The Deliciously Simple Way Gary Cooper Enjoyed His Steak

If you're tryin' hard to look like Gary Cooper (super duper), you may be listening to Taco's 1982 hit "Puttin' on the Ritz." Alternatively, you may just be grilling a steak in your backyard. Cooper was a two-time Academy Award winner who starred in such timeless classics as "A Farewell to Arms," "For Whom the Bell Tolls," "Sergeant York," and "High Noon." The western film icon helped define the genre as a whole, but, both on-screen and off, Cooper followed a simplicity-first dogma. Humility aside, the star certainly fits the fella-next-door character archetype of grilling steaks in the backyard, so it's no wonder that he enjoyed his steaks simply as well.

According to a 1959 Sports Illustrated article (released two years before Cooper's passing in 1961), Cooper was known to cook up a few steaks with his family in the garden of their Los Angeles home every week on Sunday. "The active-living and unpretentious Gary Cooper family are fond of simple food," wrote Mary Frost Mabon in the article. In addition to grilled steak, the Cooper household was also particularly fond of spareribs with sauerkraut and green applesauce. The write-up even includes the family's personal recipe for "Crusty Spareribs a la Cooper," which calls for a thorough fat trimming of "the 10 meatiest ribs on each side" hand-selected by the local butcher and a generous all-over brushing with Trader Vic's Barbecue Glaze. As for his steak, the simpler the better.

In addition to being one of the most influential bartenders in mixology history, "Trader Vic" Bergeron was also an avid restaurateur and cook. His 1950s pamphlet "Trader Vic's Tips On Barbecuing And Broiling" describes a few meaty cooking techniques that Cooper might have employed in his own kitchen. Still, while Gary Cooper's personal grilled steak technique remains largely undisclosed, our grilled hanger steak recipe can serve (pun intended) as a jumping-off point for modern meat-eaters craving a taste of Old Hollywood. We've also rounded up a few general steak-grilling tips to help foodies out, as well as how these 11 Old Hollywood stars ate their steak.

Despite his lean frame, Cooper had a famously large appetite throughout his whole life. At over 6 feet tall, the Hollywood hero might have needed a little extra fuel to save the day. According to nostalgia-centric outlet Remind Magazine, "He once joked that his 'starvation diet' consisted of a dozen eggs a day, two loaves of bread, a platter of bacon, and enough pork chops between meals to tide him over until supper." In addition to grilled steak, the outlet notes that Cooper was also known to enjoy another particularly meat-centric spread: wild duck covered in bacon with a whole steak on the side and four eggs to top it all off.