Maude Chasen

Short Biography

That tiny blond, blue-eyed, gorgeous, gracious and ever-so-savvy soul tired as she neared 90 and reluctantly retired from the restaurant. Without her, the venerable Chasen's, museum and memory of a Hollywood gone by, closed its doors on April 1, 1995.Maude Chasen, doyenne of gustatory and social taste of the entertainment industry and politics for nearly half a century, died Saturday at 97.Chasen died at Century City Hospital of pneumonia, said her only child, Kay MacKay, who added: "She was a grande dame who leaves many, many memories of good times and good camaraderie."Chasen the matriarch, who liked to say the restaurant had hosted "every president since 1936 except Roosevelt. And Mrs. Roosevelt came, " was so intertwined with Chasen's the restaurant that it is hard to grasp that she was not there at its humble beginnings.Dave Chasen, who died in 1973, was a vaudevillian and comic from New York who opened Chasen's Southern Pit Barbecue on Dec. 13, 1936, in a cornfield at Beverly Boulevard and Doheny Drive. First-nighters included director Frank Capra, who had once directed Chasen in a film, and actors James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. They were only the vanguard of celebrities to come and to contribute autographed photos for the walls.Among the historic habitues were Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, William Powell, Alan Ladd, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Frank Sinatra, Alfred Hitchc*ck, David Niven, James Stewart, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Ethel Barrymore, Howard Hughes, Charlton Heston, Presidents John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and especially Ronald Reagan, who proposed to future wife Nancy there.Dave Chasen had appeared in "Earl Carroll's Vanities" on Broadway and had other successes, but during lean times he also started cooking chili and ribs for such talents as Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker and Harold Ross.It was Ross, editor of New Yorker magazine, who suggested that Chasen might be a better cook than comic and lent him $3, 500 to open the future dining room of the stars.Meanwhile, Maude Martin was oblivious to her future as a restaurateur and was busy managing her own difficult life.Born in Louisville, Ky., she lost her mother at an early age and was reared by two aunts in Albany, Ga. Precocious and determined, she was teaching Sunday school at 12 and, college educated, teaching school by 18."I always knew I had to be independent and, in Georgia, teaching was the only proper work for a lady, " she told The Times in 1985.But business was in her blood, and later, back home in Louisville, she suggested that a department store add a book section. She became its manager.Meanwhile, Maude Martin was oblivious to her future as a restaurateur and was busy managing her own difficult life.Born in Louisville, Ky., she lost her mother at an early age and was reared by two aunts in Albany, Ga. Precocious and determined, she was teaching Sunday school at 12 and, college educated, teaching school by 18."I always knew I had to be independent and, in Georgia, teaching was the only proper work for a lady, " she told The Times in 1985.But business was in her blood, and later, back home in Louisville, she suggested that a department store add a book section. She became its manager.