Jazzman's Pearl

In 1841 a daring British privateer named Brooke forced the Sultan of Brunei to make him Raja of the vast East Indian district called Sarawak. Today his descendant is swank, hard Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, who as The White Raja of Sarawak rules 500,000 natives from his palace at Kuching (TIME, Feb. 5, 1934). Romantic Sarawak is "independent under the protection of the British Crown." Last month in Sarawak a cable from the Raja's 22-year-old Daughter Eliza asked if she could marry London's loudest-blowing hot jazz conductor, Harry Roy.

Cabled Raja Brooke in reply, ''QUITE OK ELIZA PROVIDED NO PUBLICITY OR NEWSPAPER EXCITEMENT LOVE VYNER."

British deference to Raja Brooke kept the story out of staid London papers and off the cables. Last week it broke as irrepressible picture services showed the world Raja Brooke's daughter and her bridegroom cutting their jazz wedding cake (see cut).

The marriage early this month was at Caxton Hall Registry Office near the Houses of Parliament. A London crowd shuffled, sweltered, fainted, and sang on the curb from 8 a. m. until the ceremony at 2:30 p. m. when the Roy Jazz Band blared as a wedding march its leader's original composition:

Sarawaki!

Sarawaki skies of blue!

Sarawaki, I'll always dream of yon!

I see yon waiting, neath the Golden Bamboo,

Oh, Sarawaki! My heart is there with yon.

The bridegroom's mother, Mrs. Solomon Litman, sat tearfully in a corner, nudged by her young son Syd who cried: "Momma, look!" when Her Highness the Ranee of Sarawak arrived with the bride's sister Leonora ("Princess Gold"). Countess of Inchcape and the bride's grandmother, Lady Esher.

Murmured "Momma" Litman to the bridegroom: "It's lovely while the money keeps coming in, but oh, if it should stop, oh Harry, my boy!"

Small, dangerously thin Bandster Harry

Roy, who plays the soprano saxophone, next feted hundreds of guests at a champagne breakfast in the Mayfair Hotel where "Momma" proved a hostess of surprising aplomb. Sarawak's laughing Eliza gave her husband a gold cigaret case, received a mink coat, disappeared in their snorting Sunbeam car for a three-week honeymoon at Juanles-Pins. Later she will play a 17-week engagement in Great Britain's provinces, jazz-singing with the Roy Band.

International swanksters recalled the recent marriage of Manhattan Socialite Marjorie Oelrichs to Jazzman Eddie Duchin whose Central Park Casino orchestra used to burst into the flattering strains of Margie whenever she arrived (TIME, June 17). Raja Brooke's jazz-struck Eliza was for a time a friend of languorous Scottish Actor Jack Buchanan who used to sing Eliza to her and nearly got her a part in a cinema. Three years ago she graduated to Bandster Roy, who calls her "Dedi" because simple Sarawak natives know her as "The Dayang Pearl." Mr. Roy rides mornings in Rotten Row, crickets on his private cricket field, encourages "Momma" Litman to cook when friends drop in for a party at his flat at No. 60 Park Lane. Leaving Mrs. Litman in the flat, Mr. & Mrs. Roy have rented another flat in the same building, eight floors above.

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