Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff (Achmed Abdullah) was the author of
numerous adventure and mystery stories, usually set in strange and
exotic locations.
His father, Grand Duke Nicholas Romanoff, was a cousin of
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his
mother, Princess Nourmahal Durani, was the daughter of the Amir of
Afghanistan. Alexander, along with his brother Yar and sister Gothia,
were born at the Romanoff Palace in Yalta, the future site of the
historic Second World War conference among
Winston Churchill,
Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Joseph Stalin. After pressure from the
Afghan and Russian royal houses forced their parents to divorce,
Alexander--along with his sister--went to live with their uncle in
Afghanistan; Yar, the oldest, stayed with his father in Russia.
Alexander was adopted by his uncle, who changed his name to Achmed
Abdullah Nadir Khan el-Durani el Iddrissyeh and raised him in the
Muslim faith. Yar became an officer in the Russian army and was killed
in 1914 at the Battle of Tannenberg. Gothia was said to have married an
Indian rajah. In 1936, after years of being torn between the Russian
Orthodox Church he was baptized in and the Muslim faith he was raised
in, Abdullah became a Roman Catholic.
He went to schools in Afghanistan, India, France and finally England,
where he attended Eton and Oxford. Upon graduation he became a British
citizen and joined the British army, where he served with merit in
China, Tibet, Russia, Eastern Europe, France, India and Africa. Because
of his ability to blend in with different cultures, he was often called
upon by British Intelligence to work as a spy. Not long after Abdullah
retired from the British army with the rank of captain, he joined the
Turkish army and fought with distinction in the First Balkan War
(1912-1913). By the time Abdullah decided to pursue a writing career
his life experiences had gained him a plethora of material to draw upon
for decades to come.
Abdullah began writing in earnest after coming to the US sometime after
1914. Soon stories like "The Blue Eyed Manchu", "The Red Stain", "The
Soul Catcher" and "Bucking the Tiger" were appearing in newspapers and
magazines across the country. By the early 1920s he was writing for
both the stage and the screen. In 1928 he published a collection of
ballads and poems from Central Asia entitled "Lute and Scimitar". His
autobiography, "The Cat Had Nine Lives" (1933), reads like one of his
romantic adventure stories. In 1937 he wrote with John Kenney, a
cookbook entitled, "For Men Only". Abdullah's first Broadway play, "The
Honourable Mr. Wong" (1932), was adapted from his story "The
Hatchetman" and was written with the help of
David Belasco around the time he
became a permanent resident of the US. Though many of his stories and
plays were very popular with the public, he will probably always be
best remembered for the classic films
Der Dieb von Bagdad (1924)
and
Bengali (1935).
Abdullah must have cut quite an imposing figure when seen out in
public, with his military posture, impeccable suit, hat tilted just so,
gray spats and monocled eye. In 1945 he passed away on his birthday at
Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York after an illness of
several months. He was survived by his third wife, Rosemary Dutton,
whom he married in 1940, a year after his second wife of 20 years,
literary agent Jean Wick, had passed away. His first wife, Irene
Augusta Bainbridge, was still married to him when he filled out his
Word War One draft registration card in 1918.
