Thank you so much for the dinner idea u/MT_promises this was fabulous! I used rao jar sauce doctored with garlic and added sautéed mushrooms and diced garlic. Also cut the sour cream in half and did whipped cream cheese for the other half.
So good!!

Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier were the definitive golden couple of classic Hollywood and British theater, known for their unmatched talent, striking beauty, and a deeply passionate, turbulent romance.

Their love story, which spanned over two decades, captivated the public as they shared both the stage and the silver screen.

Once they tied the knot, they basically ruled the acting world—she won Oscars for Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, and he was the absolute king of Shakespeare.

Out in public, they were super charming, witty, and always laughing together, but behind closed doors, things got really rough. Vivien struggled hard with severe mental health issues, which eventually broke up their marriage in 1960, but they still stayed deeply bonded until she passed away.

Recipe comes from: 282 Ways of Making a Salad with other recipes from Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Tyrone Power, Lionel Barrymore, Mary Pickford, Veronica Lake and Gregory Peck.

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Robert Alda's Ziti al Forno recipe appears in the Days of Our Lives Celebrity Cookbook

Clifton Webb was such a fascinating! He didn't even make his big Hollywood splash until his mid-fifties, starting out as a Broadway dancer before playing the brilliantly sarcastic Waldo Lydecker in the film noir classic Laura. (Also starring Gene Tierney, Vincent Price and Dana Andrews and is one of my favorite movies!) He went on to score three Oscar nominations—most famously as the haughty babysitter Mr. Belvedere.

Off-screen, he was totally unique: openly gay during Hollywood’s golden age and famously attached to his mother, Maybelle. They went everywhere together, and when she died when he was 71, he was so heartbroken that his friend Noël Coward joked, "It must be terrible to be orphaned at 71." He was truly a one-of-a-kind original.

This recipe comes from the unique celebrity cookbook: Specialites de la Maison. First published in 1940 and now back in print. There’s also a select bibliography of contributors—from Katharine Hepburn and Christian Dior to Vivien Leigh and Charlie Chaplin. The Charlie Chaplin's Sour Cream Hot Cakes recipe in this book is out of this world!

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Bessie Love was a powerhouse of early cinema. Discovered as a teenager by D.W. Griffith, she became the quintessential silent film flapper and famously introduced the Charleston to the silver screen.

When "talkies" arrived, Bessie pivoted perfectly. She trained her voice on stage and scored an Oscar nomination for Hollywood’s very first major musical, The Broadway Melody (1929).

She later moved to London, served in the Red Cross during WWII, and casually kept acting in British theater and films alongside icons like David Bowie until the 1983 horror flick The Hunger. Her legendary career literally lasted seven decades!

Cowboy star Tom Mix initially told her to come audition for him, but she showed up on the wrong day because she was sick. A wardrobe lady at that studio told her she was wasting her time there anyway and that she should go to Griffith's studio instead. If she hadn't gotten the day mixed up, she might never have become a major star.

Turns out Celine Dion has a major thing for Middle Eastern food. Since her late husband René was Lebanese-Syrian, she grew to love traditional dishes. Her Lebanese meat tarts (sfihas) are pretty popular as far as celebrity recipes go, but she's just as big on everyday favorites like hummus and baba ghanoush.

Recipe from: Today's Kitchen Cookbook

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Keith Haring's Favorite Cream Cheese Cupcakes. If cheese cake and chocolate cake had babies, you might get something that look and taste like these yummy little creations.

They're rich, indulgent and packed with flavor. Not too hard to make. The instructions provided by Keith's mom Joan are very easy to follow. Here are my notes:

• Preheat oven to 350.
• For the dry ingredients, it's best to sift these all together in a large bowl.
• Then add the wet ingredients. I used olive oil for the "cooking oil" and apple cider vinegar for the "vinegar".
• I used a spatula to incorporate everything together until it looks shiny and smooth and there's not one speck of dry ingredients.
• Mixed the egg and sugar first, then added a chopped block of cream cheese and salt. I used a hand mixer to get it smooth and fluffy.
• Now to fill the cupcakes papers. You really have to eyeball it when filling these in 1/2 with the batter. I ended up with 18, not 20 like the recipe says.
• I used a teaspoon and dropped the filling into the cupcakes. I still ended up with extra filling. (Ill probably use it when I make brownies this week and can just swirl it in there)
• Sprinkle mini chocolate chips on top and popped these babies into the oven. ( I used 2 muffin tins for the 18 cupcakes)
• Baked 18 minutes and they were done!

