He appeared on radio on the Columbia Broadcasting System in Dine with George Rector[1] and played himself in at least one movie, Every Day's a Holiday (1937), with Mae West.
[2] In the introduction to his 1939 book, Home on the Range, Rector described himself as "a sort of food representative at large", as well as an "author of several books, of a series of Saturday Evening Post articles, and of a column published by 22 newspapers—been filmed—talked to the national radio audience".
He claimed his father took him out of Cornell University where he was studying law, and sent him to Paris to learn how to make a sauce for filet of sole.
In Home on the Range, he wrote that he got his start in the business peeling potatoes and cleaning chickens in his father's kitchens.
[1] His widow, Mabelle Rector, died in their Stamford, Connecticut, home less than two months later at the age of 56.