Vicki Lawrence Re-Emerges on TV as Margaret on "The Cool Kids"

A while back, I shared in a post (see HERE) I did about the "Dead Celebrities Cookbook" (and its sequel "Christmas in Tinseltown"), mentioning that I visited Vicki Lawrence's personal website after buying the DVD set of "Mama's Family", where I encountered a recipe which she shared from another dead celebrity: the late Dinah Shore. The recipe was good, but comedienne and actress Vicki Lawrence is on another career high as of late. She stars as the character Margaret in the new sitcom on Fox television (the broadcast network now owned by Disney) called "The Cool Kids" which premiered in September 2018. The series co-stars Martin Mull, David Alan Grier and Leslie Jordan.

"The Cool Kids" follows three male senior citizen friends at Shady Meadows Retirement Community (a joke on the show was that Allison, the head of Shady Meadows Retirement Community told the residents that they were in Shady Meadows voluntarily, to which they responded "We are? Our kids never told us that!") who are the top dogs until they're blown out of the water by the newest member of the community, a female rebel named Margaret who's ready to challenge their place – it's kind of like high school, only with 70-somethings. In case you hadn't guessed it, the female rebel is played by Vicki Lawrence (age 69 as of 2018).

The cast of "The Cool Kids": Martin Mull, David Alan Grier, Vicki Lawrence, and Leslie Jordan at the 2018 Fox Network Upfront at Wollman Rink, Central Park on May 14, 2018 in New York City.

"The Cool Kids" turned into a sleeper-hit for the Fox broadcast television network, opening to impressive ratings drawing over 9 million viewers, making it the most-watched new series launch on Fox since "New Girl" debuted back in 2011. That initial success prompted the network to order a full season for the show after its trial run.

Vicki Lawrence told the entertainment magazine Vulture that "They were casting this right when we were doing the 50th anniversary of the Burnett reunion. I didn't want to go [to the audition], because I just wanted to go over to CBS and see Carol, hang out, see all my old friends, and visit with all the cool guest stars she was gonna have on there. I could not be bothered. My agent kept calling me saying, 'But this is perfect for you!' And I went, 'It's cute, but really, I'm so tired of going to auditions.'" Of course, she was ultimately persuaded to join the cast.

Vicki Lawrence's Entertainment Career Resume Is Surprisingly Short Due to the Longevity of Her Work

Aside from Vicki Lawrence's 11-season tenure on the ever-popular "The Carol Burnett Show", she has surprisingly few television credits to her name except for the long-running spin-off from that show called "Mama's Family" (I wrote about "Mama's Family" HERE) which ran for six seasons over a seven-year period. That show was produced by Joe Hamilton and began on network television, but was taken off the air after a two season run on NBC, but was subsequently rebooted even more successfully in syndication with a number of modifications, running for six seasons from 1983-90.

Vicki was just age 24 when she first played the abrasive, Southern senior citizen matriarch character of Thelma Mae Crowley Harper, better known as simply Mama, which first emerged on "The Carol Burnett Show" back in 1974. "The Family" as it became known on "The Carol Burnett Show" was so consistently popular that it became one of the recurring skits to endure on the Burnett Show. In "The Family", Carol Burnett played the main character of Eunice Harper Higgins (an emotionally-needy character who often goes off on rants about her lot in life), while Harvey Korman played Eunice's husband Ed Higgins; Betty White occasionally played Eunice's snobby older sister Ellen Harper-Jackson (at least in a few episodes both on "The Carol Burnett Show", as well as on the network television run for the spin-off) along with guest-stars such Roddy McDowall (who portrayed brother Phillip in nearly as many episodes of "The Family" as Betty White did the character Ellen, although Betty White played in both "The Carol Burnett Show" and the network run of "Mama's Family"), Tom Smothers, Alan Alda, William Conrad, Jim Nabors, Maggie Smith, Joanne Woodward, Madeline Kahn, Chuck Barris, Jaye P. Morgan, Jamie Farr, Allen Ludden and Craig Richard Nelson.

