London's now-defunct Savoy Theater, the original home of Gilbert and Sullivan, and the Savoy Hotel, the over-the-top establishment that caters to the world's elite, are places of fabled enchantment, excess, and notoriety. Both fabulously successful enterprises were founded by Richard D'Oyly Carte in the 1880s, and managed over the next century by his son Rupert, followed by his granddaughter Bridget. This detailed history rambles along, dropping names (Oscar Wilde, Sophia Loren, the Beatles) and attention-getting tidbits (Johann Strauss used to provide dinner music). Entertaining anecdotes document legal wranglings, eccentric guests, titillating scandals, and accounts of unimaginable extravagance. Richard emerges as a charismatic man of great vision; Rupert (a British spy during WWI) as a private and skilled businessman, and Bridget as a reclusive philanthropist and dedicated heiress who did everything in her power to preserve her family legacy. Williams (Gin, Glorious Gin, 2014) has done an effective job in recreating the Savoy's remarkable past. Music theater enthusiasts, celebrity cognoscenti, and social history buffs will enjoy this account of timeless elegance and unparalleled service.

Historian Williams (Gin Glorious Gin) delivers a rich and rewarding history of London's Savoy Hotel and Savoy Theatre. She spotlights three generations of the D'Oyly Carte family that built and ran the Savoy, beginning with theater impresario and talent agent Richard D'Oyly Carte, who financed the hotel project with profits earned from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas he staged at the theater next door. Opening in 1889, the Savoy Hotel "became a microcosm of the newly diverse local and international elite, who came to... see and be seen." Richard's son Rupert D'Oyly Carte introduced cabaret acts and the Savoy Havana Band after he took over in 1913, and made the Savoy the first British hotel to actively publicize itself in the U.S. Rupert's only daughter, Bridget, became president of the Savoy Hotel after her father's death in 1948, and with the help of chairman Hugh Wontner, fended off a series of "hostile takeovers." Williams drops plenty of names (Claude Monet painted the view from his hotel room; Bob Dylan was denied entry for not wearing a tie), folds in colorful anecdotes (one maid's sole job was picking beads from flappers' dresses off the dance floor), and incisively analyzes real estate deals and other business matters. The result is a delicious peek behind some rather luxurious curtains. (June)