How 10 Old Hollywood Celebrities Preferred To Order Their Steaks

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Even decades after the golden age of Hollywood, old Hollywood celebrities are still emblematic of a high degree of class, sophistication, and glamor. So is the steak dinner.

It is no secret that many old Hollywood actors, singers, and entertainers had a laundry list of bizarre eating habits. However, readers might be surprised to learn how these habits extended to steak. 

Some of Hollywood's biggest names had some very particular steak orders. Other celebrities in the early and mid-1900s enjoyed cooking their steaks (sometimes with unusual seasonings and techniques) at home, even though they might have had the means to hire a world-renowned personal chef. Regardless of their specific preferences, the ways that old Hollywood celebrities liked to eat their steak were anything but boring.

Curious about the steak orders and cooking preferences of some of your favorite stars and starlets? Look no further than this list of how 10 old Hollywood celebrities enjoyed their steaks.

"Gastronomically, I like steak or chops for dinner and that's it," said Humphrey Bogart, one of the United States' most legendary film actors, during a 1942 interview for film magazine Photoplay, according to Click Americana. Bogart, who was in more than 80 films over the course of his life, including perhaps most famously the movie "Casablanca," was not a fan of a steak with bells and whistles. "I like my food plain, and none of this business of hiding it under gravy or sauce. I want to see what I eat," he said during the interview.

Not only did Bogart enjoy a steak, but, as he stated during the Photoplay interview, it was one of the few things he would eat for dinner. "My own wife refuses, at times, to have any part of me at mealtimes," he added. "Says she can't look another steak or chop in the face."

Despite his affinity for the simply cooked steak, there was a far more processed protein that also had a stronghold on his heart: "A hot dog at the ball park is better than steak at the Ritz," Bogart once said, The Humphrey Bogart Estate shared in a Facebook post.

"Mother's taste in food was wide-ranging," wrote Lana Turner's daughter, Cheryl Crane, along with author Cindy De La Hoz in the famous Hollywood actress' 2008 biography, "LANA: The Memories, the Myths, the Movies." In that range, according to the biography, was a very specific steak recipe.

The steak that Turner frequently cooked began with a coating of yellow mustard — specifically, French's brand, which tastes very different from Dijon and brown mustards — before receiving a seasoning of "salt and so much cracked pepper that it would form a crust." After the coat was complete, she would barbecue or broil it.

In the biography, Crane and De La Hoz said that this steak recipe was one of "only two things Mother could cook." The other was a "fabulous turkey gravy," a recipe which the biography said she learned from Crane's grandmother. Ironically, however, there is no mention of a gravy made with the steak — although perhaps layers of mustard and pepper would not be the best complements for it.

In general, English actor Cary Grant, who acted in acclaimed Hollywood films and Broadway theater productions for four decades, was a fan of a good steak. That said, he had a few particular ways that he most enjoyed it.

At former Los Angeles fine-dining restaurant Perino's, Grant was rumored to often order a dish of old-school Steak Diane — a mid-20th-century steak dish typically finished with a sauce of steak drippings, cream, shallots, Worcestershire sauce, and flambéed Cognac. Grant also published some steak recipes of his own in 1930s cookbooks, including one for a porterhouse Beefsteak à la Victor Hugo with shallots, tarragon vinegar, and a Hollandaise-inspired sauce of eggs, butter, and grated horseradish. 

Grant's "favorite recipe," according to a note he wrote preceding a recipe for a steak dish republished to Reddit, included round steak pieces paired with kidney, wrapped in bacon, and heavily spiced before simmering in a light sherry-based sauce. "It's possibly quite old, but still gives me nostalgic joy," he added in the note.

A list of the steak preferences of old Hollywood stars would be incomplete without the inclusion of the iconic 1950s actress, model, and singer Marilyn Monroe. Monroe was a frequent enjoyer of steaks — and, despite her celebrity, often cooked them herself.

In a 1952 interview with Pageant magazine, Monroe revealed that, "every night," she would purchase "a steak, lamb chops, or some liver" at her local market, and would use the electric oven in her hotel rooms to broil them for dinner, according to Into the Gloss. Pageant referred to this ritual, as well as the others throughout her daily meals, as "A Set of Bizarre Eating Habits," while Monroe referred to her dinners as "startingly simple" (after all, some of Marilyn Monroe's favorite foods required no prep at all).

Like many of the other celebrities on this list, Monroe did not complicate matters when it came to sides for her steak dinner. "I usually eat four or five raw carrots with my meat, and that is all," she told Pageant. "I must be part rabbit; I never get bored with raw carrots."

There is not a wealth of information on the steak preferences of this method actor best known for his performance in the film "A Streetcar Named Desire." However, some of those who knew him closely have shared a few thoughts about the way Marlon Brando enjoyed his steak.

Throughout his career, Brando was known for his insatiable appetite. This appetite extended to steak, which, during the filming of the 1961 epic Western film "One-Eyed Jacks," Brando was known to have two. He ate them along with potatoes, two à la mode apple pies, and a quart of milk every day for dinner, his co-star Karl Malden told biographer Peter Manso for his 1995 book "Brando: The Biography."

