Celebrities: they’re just like us! They drink coffee, and sometimes they even get it themselves! As the News Editor for a coffee publication, I can attest that a lot of coffee “news” is basically just pics of celebs grabbing an iced coffee, trying not to be disturbed. It’s sad and voyeuristic and… oooo who’s that with Zac Efron?

Anywho, these coffee photo ops are more than just an invasion of privacy, they’re also a humanizing force for the Hollywood Elite. Because again, they’re just like us, they love coffee too! But as the Washington Post points out, this was not always the case. Back in the early era of Hollywood, coffee was a status symbol.

In the days of Grace Kelly and Humphrey Bogart, coffee was used by stars to express “European sophistication.” It was a way of appearing worldly and travelled. “Oh you haven’t spent four hours at a cafe in Paris? You simply must.” The article imports vintage photos from Steven Rea’s Hollywood Cafe: Coffee With the Stars to draw physical comparisons between American stars and their European counterparts:

Photos of [American actress Lauren] Bacall drinking coffee with a cigarette between her fingers mirror similar ones of French actress Jeanne Moreau or Italian actress Sophia Loren.