My family and I really liked these cupcakes. They're rich. You get that great deep chocolate flavor (which I love!) and the tangy, sweet filling, so together it's a lovely combination.

"Hoo-Ha Chicken" is a quirky, vintage celebrity recipe associated with actress Linda Lavin and her late husband, actor Ron Leibman. This tangy, lime-heavy roasted chicken dish became a popular piece of vintage Hollywood cooking trivia after appearing in one of my favorite celebrity cookbooks.

While it's usually looked up under Linda Lavin's name, the recipe actually belongs to her late husband, Ron Leibman (famous for roles in Norma Rae and playing Rachel’s father on Friends).

Recipe is from the Celebrity Cookbook

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Robert Guillaume was an actor who broke major barriers on television, famously turning his iconic character Benson from a sharp-tongued butler into a lieutenant governor.

He brought a legendary warmth as the voice of the wise mandrill Rafiki in The Lion King. He also made history on Broadway, shattering traditional casting rules as the first Black actor to star in the title role of The Phantom of the Opera.

This recipe can be found in Dining With The Stars

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George Burns’ preferred style of scrambled eggs was uniquely simple: he loved them soft-scrambled with onions and always topped with a generous amount of ketchup. While mention of "Scrambled Scrambled Eggs" is a playful nod to his double-take comedy style.

Recipe from The Sinatra Celebrity Cookbook: Barbara, Frank & Friends

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TIL that Johnny Mack Brown went from being a legendary Alabama football hero who practically put Southern college football on the map in the 1926 Rose Bowl to becoming one of Hollywood's biggest B-Western movie stars.

He was a pioneer athlete featured on Wheaties boxes, and his rugged looks caught the eye of movie scouts while he was coaching a game in Pasadena.

Though he initially missed out on mainstream roles to Clark Gable and was deemed too short to play Tarzan, he found his true calling in the saddle, starring in over 160 Westerns and even landing a spot in the World Cowboy Gunspinning Hall of Fame!

Julia Sanderson(born Julia Ellen Sackett) was a premier star of the American stage and a pioneer of early radio and continued on for four decades.

Born in 1887, in Springfield, Massachusetts, she adopted her mother’s maiden name for the stage. She began performing as a child, making her professional debut at age 13.

Although she never physically appeared on the series, Sanderson was a silent fixture on The Dick Van Dyke Show. A framed piece of vintage sheet music for the 1907 Broadway production of The Dairy Maids—prominently featuring her portrait as the star—hung on the wall of Rob Petrie’s writers' room set and can be seen in almost every single episode of the classic sitcom.

Known for her charm, exceptional vocals, and stage presence, she became one of Broadway's most reliable and celebrated leading ladies during the golden era of musical comedies and vaudeville. She frequently collaborated with legendary composers like Jerome Kern and starred in a string of major theatrical hits.

The connection between James Garner and "Subrosa Chilies Rellenos" combines a famous television spoof with his real-life love for Southwestern cooking.

The name Subrosa does not refer to a cooking technique or a specific restaurant. Instead, it comes from a classic 1961 episode of the TV western series Maverick titled "Three Queens Full." In this episode, the show featured an over-the-top parody of the rival Western series Bonanza.

Maverick parodied them with the "Wheelwright" family (led by Jim Backus), who operated the Subrosa Ranch. James Garner originally shot to stardom playing Bret Maverick on the show, his name remains permanently tied to the fictional Subrosa Ranch.

At home, James Garner was an avid cook known for sharing his recipes. His actual recipe for Chilies Rellenos was officially published in The All-American Cowboy Cookbook: Home Cooking on the Range.

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Grace Kelly's Pineapple Upside-Down Cake is a great one! It's essentially a traditional Pineapple Upside-Down Cake and pretty easy to make. My family's been asking me to make one for a while, so as soon as I had my hands on Grace's recipe, I was ready to try it.

