Zasu … who?

I’ve never been to Parsons, Kansas, but I do know that one of the half-dozen or so famous people to have come from this southeastern Kansas hamlet was Zasu Pitts, the fluttery-voiced actress whose unusual onscreen presence was supposedly the inspiration for the cartoon character Olive Oyl.

One of the more unusual cookbooks in my collection is the 1963 hardback edition of Candy Hits by Zasu Pitts, which includes dozens of candy recipes from the skinny actress whose career spanned the silent era (she was in the classic movie Greed) to the early days of television. Candymaking was Zasu’s hobby, and the book is loaded with recipes for confections you hardly see anymore: divinity, panocha, Texas Tycoons and Cleopatras.

Pitts died in 1963. Her hometown hosted a Zasu Pitts Film Festival at the local community college for five years until 2002 when the festival, like a homemade marshmallow left out in the sun, fizzled away.