Julia (2021) Movie Script

1
["THE FRENCH CHEF" THEME
PLAYING]
Julia Child presents
the Chicken Sisters
Miss Broiler, Miss Fryer,
Miss Roaster, Miss Caponette,
Miss Stewer and old Madam Hen.
But we're spotlighting
Miss Roaster of the Year.
["FIRE" BY THE JIMI HENDRIX
EXPERIENCE PLAYING]
Manage to get
in between the vertebrae.
[GRUNTS]
All right
Now dig this, baby
You don't care for me...
Give it a big tie.
Good and tight.
Ha! I like to laugh at
Slice right down.
I have only one
Burning desire
Let me stand
Next to your fire
Let me stand
Next to your fire 'Ey
Let me stand
Next to your fire...
It should have
a butter massage.
Listen here, baby
It gets right into that skin,
and it gives it
a lovely flavor,
and it helps it brown nicely.
French food is just wonderful.
I hadn't been turned on
by anything
until I really got
into French food.
Let me stand
Next to your fire
Let me
Stand next to your fire
Yeah, let me stand, baby
Let me stand
Next to your fire...
You can poach it
or you can roast it
the old-fashioned way
in the oven,
or you can
roast it on the spit.
I find that if people
aren't interested in food,
I'm not very much
interested in them.
They seem to lack something
in the way of personality.
Yeah, get on with it
Baby...
I'm gonna turn
this chicken around
so that whenever you think
of roast chicken,
you think of it this way.
[]
Yeah
That's what
I'm talking about
Now dig this...
I just love that food.
I could eat nothing but that
the rest of my life.
You better move over, baby
Oh, I ain't talking
'Bout your old lady
Ow!
Oh, yeah
This is Jimi talking to you
[SONG FADES][CHEERING]
DOWNS:
She's one of
the most distinctive
personalities that television
has presented, ever.
Julia Child.
PRUD'HOMME:
Julia was more than a cook.
She was a cultural force.
She changed America.
GARTEN:
I think Julia introduced us
to a world of food.
She made it look like
it was fun.
Today, you have
rock star chefs.
Julia is the first.
She's Madonna.
Like, she's the first
that does all of that.
DAVIDSON:
Julia was a pop icon.
[IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE]
I'm Julia Child.
You could say "Julia,"
and everybody knew
it was Julia Child.
JULIA:
I didn't start
on television
till I was in my 50s.
Just by chance,
I got onto television.
I seemed to be the right woman
at the right time.
...behind me in this
unassuming concrete building,
filled with the tools
of a remarkable industry
called television.
I was a producer-director
of WGBH,
the public television station
in the Boston viewing area.
I was there in the office,
and the phone rang.
And it was a woman
with this kind of
a gasping, strange,
very, very distinctive voice.
And she said,
[IMITATING JULIA]
"I would like to request
a hot plate be provided
for Mr. Duhamel's program
that I will appear on tonight."
It was the book review program
calledI've Been Reading.
She was going to talk
about her book,
Mastering the Art
of French Cooking.
I said, "I'll pass
that along, madam,
but I just have to say
that it's highly unusual."
MALE ANNOUNCER [ON TV]:
This series is presented by
WGBH-TV Boston.
RUSS MORASH:
Few people in those days
watched educational television.
How can we find
the size of the Earth?
RUSS MORASH:
We had some distinguished
faculty members who would
explain high-energy physics
and high-energy literature.
MALE ANNOUNCER:
The Wrath of Achilles
an introduction to
The Iliad.
All readers of The Iliad
have felt the deep contrast
between the bleak camp life
of the Greeks
and the warm
domestic atmosphere
of the scenes inside Troy.
I mean, there was
some pretty heavy going.
So I pointed out to her
that we don't really do much
in terms of demonstrations.
She said, "Well, I will
still need that hot plate."
[]
She made a proper omelet
in a proper omelet pan
that night.
And the host was blown away
by its lightness and its taste.
You have to understand,
in those days,
no one had an omelet pan
in metro Boston.
If you were to say,
"Go out and get some leeks,"
we wouldn't know what--
Where to start.
Or a garlic press.
MALE ANNOUNCER [ON TV]:
Smart mother.
Plenty of time when you keep
Swanson TV Brand Dinners
in the freezer.
No more than 25 minutes,
serve a meal that rivals
real home cooking.
- Taste pretty good?
- Delicious.
FAIRCHILD:
American food was focused on
convenience foods--
Frozen items, canned items.
- -that were all being advertised
and touted
as great ways to save time.
DAVIDSON:
Everywhere,
there was packaged,
processed, frozen,
under-plastic, in-boxes food.
It was all very...
not recognizable.
FEMALE ANNOUNCER [ON TV]:
Just pop them
into the frying pan
with a little water
to produce mouthwatering
fried potatoes in minutes.
People discovered
"canned soup as sauce."
Pour it over the chicken,
fish, whatever,
and that was your sauce.
PRATT:
Americans were eating
Jell-O salads,
and it might have
chopped-up carrots
with marshmallows in them.
It was pretty awful.
People used a lot of Spam.
It would not be unusual
to go to a dinner party
where there was grilled Spam
with slices of pineapple
on top of it.
RUSS MORASH:
We ate without much style,
flair and imagination.
So when Julia did her omelet
on that first example
of her cooking on television,
[PHONE RINGING] the phone began to ring,
and the station
actually got a pulse.
"What a sketch.
What a take on French cooking.