Anyway, with her latest character Margaret on "The Cook Kids", Vicki Lawrence plays a character who not only appears much younger than Thelma Harper, but also behaves younger. Indeed, the entire show challenges the notion of aging. In many respects, the series is similar to the way in which "The Golden Girls" upended traditional television depictions of aging, representing characters who were vibrant, and not requiring a young character to carry the show.

When producer Charlie Day pitched "The Cool Kids", he said that Fox pressed him to inexplicably include a younger character in the main cast. "I said, 'That's ridiculous.' Young [viewers] can relate to older characters. Don't make me force in a young character that doesn't fit. And they were kind enough to relent to my yelling."

AARP's monthly magazine introduced "The Cool Kids" this way (see the article HERE):

"Could Hollywood's next movement be #AgeismToo? Consider this: 'The Golden Girls' (which I blogged about HERE), that classic sitcom centered on three 60-something women and one feisty octogenarian, was a Top 10 ratings hit for six of its seven seasons (1985-92). But it's still taken 26 years for mainstream network honchos — at youth-obsessed Fox, no less — to deliver another comedy strictly focused on seasoned types."

In her interview with Vulture, it was noted that "The Golden Girls" did great with college kids. Vicki Lawrence responded by saying:

"We tested really well with the younger audience. Because God knows, they love to laugh at their grandparents. And yeah, I knew many young people that were in love with 'The Golden Girls'. The young audience loved 'Mama's Family'. When I first started doing my road show, I assumed that my audience was gonna be an older crowd from the Burnett Show, and I was really surprised by the fact that so many young people showed up."

Mama's Family Also Did Well With Young Audiences and Gay Audiences

Truth be told, the sitcom "Mama's Family" did much better with younger audiences in its resurrection in syndication. Part of the reason was because NBC repeatedly changed the time-slot for the show in during its initial network run, making it difficult for fans to find it on television. Among the other key changes in its successful syndicated resurrection were a closer focus on just a few cast members; several left the show (or were never permanent cast members to begin with) in order to join (perhaps not surprisingly) "The Golden Girls". Notably, Rue McClanahan left the role as Fran Harper on "Mama's Family" to permanently play Blanche Devereaux on "The Golden Girls" and Betty White who was only a guest star as Ellen Harper-Jackson on "Mama's Family" also joined "The Golden Girls" as a permanent cast member on "The Golden Girls" who played Rose Nylund on that show.

Golden Girls Overlap

"Mama's Family" aired around the same period as "The Golden Girls", managed to draw many of the same viewers (particularly among younger and gay audiences). Other changes to the resurrected "Mama's Family" was a new set, the elimination of the two of characters who were Vinton Harper's two children with his first wife Mitzi (a character never seen on the show), and replacing them with one younger character who was sister Eunice Harper Higgins' son Bubba Higgins. The character Bubba was a key reason the resurrected show did so well in syndication (the time slot where it frequently ran in syndication was another, typically airing early evenings around 7:00 or 7:30 PM). Bubba was played by the buff, ginger actor Allan Kayser. The character of Bubba Higgins always wore extremely tight-fitting jeans, and numerous teenage girls (and gay boys) watched the show mainly to see Bubba and the bulge in his tight-fitting jeans as eye-candy. The other important new character in the resurrection was that of neighbor Iola Boylen played by actress Beverly Archer, who was central to many plots. The character of Iola was a regular in the reboot. Iola was the neighbor and best friend of Thelma, who was written into the show as a replacement for deceased Aunt Fran. Iola is an old maid/spinster who is the same age Naomi, whom she is jealous of for her marriage to Vinton. She is known for being able to knit little trinkets out of dryer lint, and other assorted "crafts", as well as her domestic cooking skills.

