American socialite and writer Alice B. Toklas was BOTD in 1877. Born in San Francisco to a middle-class family, she moved to Paris in 1906 where she met writer and fellow expatriate Gertrude Stein. They became lovers, living together for almost 40 years until Stein’s death in 1946. They became central figures in Paris’ post-World War One avant-garde, hosting salons at their apartment where they entertained most of the leading figures of the Modernist movement. Their regular visitors included the artists Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and George Braque; writers Jean Cocteau, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Paul and Jane Bowles, Glenway Wescott,  Djuna Barnes, Natalie Clifford Barney and Janet Flanner; publishers Sylvia Beach, Monroe Wheeler and Charles Henri Ford; composers Virgil Thomson and Aaron Copland; and photographers Carl van Vechten, Man Ray and George Platt Lynes. As the more introverted of the couple, Toklas acted as Stein’s secretary, cook, editor and literary critic. Visitors commented unkindly on Toklas’ moustache and mouse-like demeanour, though James Merrill complimented her speaking voice “like a viola at dusk”. In 1933, Stein published her best-known book The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas, which, despite its title, was primarily about herself. After Stein’s death, her relatives swooped in and scooped up her lucrative collection of Modernist art, leaving Toklas penniless. She spent her remaining years in poverty, relying on friends for financial assistance. In 1954 she achieved cult success with The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, a mixture of memoir and recipes, including a widely-quoted recipe for hashish fudge. Her 1963 memoir, What is Remembered focused largely on her life with Stein. Toklas died in 1967, aged 89, and was buried next to Stein in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.