 In the biography, Manso wrote that steaks were not the only food that Brando enjoyed with a quart of milk. Other "strange" accompaniments, as Manso referred to them, included boxes of Mallomars, cinnamon buns, and peanut butter toast. In a sea of Brando's favorite things to eat with milk, steaks certainly stand out. However, although it might seem strange, a milk marinade is a weird but genius way to make cube steak unbelievably tender.

When it came to steak, the 1932 "Grand Hotel" film actress Greta Garbo was something of a home cook, according to journalist Rilla Page Palmbog's 1931 biography of Garbo, "The Private Life of Greta Garbo." She would often fry both her steak and her potatoes on her own kitchen stovetop.

In spite of her propensity to cook her own meals and her aversion to going out to eat, one of her butlers, Gustaf Norin, said in Palmbog's biography that "she knew so little about cooking that he always felt guilty when he left her to get a meal." The reason why she fried both her steak and potatoes, Norin reasoned, was because "she wouldn't have known how to boil or bake potatoes."

"It is a queer picture — the mysterious Garbo stirring potatoes and frying a steak and then sitting down at the kitchen table to eat her solitary dinner," wrote Palmbog. "All over the world there were thousands of admirers longing to set the handiwork of the greatest chefs before her."

One of the most outspoken lovers of steak on this list was Richard Burton, the Welsh stage and screen actor best known for his performance in the 1966 film "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". In a collection of diary entries throughout his life, as adapted by Yale University Press in 2012, Burton marveled at dishes of T-bone steak, steak and kidney pie, Steak Diane, barbecued steak, marinated steak with guacamole, and steak au poivre — the majority of which he specified that he enjoyed rare.

Burton's wife, the Academy Award-winning actress Elizabeth Taylor, also made him some of "the most succulent and delicious" steaks Burton ever ate — including the first steaks that she ever cooked, which he called "delicious" — per his diary entries. 

The two did not always have the same tastes in food, but, according to Burton, they were able to find compromise at the dinner table. "I have learned to love bagels and Lox and hot dogs and she has learned to love [caviar] and [rare] steaks," Burton once wrote about Taylor in another entry.

As it turns out, Joan Crawford, the superstar who won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance as the titular character of the 1945 film "Mildred Pierce," is another old Hollywood celebrity who enjoyed a well-cooked steak.

In 1939, Crawford had her recipe for Charcoal Broiled Steak with potatoes published in the famous cookbook, "What Actors Eat, When They Eat!," by Kenneth Harlan and Rex Lease, which also featured recipes from the aforementioned Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, and Cary Grant. Crawford's steak recipe notably boasted an accompanying sauce made with pungent Roquefort cheese and mustard.

"There isn't a woman in the world who doesn't have at least one dish of which she makes a specialty," reads a pre-recipe note from Crawford in the cookbook, republished by The Infinite Feast. "In my case I must admit that it is steak, broiled just right and served with julienne potatoes."

Exactly 20 years later, in an interview for an Australian Women's Weekly newspaper article detailing Hollywood stars' secrets for youthfulness, Crawford revealed that she would sometimes find herself eating steak three times a day. The steak seasoning was simple: "a little butter" and "a little salt," she said.

As noted by several news publications, Gregory Peck was especially fond of the classic combination of steak, potatoes, and a green vegetable. "When I go out, I love a good steak dinner," the 1962 "To Kill a Mockingbird" film actor said, according to a 1999 article published by Tulsa World. With that steak and potatoes, he said, he enjoyed "some greens and a little chocolate for dessert."

In fact, Peck was such a big fan of steak that when he and his wife, Veronique Passani, hosted a benefit dinner for Los Angeles Public Library in 1999, guests were served "Caramelized onion steak Peck" — a dish made with soy sauce, dry vermouth, and plenty of butter. The meal was accompanied by "Twice-baked potatoes Gregory" with bacon, sour cream, and cheddar cheese, as well as creamed baby spinach. 

Unlike several of the other big-name stars on this list, Peck did not demand to have his steak served plain. In fact, he once published a recipe for red-wine-based Steak Barbecue Sauce, featuring spices such as chopped cloves, thyme, chili powder, and marjoram.

While many of these old Hollywood celebrities spoke to the press or wrote in diaries about how they liked to have their steak seasoned or cooked, Marlene Dietrich was more concerned with the accompanying beverage for her steak dinner. According to a 1967 profile of the German-American actress and singer in The New York Times, Dietrich enjoyed her steak with a nice, cold beer.

While interviewing Dietrich for the story, journalist Alex Reed said that it was while she was enjoying her steak that he realized how best to coax information out of the elusive star. "As she washed her steak down with cold beer, I discovered the best way to interview Dietrich is not to try," he wrote in the article. "Given the time, she can summon the inclination."

Steak and beer have long been a classic combination — but not all steaks make for the best drinking experience. If you are hoping to eat like Dietrich (or, more realistically, to stock up for your next cookout), here are some ideas for the best kind of steak to drink beer with.