By comparison, "The Cool Kids" is a bit crass (by design), and it is also a bit braver with its main characters than "The Golden Girls" was, with a core cast consisting of both men and women (including Vicki Lawrence and her castmates who are men: Martin Mull, David Alan Grier and Leslie Jordan), caucasian and black (David Alan Grier is the black character best known for his work on the early-1990's Fox television hit "In Living Color", and on that show, one of his recurring characters was a skit the show called "Men on Film" where he plays an effeminate, gay, black man named Antoine Merriweather), as well as straight and gay (Leslie Jordan's character is gay, just as the actor himself is in real life) characters. To a large extent, the cast resemble their characters. In many ways, this also reflects broader changes in American society, and although "The Golden Girls" fearlessly addressed most of those issues, they weren't part of the show's core cast.

While "The Cool Kids" isn't quite a "Golden Girls" reboot it comes pretty close. AARP noted "Kids may not yet handle its inevitable jokes about irregularity and, yes, Alzheimer's disease with the finesse of The Golden Girls, but it's heartening to know that the show refuses to treat its characters like doddering fools. The show is less William Shatner in 2010's flop $#*! My Dad Says, thank goodness, and more Betty White as Elsa in Hot in Cleveland."

In the end, success for "The Cool Kids" may teach the lessons "The Golden Girls" should have taught television thirty-five years ago, but they simply did not remember. To some extent, as Vicki Lawrence acknowledged, networks aren't run by old guys in suits anymore. She says "They're just young and adorable." Maybe they are, but the networks are still struggling. Today they compete not only with cable, but with streaming services (both paid and free). The explosion in content has changed what we think of as television.

Vicki Lawrence acknowledged that in her Vulture interview.

Well, everybody's going everywhere. We had that whole meeting with all those people. I’m like, "You're from what, now? What in the hell is Roku?" Then after this meeting, we did these promos: "If you missed The Cool Kids on Fox, don’t forget to check us out on Netflix. Don't forget to check us out on iTunes. Don’t forget to check us out on Roku. Don’t forget to…" At the end of the meeting, I said, “I’ve got a question. How in the hell do you do the ratings anymore?" They said, "Oh, it's very complicated and very different." Television is not like television was at all, anymore.

She's not kidding on that!

You can have a look at the preview for "The Cool Kids" below, or by visiting https://youtu.be/T1-lhUD9YfE. That's followed in the playlist below with an interview by The Paley Center for Media in September 2018 with "The Cool Kids" producer Charlie Day and the cast of "The Cool Kids". That interview can be seen in the playlist below, or by visiting https://youtu.be/wJb5ziNYsas. I've created a shortcut for the entire playlist which can be visited directly at https://tinyurl.com/y27ns6ey.



As for watching "The Cool Kids", it runs on Friday evenings on Fox broadcast television, or it can be viewed on demand (typically free) on most digital cable systems, or even streaming directly on Fox television's YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=EL8p86Z2CBJH-mhmqfMNhcBQ channel, or on other digital channels, including Fox's website for the show at https://www.fox.com/the-cool-kids/.

Author P.S.: A Belated Tribute to Ken Berry

On December 2, 2018, there was the sad news that actor/dancer Ken Berry had passed away at age 85 (see the obituary at https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/12/02/ken-berry-star-f-troop-mamas-family-has-died/2183492002/ for details). Ken Berry played the dim-whitted son Vinton Harper on the hit syndicated sitcom (which was initially a network show) that Vicki did with Ken known as "Mama's Family" for six seasons after its 1983 debut. Vicki Lawrence herself acknowledged his passing on her Instagram feed https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq5eVoelrOC/ In addition to his appearances on "Mama's Family", the "F-Troop", Ken Berry was also a frequent guest star on many TV shows, game shows, daytime talk shows, etc. He also did a television commercial for the now-defunct seventies national shoe retailer known as Kinney Shoes which can be seen at https://youtu.be/h8aAFHhaIKc which is a great demonstration as his less-appreciated skill as a dancer. R.I.P. Ken Berry.

Author P.S., Fox Does Not Renew "The Cool Kids" for Season 2:

There was news on May 10, 2019 that Fox television, under new ownership with Disney, did not renew "The Cool Kids" for a second season. Deadline reported that like many sitcoms, "The Cool Kids" started out with solid numbers, but apparently those numbers did not continue as the rest of the season progressed. Still, TVLine reported that the show had solid ratings, even if the show did not have tremendous buzz among youth. It had an average a 0.85 demo rating, meaning "The Cool Kids" ranked fifth among Fox comedies this season, behind only "The Simpsons", "Last Man Standing", "Bob's Burgers" and "Family Guy". Excluding animated sitcoms, it only outranked the previously cancelled "Rel". However, as Vicki Lawrence herself admitted (see above), the manner in which network executives today measure success or failure is "all over the place" with Nielsen ratings being just one component of success, but less quantifiable measures such as social media shares, internet viewership and other factors now playing a role in business decisions. Those, however, are very much a function of a network's financial support to promote a show via those channels. It is unclear what (if anything) Fox did to promote "The Cool Kids" via alternative channels.

Mama's Family: From Network TV Also-Ran to Star of Syndicated TV

During the 1970's, analog broadcast television (and that's pretty much all that existed, as cable and satellite TV wouldn't really appear for more than a decade, and digital wouldn't emerge until the 2000's) was dominated by the major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC, all of which were evolved from successful, national radio networks a generation earlier), PBS and in some metropolitan areas, so-called "independent" stations (these often appeared on the UHF channel spectrum, where there was considerable broadcast capacity) which focused mainly on local news programs, occasional local programs and a battery of network television re-runs long before TV Land would even claim the space.

Although News Corp. converted a number of previously "independent" television stations to Fox television in the 1980's, and other networks including Paramount and Warner Brothers followed the same path before bowing out in the late 1990's as a drain they couldn't make work work financially, there was some programming success from independent TV stations, and those shows sometimes went into syndication.  Some examples include the seventies children's program The Magic Garden which originally aired on New York's WPIX (Channel 11), and Sally Jessy Raphael (later shortened to simply Sally) daytime talk show which ran during the 1980's, having begun on the KSDK-TV (Channel 5) NBC affiliate in St. Louis before quickly moving into national syndication.

Broadcast syndication is the licensing of the right to broadcast television programs without going through a broadcast network.  The success of broadcast syndication peaked in the 1970's and 1980's.  Some of the best-known syndicated television shows included various game-shows, among them: Hollywood Squares, Name that Tune (in which a young vocalist then named Kathy Lee Crosby née Epstein sang tunes the contestants had to guess; she is perhaps better known by her more recent married surname of Gifford, and is famous for her work as a top-rated morning network TV show host), The Gong Show, Wheel of Fortune and others, including a number of different musical-variety shows starring the likes of Dolly Parton, Andy Williams and Sha Na Na, as well as more traditional TV programming including Jim Henson's The Muppet Show, and Mama's Family, which was spun-off from the popular 'The Family' skits that aired on The Carol Burnett Show, as well as Charles in Charge, Silver Spoons, Webster, Too Close for Comfort, and What's Happening!!.

Like Mama's Family, which first began as a series on network television (NBC), some syndicated TV shows saw new life in syndication after being dropped by network television, including 9 to 5, which originally aired on ABC, but was later rebooted for syndicated television distribution, as well as The Nanny which began on CBS and was later run in syndication, principally on the Lifetime cable network.  Mama's Family's subsequent success is impressive since it came in spite of the absence of such famous stars as Carol Burnett, Betty White and Rue McClanahan (the latter two left to star in The Golden Girls, see https://goo.gl/DD3pCP for more).

In addition to game shows and sitcoms, some animated shows ran in syndication, too, including the cartoons Underdog (which started as a network program that ran on NBC), He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Pink Panther.  Meanwhile, syndication also brought us a number of talk-shows, including the most successful late-night talk-show The Arsenio Hall Show, as well as the daytime talk-shows including Sally, Morton Downey, Jr. and Rosie O'Donnell, which had brief periods of impressive ratings and influence; while others, such as Oprah Winfrey and Maury Povich, had a much more sustained run.

