Three Decades of Liz Brewer in British Newspapers

Liz Brewer

Archive of British Newspaper Clippings

This collection of historical newspaper articles begins with an amusing feature piece on Liz Brewer from the summer of 1981. After that, the articles are “mostly” in chronological order by year. In a few cases they are organized by topic so as to improve the flow and to retain logical order. This first story is clipped off on the far right side, a problem with the original source page, but most of the text is very readable. Also, there’s a bonus — a vintage photo of Liz Brewer.

The earliest British newspaper clipping I could find that referenced Liz Brewer dates to the summer of 1964. That was several years before she operated any London clubs, became an etiquette expert or a high society party planner. She is living in Portugal. Based on the caption that goes with the photo, this predates her time as a discotheque owner in the Algarve. Liz was cited as 21 years of age in this August 1964 story. Her birthday falls in early June, so she would have had her 21st birthday about two months prior to publication. That calculates to her turning 80 years old on June 6, 2023.

Next the Sunday Mirror reported that in spring 1978 Liz was working as a gossip columnist for The Tatler. Apparently she, controversially so, wrote that the son of a former British politician had been seen pinching women’s behinds. Note: In this article and a few that follow, the green highlighted text will guide readers to the section of the story that references Liz Brewer. Any articless lacking the green highlights are mostly all about Liz….so no highlights are required!

Liz said she founded a discotheque in Portugal when she was in her teens. A few years later, she moved back to London. This spring 1978 clipping tells of her love for clubs. At the time, she was working on opening club Bennett with Roddy Llewellyn. Roddy was infamous, and a favorite subject of UK tabloids, as a result of his carrying on a scandalous eight year affair with a married woman. That was big news because that woman just happened to be Princess Margaret — her majesty Queen Elizabeth’s free-spirited sister. In the Netflix series The Crown critics infer that actor Harry Treadaway’s character was loosely based on Roddy Llewellyn. This entire article is about Liz and Roddy. Liz was reported to be a director at Bennett and her photo adorns the story.

As a follow-up, Roddy Llewellyn was already famous as that guy having an affair with the princess when the press announced that he and Liz Brewer were co-directors of a soon to be launched London night club called Bennett. In this story from spring 1978, Liz Brewer is again described as a co-director of the new club.

This spring 1978 article tracks the progress of the opening of Bennett in south London. The club that the press referred to as “Roddy’s place” wasn’t popular with some London residents. The clipping reports that Bennett, identifies Liz Brewer as the hostess and co-owner. Bennett had, according to the story, failed to obtain a liquor license.

Bennett remained mired in controversy. Its spring 1978 opening was met with picketers, protests and unflattering press coverage. In this clipping, a reporter from the Daily Mirror said he was “booted” out of Roddy’s club by co-owner Liz Brewer. 

The difficult launch of Bennett was also detailed in this spring 1978 clipping. The ownership of Bennett takes an interesting twist when Liz is quoted as saying that Roddy had “no financial stake” in what had previously been referred to in the press as “Roddy’s club.” 

Roddy Llewellyn had an affair with Princess Margaret, but his brother Dai was another noted London playboy. This otherwise sad article from spring 1972 is present here only because it mentions a legal dispute between Liz Brewer and Roddy Llewellyn. Earlier Roddy reportedly sent out a press statement calling Liz a “hustler.” Liz was unhappy about that and she was suing him. I could not locate any follow-up articles that described the outcome of the legal wrangling. 

The next two pages are part 1 and part 2 of a story published in the Daily Mirror in spring 1980. The story was descriptive of the talent Liz Brewer has for throwing parties and you’ll notice there is a photo of Liz at a party.

Liz was back in the news in summer 1981. She was asked by Peter Stringfellow (a controversial multimillionaire club owner) to launch a new London club bearing his name — Stringfellows.

This clipping is mostly interesting because of the 1986 photo of Liz Brewer. She is seen with Soraya Khashoggi, who was better known in Europe than in the US. Soraya was considered to be one of the most glamorous and richest women in the world. Her ex-husband was a billionaire arms dealer. 

This composite clipping is from a long article that ran in the summer of 1989. Liz was commenting on women who were attracted to death defying speed boat racers. She would have been about 46 years old and a nice photo of Liz was featured. 

Readers may recall that three articles back, Sunday Mirror on July 3, 1981, Liz was enlisted to help Peter Stringfellow launch a London club. Stringfellow was a rich man, but his public image and press coverage took a beating over the years. Much of that seems to have been self-inflicted damage. This summer 1994 pronouncement in the Liverpool Echo, a statement later retracted by Stringfellow, would almost certainly doom any public establishment. It’s assumed that so many years later, and as her career diversified, any connection Liz Brewer once had to Stringfellow had been severed.

Ultimately, Stringfellow’s situation became financially perilous. His transition from nightclubs and discos to strip clubs and lap dancing venues led to even more criticism and public controversy. This article, from summer 2006, does not involve Liz, but it was an omen that Stringfellow’s empire was crumbling.

So much for the late Peter Stringfellow, a one time king of clubs. As the years passed, Liz moved away from operating clubs and she gained a reputation as a socialite and an events and party planner for wealthy clients. This spring 1995 clipping, from the TV section of the Liverpool Echo, promoted a BBC show that focused on Liz Brewer the party planner. There’s another photo of Liz and the rich and famous were mentioned. In this case Ivana Trump, who was by then Donald Trump’s ex-wife. 

Not everybody in the press held a favorable view of Liz’s business model of rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. This spring 1995 review was authored by Irish columnist Gene Kerrigan.

That’s what we have in our Liz Brewer archives of historical British newspaper articles. If other interesting stories come to our attention in the future, they will be added to this page.