''Unlike Betty Crocker, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee was NOT a fictional advertising icon; he was a real Italian chef. Hector Boiardi came to the U.S. as a teenager, became chef of a Cleveland hotel, and then opened a restaurant where his spaghetti recipe became famous. The rest is history. (It became "Boy-Ar-Dee" because that was easier than having to teach Italian pronunciation to 1950s housewives) ''