EARLY last year Michael Romanoff, who was building a new restaurant in Beverly Hills, Calif., found himself in need of more funds to finish the job. With his usual aplomb, Mr. Romanoff cabled his old friend Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, then vacationing in Honolulu, and asked if he might borrow $25,000. The money arrived the next morning, accompanied by a note which read: "I'm always pleased to serve my King."

It is a tribute to Mike Romanoff that some of his friends have now elevated him to the rank of king, and that anyone is willing to lend him anything like $25,000. Twenty years ago, the New Yorker published a five-part Profile on him because he then had the dubious honor of being the most fabulous and incredible impostor alive, with the added distinction of having just been deported to France for allegedly defrauding some tourists. But even as far back as 1932, the facts of his life had been so liberally larded with fiction, frequently with his aid and consent, that the history of Mike Romanoff had solidified into an almost impenetrable legend. Although U.S. immigration authorities and some friends insist he is not an American, the most persistently recurring version of his background is that he was born Harry F. Gerguson in Brooklyn some time before the turn of the century, that he escaped from six successive orphanages, that he was farmed out to various individuals who tried to straighten him out, that he once worked in London, that he often landed in jail after scrapes with the law, that he was by turns a stowaway, a farmer and a movie extra, and that he early assumed the first of a long line of aliases, finally settling, more or less permanently, on Prince Michael Romanoff.

During his reign in the '20s and '30s, Prince Mike was sometimes broke enough to sleep on park benches, but often as not he was to be found weekending with the very rich on Long Island or at Newport, a majestic little tramp, a peerless raconteur, an engaging and enigmatic character who read a great deal, played excellent chess and, when sober, was a perfect gentleman.

ALL that was a long time ago. Many people have forgotten, if they ever knew, what Mike's earlier career was like. And his friends no longer care. He is now the successful proprietor and chief stockholder in one of the most famous restaurants in the U.S. It is called, with aristocratic simplicity, Romanoff's, and for any person of consequence in Hollywood not to eat there regularly would be as unthinkable as it would be for Mike, now one of the town's first citizens, to be seen having lunch at a Beverly Hills drive-in.

The restaurant started off modestly. The two largest sponsors --Jock Whitney and the late Bob Benchley, whom Mike had known during his New York nightlife era--subscribed only $350 apiece; Darryl Zanuck and Joseph Schenck, only $300 each. The total take was $7,200, $1,800 short of what Mike had hoped for.

Romanoff's early menu was a choice of two main dishes. During the first three months the restaurant consistently lost money. "There was," Mike has since admitted, "the question of credit. Considering my reputation in those days I could do little about it." But when some credit was eventually extended, "We were meticulous about our obligations."

Six months after opening, Romanoff's was showing a profit, and by the end of 1941, it was an established success. Several explanations have been advanced for this. One is that, in the land of Hollywood make-believe, where every honest actor is an impostor at heart, the local royalty welcomed this suave masquerader from the East who could play his part better than they could play theirs. A second explanation is that Mike has always had an illustrious following of loyal and genuinely affectionate friends. The third is that he runs a damn good restaurant. In this he has been given extraordinary support by a very pretty and very smart young woman named Gloria Lister, who came to Romanoff's in 1945 as his bookkeeper and who, in 1948, became Mrs. Michael Romanoff. Gloria Romanoff is still his bookkeeper, his business manager and his wife.

THERE was a day, however, when Romanoff's was faced with A ruin by the very snob appeal that had helped make it famous. The original restaurant, which had a front room and a back room, in time became such a reviewing stand for the great that if any eminent patron was not given one of the five tables in the front room he would leave. Inasmuch as almost every customer considered himself entitled to one of these tables, and no one wanted to be seen alive in the back room, the seating problem became acute. In 1950, Romanoff's lost money for the first time, and Mike decided to move.

The site he chose for his new place was just a block and a half from the old one, but it was south of Wilshire, which meant eating on the wrong side of the boulevard. That disturbed Mike not at all. To raise money he simply assured prospective stockholders that "the south is so much warmer." The new Romanoff's has no back room, but its cheery main dining room is so shaped that everybody can stare at everybody else without much strain. Business, so far, has been double what it was north of the boulevard, even though capacity is less. This year the net will probably top $100,000.

Robert Benchley once said that "Romanoff's is the only place I know where the customer isn't always right." Chronic bores, cut-raters and devotees of the club sandwich have sometimes been asked to take their custom elsewhere, and more than once a letter of complaint has been tacked on the wall of the men's room.

But Romanoff's is no longer strictly a family show. Mike has hired an old friend (and original backer) named Harry Crocker, a member of the pioneer California family, to be his greeter, public relations man and, possibly, alter ego. As Crocker knows everyone in California and Mike finds it difficult to remember any name (he once forgot how to spell one of his own aliases), this move should pay off. And it will be necessary for Mike to have someone like Crocker on hand in California if his latest venture pans out: to do over Duveen's former five-story art gallery in Manhattan and open up Romanoff's Fifth Aveaue.

WHETHER that happens or not, Mike proceeds on his imperturbable course. As impeccably groomed as ever, he moves about his restaurant with all the ducal dignity his 5 ft. 5 in. frame will allow. His accent, a resonant blend of broad a's, clipped consonants and superbly rounded r's, is the same accent he used for credit in Manhattan speakeasies 20 years ago. He cannot be libeled by caricature. The close-cropped, greying hair, the imperiously immobile face, the thin mustache and the prominent nose that terminates in a kind of bulb are even more of a Romanoff trademark than his coat of arms. His most recent crest (supplanting an elaborate compound that included a sheaf of wheat, a gargoyle and a Martini glass) is a chaste pair of back-to-back R's topped by a regal crown.

The main change in Mike himself is that he may now be classed as a businessman. Aside from occasional weekends with Gloria at the Zanucks' in Palm Springs, he leads a quiet life. His credit is beyond question. He works hard. "I'm tired," he remarked not long ago. "I've been on my imperial feet all day." And, in his imperial fashion, he has learned a great deal about running a restaurant. Recently, when he was told that a waiter captain had been rude on the telephone to an important habitue, Mike announced quietly, "If I ever find a really excellent captain, I'm going to breed the bahstid."

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