• I used my 9" cast iron skillet, but any 9' cake pan would work. Just butter it really well on the sides.
• I had a can of pineapple rings, so I used that instead of the cubes and with the rings, you get that iconic Pineapple Upside-Down Cake look.
• Filled the centers of the pineapple rings with a maraschino cherry and added a few pecans to the empty spaces around the perimeter.
• Preheated oven to 350. This cake baked for exactly 30 minutes and was done, not the recommended 60 minutes!
• I let this cake cool completely until the pan felt cool and then carefully flipped it on to a large wooden board, but a large plate would work too.

Now to try a slice with a bit of whipped cream... dreamy! It's everything you'd want from a Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. It's sweet, buttery, moist and the juicy fruits add the perfect flavors. The top is sublime with the melted brown sugar and butter combining into a lovely crusty top. This is one cake that everyone loved and disappeared quickly. I'd say it's 6-8 servings. Not a huge cake, but an easy one to make and an even easier one to eat.

Pleased more than just husbands, everyone was pretty, pretty pleased.

I made a few mods, I feel like this recipe asks to be modified some, like it's a base.

I used 1 1/2 lbs of ground beef and 3/4 of a bag of rotini to start off with. Pasta water should be as salty as the Mediterranean when cooking the pasta.

Sauce was 1 can tomato sauce & 1 can diced tomatoes in sauce. I added 1 beef bouillon cube, 1/4-1/2 cup of kraft bbq sauce, and a good squeeze of honey.

The cream, I only had half a pint of sour cream so I added half a bar of cream cheese and like 1/4 cup of heavy cream. And mixed them all together with the green onions. I think that little tang from the cream cheese was a solid upgrade.

I always loved Tammy Wynette's collab with KLF, that probably was the driving force in making this.

https://youtu.be/XP5oHL3zBDg

GREEN MAYO ALERT! Martha Raye's French Toast a la Raye recipe from 1939 is very easy to make and uses mostly leftovers.

• I started with about 1/3 of a loaf of French bread that was stale, and I sliced it on the diagonal (about an inch thick) and got about 6 pieces out of it. Carefully cut off the crusts.
• Mixed 2 eggs with about 1/3 cup of milk and whipped it up well. I added a pinch of salt and a tad of nutmeg.
• In a small bowl, take about 2-3 tablespoons of mayonnaise and add a few drops of green food coloring and chives and/or parsley. I was out of parsley.
• In the meantime I had a small cast iron pan heating up for the French toast and another small pan for the chicken cranberry mixture. I had leftover chicken (white meat) and I bought a can of jellied cranberry sauce. Mash a large tablespoon or two of cranberry sauce and then add the chicken slices to it to heat and coat the chicken.
• Meanwhile add butter to the hot pan and then dip one or two slices of bread in egg mixture. Turn them over to absorb enough mixture. Place in hot pan with butter. Turn the heat down to about medium. Medium low if it browns too quickly.
• Place cooked French toast on a plate while you cook the rest of it.
• When ready to plate, simply add some cranberry chicken on top of the French toast and finish with a dollop of green mayo.
• This is a retro recipe that stands the test of time and is so delicious! I can't wait to make this after Thanksgiving with leftover Turkey and cranberry sauce.

The French toast was incredible and so simple to make. I'm a huge fan of cranberry on sandwiches, so this was bliss for me. Together it works incredibly well, and the green mayo is surprisingly tasty with this combo. You don't need that much but it all harmonizes together in a lovely way.

Martha Raye was a Hollywood powerhouse nicknamed "The Big Mouth" for her loud, physical comedy. Beyond her success in film and TV, her proudest legacy was off-camera as "Colonel Maggie."

She traded glamour for rugged combat zones, traveling to the front lines of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam to entertain troops and care for the wounded as a nurse. Her bravery earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the title of honorary Green Beret.

Martha Raye was born Margy Reed in 1916 to vaudeville performers. She made her stage debut at just three years old in her parents' traveling act. This grueling childhood on the road helped her master the physical comedy that made her a star.

You know that legendary Paul Newman dressing? The one that basically started his whole food empire back in the day? He used to literally mix up batches of this stuff in his basement and give it out to friends in old wine bottles because it was just that good.

It’s this super simple, old-school blend of oil, red wine vinegar, a kick of Dijon. It’s got this perfect, bright, punchy tartness that blows those heavy, store-bought dressings right out of the water. Honestly, once you try making this copycat version at home, it's hard to go back to anything else.