As already noted, one of syndicated broadcast television's more popular programs was Mama's Family, which had its origins as a popular skit called The Family that ran on The Carol Burnett Show.  That program had a brief run on network television (NBC), but was even more successful in syndication.  First-run syndication in the 1970’s made it possible for some shows that were no longer wanted by TV networks to remain on the air.  The syndicated version of Mama's Family garnered substantially higher ratings than did its network version, eventually becoming the highest-rated sitcom in first-run syndication.  Set in the fictitious southern town of Raytown, many have speculated it could be Raytown, Missouri, but that town is in Kansas City suburbs, not the rural Ozarks locale on the Arkansas border that is most likely the Raytown of the show.  For the record, the actual address for the house featured on Mama's Family in the intro (at least the home in one of the show's iterations, Seasons 1 and 2 were on NBC while subsequent seasons were released in syndication) was in the Los Angeles area, specifically at 1027 Montrose Avenue, South Pasadena, CA 91030.  Its never stated specifically where Raytown is in the show itself, leaving it up to the viewers to decide.

The Me-TV network featured a 30-second story/summary of Mama's Family which can be viewed below, or at https://youtu.be/CeL1YkgKp3o:



In 2016, after a several-year hiatus from cable and broadcast television (in most markets, anyway), reruns of Mama's Family returned to television.  As of 2017, the show was airing on Me-TV as well as MTV's Logo cable network.  Also, in 2013, the entire series of Mama's Family (both its network seasons 1 and 2 which originally aired on NBC, and the subsequent reboot in syndication) was released on DVD.  Previously, only Season 1 had been released on DVD by Warner Bros. Home Video, but DVD releases of all subsequent seasons were delayed, as various legal entanglements kept the remainder of series from being released on DVD.  Those issues were finally resolved in late 2012, and resulted in the series being released by mail order initially, and subsequently retail distribution.  The mail order DVD series had some cast reunions (at least the cast from the syndicated iteration of the show, including regulars Vicki Lawrence, Ken Berry and Dorothy Lyman) from the syndicated iteration, but excluded Vinton 'Buzz' Harper, Jr. (played by Eric Brown) and Sonja Harper (played by Karin Argoud)  The syndicated iteration of the show included the delinquent grandson from Thelma Harper's daughter Eunice and her husband Ed Higgins named Bubba (played by Allan Kayser), and also included prissy neighbor Iola Boylen (played by Beverly Archer).  The DVD release of the series has one of those reunions.  The promotional video for the collection can be seen below, or by visiting https://imdb.to/2EcQUdL. Note that the promo ends at 1:51, you can stop at that point.


Me-TV's website also has an entertaining personality test which asks users a series of questions about which character from all of Mama's Family is most like you.  Visit that at https://www.metv.com/quiz/which-mamas-family-member-are-you to take the quiz.

Note that Carol Burnett's official YouTube channel has a number of original "The Family" skits which aired on The Carol Burnett Show, considered the origins for Mama's Family.  Visit https://goo.gl/X1rb2F to watch some of the classic skits!

Author P.S., December 1, 2018: There was news today that actor and dancer Ken Berry, who was perhaps best known to kids who grew up during the eighties as the actor who played Vinton Harper on TV's "Mama's Family" passed away today at age 85. He was also known for his prior work on the sixties sitcom "F Troop" as well as occasional TV commercials in between longer-term television work. The family did not disclose a cause of death. The full obituary was published in Variety, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times among other publications.

Cooking With Dead Celebrities

This particular blog post started by accident.  A few months ago, I bought the entire series of "Mama's Family" on DVD (I have a massive collection of classic television on DVD so I'm not dependent on cable).  Previously, only Season 1 had been released by Warner Home Video back in 2006, and that only contained the episodes from the short initial season of the program based on the skits of "The Family" that were often seen on "The Carol Burnett Show".  However, the spinoff "Mama's Family" series had an impressive six-season duration on television, although only the first two seasons were aired on network television, but the show was subsequently rebooted (and quite successfully) in syndication after that.

