Great-granddaughter of tycoon Mr Selfridge says he wasn't a womaniser
Cleone Augur (pictured) is the great-granddaughter of Harry Selfridge and says his story is even stranger than the fiction shown on the hit ITV show
Fans of the ITV series Mr Selfridge probably think they know everything about the colourful American tycoon – from his trim, dark beard to his compulsive womanising and betrayal of his long-suffering wife.
But the truth about Harry Gordon Selfridge is very much stranger than that told in the hit show, according to one surviving member of his family.
Cleone Augur, the great-granddaughter of the man who revolutionised British shopping, says the real story of Mr Selfridge and his family includes Russian assassins, showgirls, drug scandals, a slide into poverty – and a bizarre tale of smuggled bull semen.
Mrs Augur has never spoken in public about the series and says she watches the show under sufferance.
But when she was tracked down by The Mail on Sunday she was keen to set the record straight on a couple of key points: Harry Gordon Selfridge was not unfaithful, she insists – and he didn’t even have a beard.
‘Mr Selfridge is a story which is entertaining for the masses, but it is not necessarily fact,’ she says with withering precision.
‘I was particularly annoyed by the portrayal of my great-grandfather.
'He did not have affairs when his wife was alive, though he went slightly bananas after she died in the flu pandemic in 1918.
‘He made some bad decisions. He had a good time with the ladies, particularly the Dolly sisters, identical twin dancers who helped him spend his money.
'Then he discovered that one of them was taking a lot of drugs and he severed the relationship.
‘And I was disappointed that Jeremy Piven has a beard – my great-grandfather never wore one.’
Last Sunday, Mrs Augur watched a portrayal of her own grandmother Rosalie – Selfridge’s daughter (played by Kara Tointon) – getting married in style to a Russian emigre, the rakish aviation pioneer Prince Serge de Bolotoff.
A shot from season three of Mr Selfridge, starring Jeremy Piven (pictured third from right) as Harry Selfridge
An undated photograph showing Harry Selfridge with his daughter Rosalie - Mrs Augur's grandmother
Mrs Augur says: ‘I thought Kara was very good as my grandmother, but they got the dates wrong.
'I do know they all broke glasses [during a toast] but the wedding was completely different.
'They married in a private ceremony at the chapel of the Russian Embassy in London.’
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ShareMrs Augur was not convinced, either, by Zoë Wanamaker’s portrayal of the groom’s mother, Princess Marie, as a grasping woman.
‘My great-grandmother was a deeply religious woman and wasn’t on the make,’ she says.
‘Her family had estates all over Russia but lost everything. Her husband disappeared with the secret police at some stage and never came back.
Princess Marie Wiazemsky (pictured left) and Serge and Tatiana Wiazemsky with their baby Rosalie (right)
‘And I’m not convinced they are particularly accurate about grandpapa, who was quite a nervous chap. He was always worried that he was going to be assassinated by his political enemies in Russia.
‘When he came over here, he had a Cossack who used to sleep across the bedroom door, which my grandmother found quite trying, as you can imagine.
‘Grandpapa was quite witty and charming and had an eye for the ladies, but I never heard any stories that he was tempted to go off with anyone else.’
Now 70, Mrs Augur says Selfridge lavished money on his four children – Rosalie, Violette, Harry Jnr and Beatrice – and bankrolled their husbands.
Mrs Augur with the wedding dress that was handed down to her from grandmother Rosalie Wiazemsky
Rosalie’s husband Serge tried – and failed – to become the first man to fly across the English Channel after the Daily Mail offered a £1,000 prize in 1908.
After their marriage, the couple lived with Selfridge in London’s Portman Square while Serge started a short-lived aviation company that only ever made one machine – a two-seat utility biplane that was illustrated in the 1919 edition of Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft.
Despite his lack of success, the family enjoyed a wonderful sailing trip to Deauville in France on Selfridge’s steam yacht, Conqueror, as well as playing tennis on the roof of the department store and sitting in the front row at show premieres.
Selfridge even installed a soda fountain in the store for his eldest daughter.
Eventually, Selfridge’s spending spiralled out of control as the Great Depression hit his profits, and he was ousted from the board in 1941.
When he ran into money troubles he moved to a flat in Putney, South-West London, with Serge, Rosalie and Mrs Augur’s mother, Tatiana.
‘He didn’t have any money,’ Mrs Augur recalls.
‘My grandmother once turned the bailiffs away and she had to go and work in the finance department at Selfridges.
‘She didn’t want to be recognised, so she took the name Mrs Rose Lee.’
Selfridge died in penury in 1947, at the age of 90. Mrs Augur was just three years old.
Despite their troubles, Tatiana was a debutante and married Craig Wheaton-Smith, grandson of the Conservative MP Sir Ernest Craig.
They moved to Somerset, where Wheaton-Smith worked as a farmer and geneticist.
He was the author of the book Breeding Better Cows.
There was, however, one more scandal to hit the family.
An undated picture of Harry Gordon Selfridge with his mother, Lois, in London - she died in 1924
Wheaton-Smith was arrested for smuggling semen from French Charolais cattle into Britain, which was used to inseminate Ayrshire cows belonging to Lord Beaverbrook and British Agriculture adviser Sandy Copeland.
‘They stored the semen in my grandmother’s fridge which she thought was outrageous,’ Mrs Augur reveals. ‘The resulting calves were exhibited at the Bath and West Show, but my father felt a hand on his shoulder in 1965 and was fined £50 for smuggling.
‘It was an extraordinary story but actually it has changed the dairy industry.’
In spite of their straitened circumstances, the family retained strong ties with Selfridges after its founder was ousted – Tatiana even had a discount card.
‘Sadly the links have been severed now,’ says Mrs Augur. ‘It’s a shame because I would have loved that discount card.’
Harry Gordon Selfridge (centre) at the christening of his granddaughters Rosalie and Violette in Chicago
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