Helen O'Brien (née Elena Constantinescu, 14 December 1925 – 16 September 2005) was a British spy and nightclub owner. The daughter of a landowner and an aristocrat, she escaped advancing Russians on the King's racehorse, fled the communists in Romania, and in 1953 co-founded what the press dubbed as a club with the most daring

West London West London is the western part of London, England, north of the River Thames, west of the City of London, and extending to the Greater London boundary. The term is used to differentiate the area from the other parts of London: Central London, N ...

floor performances of its era, where she worked as a spy for the UK's

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

and

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

Early life

Helen O'Brien was born Elena Constantinescu on 14 December 1925, the daughter of a Romanian estate–owning father and an aristocratic mother who was the daughter of an exiled Russian duchess. She was born and grew up in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

First marriage

In early 1946, O'Brien married Kenneth Archer, an RAF officer. Archer was on his wife's arm when he was shot dead a month later by a British soldier who believed that there was a Russian behind the door. In 1944, she fled from the advancing

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

on the King's racehorse. In 1947 she had to leave the country as a refugee, as landowners were not welcome under

communism in Romania The Romanian state was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. During World War ...

London, second marriage and Eve nightclub

She made her way to London and found work at

Murray's Cabaret Club Murray's Cabaret Club was a cabaret club in Beak Street in Soho, central London, England. History The club was first opened in 1913, on the site of the old Blanchards restaurant at 1-7 Beak Street, by an American, Jack Mays, and an Englishman, ...

in Beak Street,

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

as a

cigarette girl Cigarette girls in Florida in 1956 Cigarette girl at the Bellmansro restaurant in Sweden, 1940 In Europe and the United States, a cigarette girl was an attractive young woman who sold or provided cigarettes from a tray held by a neck strap, ...

and dancer where the general manager, Jimmy O'Brien who had started as a cloakroom attendant, became infatuated with her. They married in 1948. Together they opened a

nightclub A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...

called

Eve Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and there ...

on nearby

Regent Street Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George IV of the United Kingdom, George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash (architect), J ...

St Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring a martyr named Valentine, and through later folk traditions it ha ...

in 1953. As a members only club charging a guinea a year, it did not have to comply with the usual licensing laws and served alcohol until 3am. Members included kings, ambassadors, sultans and a bishop who ran off with a club hostess. In 1954, she hosted

John Profumo John Dennis Profumo ( ; 30 January 1915 – 9 March 2006) was a British politician whose career ended in 1963 after a sexual relationship with the 19-year-old model Christine Keeler in 1961. The scandal, which became known as the Profumo affai ...

stag night A bachelor party (in the United States), also known as a stag weekend, stag do or stag party (in the United Kingdom, Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, and Ireland), or a buck's night (in Australia and Canada), is a party held fo ...

at the club. As the hostess of Eve, Helen introduced topless girls and strippers to the club's entertainment, performing on the world's "first-ever illuminated glass floor" in what the press dubbed as the "most daring show" in London's West End. The club was known for "its unique appeal of glamour, intrigue, sex, sophistication, daring floorshows, and mystery". The club was popular with senior civil servants and Eastern European diplomats, and, as O'Brien was

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

, she passed on information. She refused an offer from a Romanian secret agent to allow her parents to come to London if she would spy for them, and when she was spotted meeting Romanian embassy staff in 1958, she received an invitation from the

War Office The War Office has referred to several British government organisations throughout history, all relating to the army. It was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, at ...

and was recruited by British intelligence. As well as Romanian and English, she was fluent in Russian. She was recruited into MI5 by Charles Elwell. When Helen's father was finally able to come to London, Elwell found him to be a "goldmine of intelligence" about Romania. She also worked for MI6.

Later life

The club closed in 1992, and in 1993, they retired to the south of France. Jimmy died in 1994. Helen O'Brien died on 16 September 2005.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OBrien, Helen 1925 births 2005 deaths Nightclub owners People from Bucharest Women spies Cold War spies MI5 personnel Romanian spies British anti-communists