Regardless, episodes after Season 1 weren't available until recently.  However, StarVista/Time-Life finally acquired the original broadcast masters for the first two seasons (the NBC-aired ones, before the show went into first-run syndication) which featured Vicki Lawrence (Mama), Ken Berry (Vint), Dorothy Lyman (Naomi), Beverly Archer (Iola), and Allan Kayser (Bubba).  It included the full episodes from every season, including the later seasons which ran in syndication as well as some extras including a reunion of the cast from the syndicated seasons, and interviews with some notable guest stars including Betty White (who played Ellen Harper).  I should note that the first two seasons also featured Rue McClanahan as a cast regular (she played the uptight, spinster Aunt Fran), but both she and Betty White left the show at the end of 1983 to do a different show that went on to become a television smash hit The Golden Girls (catch my post on that at http://goo.gl/DD3pCP), so the end of Aunt Fran in Season 2 was definitely missing from DVD.  Also, Vint Harper's 2 children Buzz and Sonia were also written off the show after NBC dropped it, replaced by Eunice and Ed Higgins' delinquent son Bubba.

In any event, the DVD acquisition prompted me to visit Vicki Lawrence's personal website at http://www.vickilawrence.com/, where she shares some of her favorite recipes (see http://www.vickilawrence.com/Recipes2013.html).  She wrote about a recipe called "Meal in a Meatball Soup" which was from the late Dinah Shore.  She observed:  "I have never cooked anything of Dinah Shore's that wasn't wonderful. She was a fabulous cook and a super nice lady. I miss her."

That was interesting enough (the recipe wasn't half bad, either), but it got me to thinking that daytime talk shows with celebrities actually cooking as guest stars (Dinah Shore, Mike Douglas, Phil Donahue, etc.) during that era wasn't especially unusual.  In fact, it was kind obligatory from a PR perspective back in those days.  Remember, until the 1970's, most women in the U.S. were stay-at-home housewives who kind of really consumed celebrity recipes.  Magazines and newspapers once routinely published celebrity recipes that doting housewives could make for their families, giving their ordinary meals some Hollywood magic.

Which brings me to today's post.

Frank DeCaro, the former movie critic for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and current host of The Frank Decaro Show on Sirius XM satellite radio (just to name a few of his pop culture credentials) has released two cookbooks.  In addition to his own TV appearances, he has appeared in a few movies himself, including in the Lucky Duck Productions "Inside TV Land: Tickled Pink" produced for cable network TV Land in 2005.  But his most recent contribution to the American pop culture scene may well be his two fairly recent cookbooks.  There's a website for his books at http://www.deadcelebritycookbook.com/.

The title of Mr. DeCaro's original cookbook is "The Dead Celebrity Cookbook: A Resurrection of Recipes from More Than 145 Stars of Stage and Screen" (he followed that up with a sequel called "The Dead Celebrity Cookbook Presents Christmas in Tinseltown: Celebrity Recipes and Hollywood Memories from Six Feet Under the Mistletoe") which contains the favorite recipes of "living-impaired" Hollywood icons including Lucille Ball, Liz Taylor, Joan Crawford, Liberace, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson, Dean Martin, Alfred Hitchcock, and Humphrey Bogart among others.  There's Patrick Swayze's Chicken Pot Pie, Elizabeth Taylor's Chicken With Avocado and Mushrooms, and Farrah Fawcett's Sausage and Peppers Supreme, but what really makes the book is the fact that its laced with Mr. DeCaro's pop culture insight and commentary.

Mr. DeCaro says that all of the recipes in these two books were in the public domain (sourced from old newspapers and magazines, even in manuals for microwave ovens), he's just the one to assemble them, but what makes the books so great is he adds his own pop culture insight, organizing the recipes thematically and giving some clever names).  He admits that not all of the recipes in his book were good, adding there were a few celebrity recipes he thought were just plain gross, hence he didn't even want to try making them for himself  (which makes me wonder why he included them?), and he also says he did not make or eat all of the recipes, but had definite opinions on the ones he did make.

