie at the Groucho in the Nineties. Sheknew him well – they had once shared a flat –
and she was well aware of his foibles, especially
his show business ambitions. She remembers the
time that Bernie, who’d been serving Take That
on table eight, came rushing into the prep area
bursting with excitement. ‘He thought he’d
been told by one of the band that he looked
like Al Pacino. Actually, they’d just asked for
“a cappuccino”.’
By the end, she said, ‘Bernie was in a very bad
place. My husband and I wished we’d been able
to just take him away from the problems he was
having – “kidnap” him and keep him safe in the
country for a while. Bernie was under a lot of
financial stress.
‘I can’t tell you why he left the Groucho, it’s
not for me to say. Suffice to say Bernie got him-
self into a dreadful state and felt the only way
out was death. He was a magnificent person,
tender, witty, incredibly big hearted but always,
always in torment of one kind or another. The
Groucho was his life, but the role he played
there was always exhausting for him, I’m sure.’
Yet when that role came to an end, Bernie
was bereft without it. ‘I’ll tell you something,’
says his mother. ‘Bernard’s favourite film was
Lost Horizon. And I remember him saying
to one of his sisters, “I wish I could go to a lost
horizon.” She didn’t think anything of it, but I
did. He just didn’t want to be here anymore.’
At his funeral at Golders Green Crematori-
um on 21 September 2017, Jude Law read the
eulogy; Damon Albarn had written a poem.To the spirit of Soho
In Golem moulder and knight,
In rhinestones and green satin,
Your faerie dust flight
Onto scales under world
For the tailor to sew
You a suit of small mirrors
Reflections of you flow
Onto all that have loved you so we can find
you again
Sing Bernie forever our magical friendAfter the committal, the mourners retired
to the wake, inevitably in Soho. Their magical
friend had never done anything by halves, and
there were actually two wakes: an ‘official’ one
at the Groucho itself and another, rival event
at Quo Vadis, a little further down the road in
Dean Street. Both were highly emotional
affairs, each well-lubricated with industrial
quantities of intoxicants served long into the
night. Bernie would have adored both occa-
sions. Everyone was talking about him, and
he was no longer merely front-of-house, ush-
ering in the rich and glamorous. He was, for
once, at the very centre of the proceedings. A
PHOTOGRAPHS: BACKGRID; GETTY IMAGES; SHUTTERSTOCK star, who’d fallen. (10-19WELL-MarkEdmonds.indd 117 14/08/2019 12:10
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