Alice B. Toklas Biography

Alice B. Toklas (April 30, 1877 - March 7, 1967) was an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century, and the life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein.

Early life

Born Alice Babette Toklas in San Francisco, California, into a middle-class Jewish family (her father had been a Polish army officer), she attended schools in both San Francisco and Seattle, and for a short time studied music at the University of Washington.

Relationship with Gertrude Stein

Toklas met Gertrude Stein in Paris on September 8, 1907, the day she arrived there from San Francisco after the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Together they hosted a salon in the home they shared that attracted expatriate American writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, Paul Bowles, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson; and 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, chiefly living in the shadow of Stein, until the publication by Stein of Toklas' "memoirs" in 1933 under the teasing title The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. It became Stein's bestselling book.

W. G. Rogers wrote in his memoir of the couple, published in 1946, that Toklas "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." James Merrill wrote that before meeting Toklas "one knew about the tiny stature, the sandals, the mustache, the eyes," but he had not anticipated "the enchantment of her speaking voice—like a viola at dusk."

Toklas and Stein remained a couple until Stein's death in 1946.

Later life, after Stein's death

Although Gertrude Stein 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 many of the paintings appreciated greatly 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 her writing to make a living.

In 1954 Toklas published The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, a book that mixes reminiscences and recipes. The most famous recipe, contributed by her friend Brion Gysin, is for Haschich Fudge, a mixture of fruit, nuts, spices, and "canibus sativa" or marijuana. Her name was later lent to the range of cannabis concoctions called Alice B. Toklas brownies. The cookbook has been translated into numerous languages. A second cookbook followed in 1958, Aromas and Flavors of Past and Present. However, Toklas did not approve of it, as it was heavily annotated by Poppy Cannon, an editor at House Beautiful magazine. Toklas also wrote articles for several magazines and newspapers, including The New Republic and the New York Times.

In 1963 Toklas published her autobiography What Is Remembered, which ends abruptly with the death of Gertrude Stein.

Toklas's later years were very difficult because of poor health and financial problems. She became a Roman Catholic in old age. She died in poverty at the age of 89, and is buried next to Stein in Pre Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France; her name is engraved on the back of Stein's headstone.

Legacy

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, a movie starring Peter Sellers that was released in 1968, is named for Toklas's cannabis brownies, which play a significant role in the plot.

The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club is a political organization founded in San Francisco in 1971.

Samuel Steward, who met Toklas and Stein in the 1930s, edited Dear Sammy: Letters from Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (1977), and also wrote two mystery novels featuring Stein and Toklas as characters: Murder Is Murder Is Murder (1985) and The Caravaggio Shawl (1989).

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted in 1989 to rename a block of Myrtle Street between Polk Street and Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco as Alice B. Toklas Place, since Toklas was born one block away on O'Farrell Street.