The recipes range from gourmet to garbage, if that tells you anything.

As noted, not all dead celebrity's recipes are worth celebrating, and he admits to having sampled only about a third of the recipes, admitting that he really had no inclination to make some of the recipes, even noting that some of them were kind of vile.  He was quoted as saying "I made a third of them before the book went to press. It's not 'Julie and Julia.'"

"There's a recipe in the new book that's just downright creepy," Mr. DeCaro said, describing something like jelly consomme flakes in avocado.  He made a retching noise over the phone as he described the recipe.

Another recipe he wasn't fond of was Isabel Sanford's (she played Louise Jefferson on TV's "The Jeffersons") Boston Chicken.  He says:  "The recipe I always make fun of is Isabel Sanford's Boston Chicken. The recipe's sauce calls for Russian dressing, onion soup mix, pineapple and apricot jam."

He has gone on record as saying "It was vile."  He told another interviewer "We call it Chicken a la Barf."  But he later added "I feel so bad, I've been slamming her all over the place. Isabel Sanford's Boston Chicken is pretty yucky. I'm not convinced it's a good idea to spread your chicken with a combination of apricot jam, Russian dressing and onion-soup mix."  But he added that it didn't change his love for Isabel Sanford.

Other recipes that weren't exactly culinary masterpieces included one called Lucille Ball's "Chinese-y thing."  He said that just because you're a great entertainer, doesn't mean you're a great cook or culinary innovator.  Indeed, I would dare say that some of the recipes were probably just public relations released by a publicity executive, although some celebrities actually did cook ... at least occasionally.  The further you go back in time, the more likely that (cooking among celebrities) was, so some celebrities in the 1950s were often cooks at home - if we are to believe the PR created by publicity agents and studios!

The Dead Celebrity Cookbook

The recipes are cleverly organized into thematic chapters, including "Talk Chow" with dishes from now deceased talk show hosts, another called "I Lunch Lucy" with recipes by Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance, and he calls the last chapter in the non-holiday book "Thank You for Feeding a Friend" with dishes by the three deceased stars of "The Golden Girls": Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, and Rue McClanahan (catch my previous post on that show at http://goo.gl/DD3pCP) to name a few, and Mr. DeCaro includes a short, summary of who the dead celebrity actually was, and some information about the careers that actually made them celebrities.

New York's Village Voice newspaper described it this way (see HERE for details):

"While [today's] celebrities now get their food fixes at trendy restaurants like L.A.'s Koi or Nobu, once upon a time they actually cooked. Eartha Kitt made a mean chicken wing, Gilda Radner whipped up a sumptuous apple cake, and Johnny Cash fried okra to perfection."

Christmas in Tinseltown

Mr. DeCaro told Columbia University's The Protagonist newspaper (see http://nypress.com/the-protagonist-dead-celebrity-cookbook/) that the two dead celebrity cookbooks were more about promoting great performers than capitalizing on their deaths.  The mission is to keep the celebrities' names out there and share pop culture history.

But other recipes in the cookbooks were absolutely fabulous.

Among culinary successes was one from the late pianist Liberace, which he calls Liberace's Sticky Buns.  "They start out with crescent rolls from the refrigerator case. They end up tasting so good that you never want to go in Cinnabon again. I made 24 and I ate nine before they were cool enough to handle" said Mr. DeCaro.  (see the recipe below, or at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Liberaces-Sticky-Buns-368173).  Readers of this blog may recall that I blogged about the 2013 Steven Soderbergh movie about Liberace called "Behind the Candelabra", see http://goo.gl/Wjek4g for the post.

There were other good ones, too, ranging from Patrick Swayze's Chicken Pot Pie to Bea Arthur's Vegan Breakfast that not only tasted great, and were actually healthy, too.