This recipe comes from Newman's Own Cookbook

Andy Griffith's Nut Cake is a classic, no-bake dessert famously featured in Aunt Bee's Mayberry Cookbook. This rich and dense treat is highly customizable and budget-friendly. It relies on crushed vanilla wafers and condensed milk to bind a raisins, nuts and coconut together.

Because it requires zero baking, it is an incredibly simple holiday or weekend project

William Holden's Lime Gelatine with Carrots, Olives and Nuts from the 1949 booklet called "What Cooks in Hollywood". Like I said, I was curious. These types of Jello salads were all the rage back in the 40's, 50's and 60's, so I picked this one to try since I had everything to make it except the Lime Jello.

Mr. Holden says that he first tried this at Glenn Ford's place, so now we have 2 old-time celebs connected to this recipe, and he goes on to say it's his favorite!

So I bought the Lime Jello and from there it wasn't hard to make.

• I made the Jello according to the package and added the lemon juice in with the cold water.
• Now it was put in the fridge to set up for a couple of hours until it thicken just a little.
• Half the recipe- While it was sitting in the fridge I put together the other ingredients. I only was going to put these savory things in 1/2 the Jello and save 1/2 the Jello plain for my family to eat.
• So I added 1/2 cup of grated carrots, 1/4 cup of whole cashews and about 6 large green olives with pimientos, sliced into a small bowl and waited until the Jello was slightly thickened.
• When ready, I reserved 1/2 of it and then used the other half mixed in with the Carrots, Olives and Nuts. I used 2 small silicone molds (small cake/large cupcake size) to mold this concoction.
• Put it all back in the fridge over night.
• It unmolded easily and now you can see how it looks! It's almost like a green aquarium with little sea creatures floating inside. So I did as "Bill" suggests added a bit of mayo and a sprinkling of paprika, two of the mid-century's most favorite ways to finish a dish. (Yes this is green mayo. It was left over from another dish I made yesterday, and I'll be sharing it soon)
• With this hot weather we've been having, this seemed like a great time to try this. And yes, It does jiggle nicely!

So the taste, or rather the texture is interesting. The Lime Jello with the carrots and cashews is surprisingly good and fun to eat, but when you get to the olives, yikes! It's a mouthful. Maybe I should have chopped them smaller, because you get this big hit of olive that's really strong. Definitely chop them up if you're making this. I'm going to try it again later when my husband gets home and remove the olives and chop them up and see if there's a difference. Not sure there will be!

My family never served things like this growing up. Well, they're Italian and from Argentina, so this kind of food fare wasn't on their radar, luckily. It was all about cheese, salami, lettuce, and veggies for salads with us. My husband on the other hand remembers his grandparents making and serving things like this, so I'm curious to get his opinion on the taste.

Until then, if you're not familiar with William Holden, I highly recommend 2 of my all-time favorite movies:

1. Sabrina - I love him playing the carefree, rich playboy chasing after Audrey Hepburn and dealing with his brother Humphrey Bogart.
2. Sunset Boulevard - Then he completely flips the script and plays this broke, cynical screenwriter who ends up face-down in a swimming pool after getting tangled up with a delusional old movie star, played by Gloria Swanson.

William Holden absolutely crushed it in the early '50s with two of director Billy Wilder's absolute masterpieces. It's wild seeing him go from a desperate Hollywood hustler to a smooth-talking flirt, but his natural charm made both look completely effortless.

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Don Ameche was a highly versatile American actor and radio personality who enjoyed a remarkable career spanning nearly six decades. Born Dominic Felix Amici on May 31, 1908, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, he became one of Hollywood’s most dependable leading men of the 1930s and 1940s before staging one of the most celebrated late-career comebacks in cinema history during the 1980s.

Ameche’s deep-rooted Italian heritage was a central point of personal pride throughout his life. His father, Felice Amici, immigrated to the United States from Ascoli Piceno, Italy and worked as a saloon keeper and bartender. As the family integrated into American life, the surname was phonetically changed to "Ameche".

Don grew up in an environment rich with Italian traditions and was fluent in the language. Later in his career, he famously drew upon his father's authentic accent and demeanor to portray a gentle, old-world Italian-American shoeshine man in the acclaimed 1988 film Things Change, a performance that won him the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival.