Butler Is For Real

“I’m not ready for this,” says Bill when the bell rings precisely at the stroke of 9. He sighs and goes to open the door wearing TWA First Class booties.

9:02 a.m., I enter hall, make first faux pas. “Oh, how dashing you look,” I say to perfectly correct, perfectly groomed fellow decked out in white gloves and tails. Bill frowns.

“Thank you, madam,” the butler demurs. I vanish. “Sir, can you tell me where the kitchen is?” I hear him say.

Bill has kindly allowed me the use of his place to try Your British Butler, a service where for $160 a butler will serve you at home, even in bed. I’ve signed us up for breakfast in bed, and while the butler is finding the kitchen we wait in the bed, arguing about him. I’m convinced he’s an actor: He looks too much like a butler.

Bill’s convinced “our” butler is for real. He fishes out the press release from under the bed as proof: Anthony Gordon was the personal butler to the English designer Alexander Plunkett-Greene, Mary Quant’s husband, and has been a professional chef. Well, he’s supposed to anticipate our every need, right? Bill’s need is to eat, immediately. He goes to find out what’s cooking.

9:36 a.m. Bill and butler return. “I’m terribly sorry, madam, there must have been some mistake. I didn’t realize you requested breakfast in bed, I’m afraid I haven’t brought the trays.”

Frankly, I’m crushed but, noblesse oblige and all that, I keep a stiff upper lip. We move to dining room, see the lovely rose “for the lady.” No promised newspaper “for the gentleman.” And no more tomfoolery. We’re on stage too. The butler can hear everything we say.

Bill’s Roommate stumbles in, offers to take our picture. “If I may . . .” the butler suggests, perhaps we’d like a shot of him pouring the Mumm’s Cordon Rouge champagne. I’m convinced I’ve seen him on television.

10:00 a.m. Butler disappears into kitchen, I pull out notebook stuck inside bathrobe: superb fruit salad (honeydew, kiwi, pineapple, strawberries all perfectly ripe), great coffee, decaf right too. Croissants warm, fresh. Omelet with asparagus and sauteed mushrooms, buttery, wonderful. Bill’s prosciutto splendid, his poached eggs to the manor born. Unlike us.

10:12. Bill decides to introduce himself. “We haven’t met yet,” he says. The butler introduces himself to Bill. It’s an odd moment, like when an actor steps out of a play and talks to the audience. Faux pas No. 2.

The butler delivers the classic lines. “Would you care for some more Champagne, madam?” “Was that coffee too strong for you, sir?” And, when Bill wants his fruit salad back after his eggs, a deadpan “the lettuce was wilted, sir, so I removed it.” It’s all pure movie script until the perpetually hungry Bill wants a second croissant.

“I’m terribly sorry, sir, I don’t seem to have another one at hand. No one has ever asked--er, most people, er, nibble. “ We’re all embarrassed. The butler has clearly wandered into a home filled with ravenous proles, the sort of people who wrap up petits fours at weddings and take the flowers home from affairs. Maybe we should have sprung for the $300 Hearty English Hunt Breakfast with “unlimited quantities.”

10:45 a.m. Bill and I guzzle the rest of our coffee, roll our eyes at each other and retire, glad we don’t have to do the dishes. Black currant jam, lovely as it is, does leave such a mess.

10:58 a.m. I wander back to the pristine kitchen to pay Our British Butler. “With your permission, madam, I’m leaving now.” I scream down the hall in Ethel Merman tones, “Bill, he’s leaving.” (Bill wants to give him a tip.) “Thank you so much, it was a pleasure serving you, sir.”

Unused to drinking Champagne at that hour, we lurch back to the bedroom, engage in post-prandial analysis. Why didn’t he leave the settings? (The flier had said he would leave “the attractive wood bed tray, the vase of flowers, the crystal Champagne flutes and entire breakfast service for your future use.”) Can you believe he forgot the trays? Should we have talked as if he weren’t there? Should we have let him out the back way?

And why did Bill introduce himself? “How could I ask him for something if I didn’t know his name?” “You could have called him Hudson,” I reply.

Weeks go by. I leave myself notes-- call British Butler-- but I can’t make myself pick up the phone, hate to have to ask him about those croissants and reveal I was playing a role too. Finally ring him up.

Ah, so Anthony Gordon is a real butler, and a former restaurateur with the same splendid “minor public school South of England” accent as before. He’s also (my sixth sense was right) a genuine Hollywood actor. He’s played a sommelier, a croupier, a hotelier, a waiter and scores of maitre d’s and butlers in loads of movies and television shows. He loved Hudson in “Upstairs, Downstairs,” as a matter of fact, but his own favorite role, in “Marilyn: The Untold Story,” was playing Sir Laurence Olivier.

“There’s a difference, of course, between playing a butler on a sound stage and in someone’s home, but in both cases--unless you were working over a period of time for someone like Randolph Hearst or the Kennedys--it’s essentially a make-believe situation. When I go into someone’s home it’s fantasy for both of us.”

Yes, he says, most people aren’t quite sure how to behave when he comes into their home. “Most Americans feel a master-servant relationship is inherently impolite.” No, no one’s ever asked him to pretend to their guests that he was their longtime, faithful servant. (He did turn down the assignment for an intimate dinner a pair of nudists wished to pursue.)

Yes, it was a “minor” faux pas to tell him how wonderful he looked, “a bit strange” for Bill to pop up and introduce himself. “The line,” Gordon says, “must be clearly drawn. It’s a question of mutual respect for roles.”

What about those bed trays? “Oh, your honor,” he jokes, “we’ve evolved new plans and forgot to change the flyer. We do, of course, do breakfast in bed but now we wash up rather than leaving the package. In practice it wasn’t such a good idea.”

And the forgotten newspaper? “Most people already have theirs delivered at 4 a.m.”

And the single croissants? “Ah, I must say I was humiliated by that.”

Ah well, a couple of faux pas, one humiliation and a lot of fun. There’s nothing like starting the day with a silver spoon--er, foot--in your mouth.

Your British Butler, breakfasts, brunches, lunches, cocktail parties, dinners. For detailed information call (818) 760-4151. Cash and checks accepted.