For the record, one of the gems noted is the recipe for Liberace's Sticky Buns, which is as follows:

Liberace's Sticky Buns

Liberace Cooks

• 1 cup golden raisins (Note: these raisins are made from dried Thompson seedless grapes rather than traditional red grapes.  They're much less common in supermarkets today than they were 25 years ago; feel free to replace them with regular raisins instead, they will taste just as good!)
• 1/4 cup light rum
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup whole pecans
• 3 tubes refrigerated unbaked crescent rolls
• Nonstick baking spray with flour for greasing pan

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray two muffin pans with nonstick baking spray.

Combine raisins and rum in a small bowl and warm in microwave on high for 45 seconds. Set aside.

In a saucepan, melt butter and then stir in brown sugar and spices. Cook, stirring frequently, until it becomes a bubbling syrup.

Put a teaspoon of syrup and a few whole pecans in each muffin cup. Unroll one package of crescent rolls on a piece of parchment paper. Pinch seams together to form one flat piece. Drizzle a quarter of the syrup over the dough. Sprinkle a third of the raisins and a third of the chopped pecans on it. Roll it jellyroll style. Cut into 1-inch-thick pieces. Place one slice of dough, cut side up, in each muffin tin. Repeat with each package of crescent rolls.

Bake 13 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and immediately flip the buns onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. Replace any nuts that may have stuck to the pan and serve warm.

Makes 24


Mr. DeCaro says that other recipes, such as Harriet Nelson's Chicken Casserole are also very easy to prepare.  You take rice and mix it with three kinds of cream soups: cream of chicken, cream of celery and cream of mushroom.  Then, you add cream and butter, because it's not rich enough with 3 creamy soups, and you add the chicken on top. He said "You don't need a defibrillator yet.  It's very 1950s-tasting and very comforting."

Regardless, this cookbook (indeed, both this one, as well as the holiday-themed one he released containing celebrity Christmas recipes) does accomplish what he set out to do.  Whether its fine dining, or even healthy dining, is another matter.  The real gem here is the accompanying commentary and the way he organizes the cookbook itself.  That makes it entertaining reading even if you don't make the recipes themselves.

To be sure, a number of the recipes are very much products of their era (after all, the celebs are now dead, so at least some of the recipes are more than a few years old), and for a variety of reasons, the recipes themselves haven't always stood the test of time, as Harriet Nelson's fat-laden Chicken Casserole best exemplifies (even if it tastes good).

Culinary perfection was not the point of DeCaro's book, which features more than 145 recipes from as many deceased celebrities.  Helping a new generation of pop-culture fans rediscover them and their work was his goal.  Each recipe is accompanied by a brief, cleverly written biography and a description of what distinguishes the particular featured dish.

Perhaps for the next cookbook, Mr. DeCaro will consider having a celebrity chef like Rocco DiSpirito try to modernize them, or even follow the model that popular television show "Recipe Rehab" does so they're a bit healthier than the original magazine recipes so common in 1950s and '60s magazines aimed at homemakers of the day were?

He told one reporter "One thing that's better about having recipes from dead people is, if you change them, they can't complain."

Aside from Liberace's Sticky Buns, there were a few others worth trying.  For example, a chapter called "Thank You For Feeding a Friend" is all about the Golden Girls being healthy (before taking dirt naps).  PETA supporter Bea Arthur's Vegetarian Breakfast, Rue McClanahan's Non-Dairy Cheesecake, and Estelle Getty's Baked Chicken Fingers recipes are included. So far, Betty White, who is still with us and acting on "Hot In Cleveland", isn't included since she's still above ground.  Bea's vegetarian breakfast is incredibly easy (if a bit bland), it was featured in People magazine at http://bit.ly/1i6xTtl.

Recipes, of course, are a matter of taste.  I rather liked Patrick Swayze’s Chicken Pot Pie and Eva Gabor's Hungarian Goulash was pretty darn good, too.  Its hard to believe she once routinely made completely inedible food on the sixties TV show "Green Acres"!!

These books were discussed on American Public Media (an NPR affiliated organization) "The Splendid Table" radio show, use these links to listen.  The discussions, much like Mr. DeCaro himself, is pretty entertaining and worth listening to.  The books themselves are available in hard-copy as well as Kindle editions, so you can download instantly.