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The Jacques Romano story – Dr Berthold Eric Schwartz

From the New York Post – Elsa Maxwell; describing a party held on October 10th 1942 in the Waldorf Towers:

The evening was a battle of magic between Orson Welles and a gentleman called Jacques Romano, who looks forty but admits to being seventy-nine. He is what one would call, I suppose, in Indian parlance, a Yogi- only he tells me that there are no Yogis nor has there ever been a Yogi in America.

He read our minds 'as through a glass lightly.' I tried hard to think amiable, vacuous nothings for fear he would rout out my secret heart and give my particular show away.

Cole Porter was terrified of Dr. Romano.

Grace Moore loved being told about herself, as if she didn't know it already.

Ania Dorfman, our greatest woman pianist, was thrilled and afterward played Liszt like mad and more brilliantly than anyone I have heard in many a day.

Monty Woolley muttered sarcastic asides, and I got my biggest thrill when this seventy-nine-year-old miracle man, who claims he has discovered the philosopher's stone and learned the secret of eternal youth, asked me to feel his pulse. At the moment when it was beating strongest he calmly made it stop and suddenly Dr. Romano had no pulse at all.

He told Neysa McMein, who was gazing up at him, fascinated, like a rabbit gazes at a snake, to hold out her hand. 'Now I will project ether through the ends of my fingertips on to the palm of your hand.' Neysa turned white and snatched her hand away, as she felt a cool breeze emanate from the Doctor's fingertips.