Gertrude Stein and Toklas walking their dog, circa 1930s
Photo by Carl Mydans
Alice B. Toklas was born 145 years ago today,
Toklas was an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century. She was born Alice Babette Toklas in San Francisco into a middle-class Jewish family (her father had been a Polish army officer) and attended schools in both San Francisco and Seattle. For a short time she also studied music at the University of Washington.
Toklas met Gertrude Stein in Paris on September 8, 1907, the day she arrived. Together they hosted a salon that attracted expatriate American writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, Paul Bowles, Thornton Wilder and Sherwood Anderson. Joining that group were avant-garde painters, including Picasso, Matisse and Braque.
Acting as Stein's confidante, lover, cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic and general organizer, Toklas remained a background figure. She lived in the shadow of Stein, until Stein published her memoirs in 1933 under the teasing title The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. It became Stein's bestselling book.
"She was a little stooped, somewhat retiring and self-effacing. She doesn't sit in a chair, she hides in it; she doesn't look at you, but up at you; she is always standing just half a step outside the circle. She gives the appearance, in short, not of a drudge, but of a poor relation, someone invited to the wedding but not to the wedding feast," wrote W. G. Rogers in his 1946 memoir of the couple.
Poet James Merrill wrote that before meeting her "one knew about the tiny stature, the sandals, the mustache, the eyes," but that he had not anticipated "the enchantment of her speaking voice — like a viola at dusk."
Toklas and Stein were a couple until the latter's death in 1946. Although Gertrude Stein had willed much of her estate to Toklas, including their shared art collection (some of them Picassos) housed in their apartment at 5, rue Christine, the couple's relationship had no legal recognition.
As the paintings appreciated in value, Stein's relatives took action to claim them, eventually removing them from Toklas's residence while she was away on vacation and placing them in a bank vault. Toklas then relied on contributions from friends as well as writing to make a living.
Toklas published her own literary memoir, a 1954 book that mixed reminiscences and recipes under the title The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. The most famous recipe therein (actually contributed by her friend, Brion Gysin) was called "Haschich Fudge," a mixture of fruit, nuts, spices and "canibus sativa" (marijuana).
The 1968 Peter Sellers movie, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, was named for Toklas's cannabis brownies, which play a significant role in the plot.
Toklas died in 1967 at the age of 89 in Paris.