Forgotten Stars Live Again through their Recipes

When celebrities try to do good, they expose themselves to ridicule. This was as true a hundred years ago as today. In 1916, Marjorie Rambeau, who was just branching out from stage to screen roles, donated a recipe for a charity cookbook and was panned by Heywood Broun, young drama critic of the New York Tribune. Broun joked that she had “nothing more startling to suggest than fried bananas.”

Mabel Rowland (performer, director, writer, philanthropist, as well as founder of the Metropolitan Players and the Women’s Theatre of New York) compiled the recipes and published them in Celebrated Actor Folks’ Cookeries: A Collection of the Favorite Foods of Famous Players. She pledged the proceeds to the Red Cross and to the Actor’s Fund. Entries included photographs and sometimes a personalized note and signature, such as Rambeau’s pictured above. Rowland solicited contributions from an impressive collection of female and male stars from the pre-Hollywood era of performance.

Some of those celebrities are still very well known. Mary Pickford is the most remembered today of the female stars included. In 1916 Pickford had already made hundreds of films, was the highest paid woman in America, had worked for many different studios, and was arguably the most famous person in the world. No doubt, many women enjoyed making her raspberry jam tarts, especially since America’s Sweetheart assured them that the recipe was so simple that she actually used it herself.

I made some and they are yummy!

Heywood Broun spared Pickford (and her tarts) in his article about the cookbook but not some of the other stars. He joked that the ingredients for Laurette Taylor’s borscht could make up the “contents of a Christmas basket for a family of deserving poor.” He reported that Taylor was performing eight shows a week on Broadway but apparently had “time to burn” if she used this recipe since it made “just soup. It seems like flying in the face of the kind of providence which sanctioned the invention of the can opener.”

Broun could ridicule the recipes but clearly fans wanted to know what their celebrities ate and cooked. Magazines and newspapers had been printing recipes from the stars for years. Stage and film sensation Ann Murdock gave her recipe for lemon pie to newspapers in 1909 and to fan magazines before contributing it to Rowland’s book. By 1916 she could declare that the recipe never failed!

Motion Picture Classic 2 (June 1916): 27-28.

Fans may have been surprised by the number of meatless recipes published in the book. Gloria Swanson is the most famous vegetarian silent screen star, but many of the women featured in the book also seemed to be promoting meat substitutes. New York City had a long history of conscientious eating; the American Vegetarian Society was founded there in 1850. After the turn of the twentieth century, the movement grew and these women seem to have been part of it. Mary Fuller, made famous by starring in the first movie serial What Happened to Mary, contributed a recipe for mushroom burgers. Frances Nelson, who had recently starred in the movie One of Many, assured readers that her vegetarian chops made with nuts and peas were wonderful. Dorothy Gish, who in 1916 was just emerging from the shadow of her older and more famous sister Lillian, provided a recipe for corn and cheese soufflé. Julia Sanderson, who largely remained a Broadway star and made few films, contributed instructions for pimento and cheese roast.

Many of the celebrities included in the book enjoyed long careers but are little remembered today. Haru Onuki, who contributed a recipe for French candies, entered show business very young. She sang while her sister played piano in vaudeville shows in the Northwest. She moved to New York and appeared in the hit Broadway musical The Big Show in 1916. Onuki continued to perform on stage through the 1920s. She studied opera and toured the country as Madam Butterfly from Puccini.

 Onuki, whose father was from Japan, is apparently the only woman of color included in the cookbook but not the only entertainer who has been largely forgotten. Marjorie Rambeau, and presumably her banana recipe, followed the movie industry to Hollywood in the late 1920s. She continued to perform, in movies and on TV, through the 1950s. She was nominated for two Academy Awards but did not win. Many silent screen icons like Rambeau are beginning to be rediscovered and there is nothing more fun than to connect with them through the foods they loved!

As always, thanks for reading! For more information, check out these sources. Have a question or comment? Let me know. You can comment below. To subscribe, email angela.firkus@gmail.com

Sources

Broun, Heywood. “Onions Found Among the Stars: Confessions from Stage Folk as to What They Eat.” New York Tribune, January 5, 1917, 13. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1917-01-05/ed-1/seq-13/#date1=1900&index=0&rows=20&words=Cross+Mabel+Red+Rowland&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1943&proxtext=%22mabel+rowland%22+red+cross&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

Brumburgh, Gary. “Marjorie Rambeau Biography.” IMDb. Accessed June 10, 2020. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0708081/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

"Cooking with the (Silent) Stars: Mary Pickford's Raspberry Jam Tarts." Movies Silently. Accessed June 14, 2020. https://moviessilently.com/2016/06/30/cooking-with-the-silent-stars-mary-pickfords-raspberry-jam-tarts/

“Mabel Rowland Obituary.” Variety, February 24, 1943, 46. https://archive.org/stream/variety149-1943-02#page/n189/mode/2up/search/%22mabel+rowland%22

May, Lillian. “Favorite Recipes of Favorite Players.” Motion Picture Classic 2 (June 1916): 27-28. https://books.google.com/books?id=cQ9KAQAAMAAJ&pg=PT264&lpg=PT264&dq=Ann+Murdock+lemon+pie&source=bl&ots=mNLgBb7uR6&sig=ACfU3U38yIUenNgf1PyRNTrlYjnmrQ9Jvg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-r47c6PfpAhUOZKwKHfwjDEkQ6AEwCnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Ann%20Murdock%20lemon%20pie&f=false

Robinson, Greg. “The Ohnick Family.” Hapa Japan Project. Accessed June 12, 2020. https://hapajapan.com/article/ohnick-family

Rowland, Mabel. Celebrated Actor Folks’ Cookeries: A Collection of the Favorite Foods of Famous Players. New York: Mabel Rowland, Inc., 1916. https://books.google.com/books?id=pNsoAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

“Some Treasured Recipes of Footlight Favorites.” Lake County (Hammond, IN) Times, October 8, 1909, 10. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86058242/1909-10-08/ed-1/seq-10/#date1=1789&index=0&rows=20&words=Ann+lemon+LEMON+Murdock+PIE+pie&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=ann+Murdock+lemon+pie&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

White, Ann Folino. “Tasting Celebrity: Gustatory Favourites of Celebrated Actor Folk.” Performance Research 22.7 (2017): 67-74.