Boy, I think I'm gonna buy
her book when it comes out."
It was all positive,
and it gave
the station management
the idea that maybe
a TV series could arise
from this appearance.
I was summoned to the office,
and they said,
"We'd like to try
two or three programs
featuring Julia Child cooking.
We'll make three pilots."
[]
[CAMERA BEEPS]
Hello. I'm Julia Child.
Welcome to The French Chef,
and the first show on
our series on French cooking.
We're gonna make
boeuf bourguignon--
beef stew in red wine.
And it's a wonderful show
to begin our series on
because it shows you
so many useful things
about French cooking.
From all the stews I've made...
When I did The French Chef,
I'm interested
in people who make
beautiful food
that tastes good.
And I'm not gonna crowd
the pan either.
That's another
extremely important thing,
because if the pan
gets crowded,
then the meat steams.
[FOOD SIZZLING]
[]
My point is
to make cooking easy for people
so that they can enjoy it
and do it.
It should be, and is,
I think, everybody's pleasure.
I think you should have
no fear of cooking.
That's terribly important,
that you must be
a fearless cook.
And the more you learn
how to cook,
the easier it is
and the more fun it is.
ANDRES:
That gives me a sense of,
"I belong. I'm here."
GARTEN:
Cooking is about
bringing people to the table.
And once you surround yourself
with people you love,
that's how you connect with
each other: by sharing food.
SAMUELSSON:
Food, for me,
is really a window
into our own identity.
It looks back at the history
that was here before us.
It really tells us who we are.
If you want to taste who I am,
taste this.
[]
JULIA:
I was born
in Pasadena, California,
August 15, 1912.
It was a lovely,
lovely place to grow up.
COUSINS:
Pasadena was like paradise.
My grandparents had this
big old rambling house with
an entire walled garden
that had avocados, lemon trees.
It was just beautiful.
She was the oldest
of three children.
There was Julia and then John
and then my mother, Dorothy.
JULIA:
We used to hang onto
bicycles, and we rode all over,
and we just had a good time
horsing around.
COUSINS:
She was 6'3", John 6'4".
My mother was 6'5".
And Grandma Caro's reaction
to having these
three enormous children was,
"Good heavens!
I've produced 18 feet
of children." Heh, heh.
JULIA:
We had very sensible,
New England-type food
'cause my mother
came from New England.
Roasts and fresh peas
and mashed potatoes.
But nobody discussed food
a great deal
because it just wasn't done.
COUSINS:
In that white,
Anglo-Saxon society,
there were proper things
you talked about,
and there were things
you did not discuss.
Anything to do with sexuality.
You didn't discuss politics.
You definitely did not
discuss money with people.
HERSH:
She told people
that she was middle-class.
But they had to be
really wealthy.
The fact that
she never cooked--
I don't think
that her mother cooked.
I think the cook cooked.
[]
JULIA:
I was entered at Smith College.
And in those days,
women weren't taken
very seriously
as anything
but just broodmares.
You could get married,
but you didn't go in
for a career
'cause there weren't any.
I wasn't preparing myself
for anything.
I was leading, really,
a leisurely, butterfly life.
[]
I graduated in 1934.
My mother became ill.
She died
when she was around 60.
I went back to Pasadena,
took care of my father.
COUSINS:
Julia's father,
John McWilliams,
was very strict
and very conservative.
I think Julia loved him
very much,
but it was hard
to get close to him.
Her father really believed
that like should marry like
and that Julia
should become a traditional,
upper-middle-class,
well-married woman.
PRUD'HOMME:
Most of the women
in Julia's circle
were getting married,
and she wasn't.
She was always a bridesmaid,
never a bride.
COUSINS:
Julia's father,
he wanted her to marry
the scion of
theLos Angeles Times family,
and Julia
didn't want to do that.
JULIA:
If I had to marry
a conservative banker
or lawyer,
I would have
played golf and tennis,
and I probably would've been
an alcoholic.
PRUD'HOMME:
She was proposed to,
but she declined.
COUSINS:
Julia broke with her father,
and she stood up to him.
PRUD'HOMME:
She had these kind of
romantic dreams
for what her life might be.
She was really pining
for adventure.
NEWSMAN 1:
America is at war.
Its battle cry penetrate to
the four corners of the Earth.
Army, Navy and Marine
recruiting stations
bulge to overflowing.
NEWSMAN 2:
Every day,
new legions are being called
to active duty,
afloat and ashore.
[CHEERING]
JULIA:
Wasn't until World War II
that everything really changed.
Everyone was dying
to do something.
You wanted to get in and help.
So I joined up.
I had nothing to offer
except I could type.
So I ended up doing office--
Menial office work,
and eventually got into the
Office of Strategic Services,
the OSS,
which was the precursor
of the CIA,
or Special Intelligence.
I did want to be a spy,
and I thought I'd be
a very good one
because no one would think
that someone as tall as I
would possibly be a spy.
She was not a spy.
She did work with spies,
working with top secret files
as a clerk typist.
[]
JULIA:
The OSS began to recruit people
to go to the Far East,
so I volunteered.
[SHIP HORN BLOWS]
WILLAN:
With Julia,
World War II
made a big difference.
It was freedom.
She never looked back
with any wistfulness
on the conservative,
rather narrow life
that she had lived until then.
[]
[SEAGULLS SQUAWKING]
JULIA:
We sailed to Ceylon.
It's a mountainous island.
Charming and fascinating
in those early days.
Kind of exotic.
And that's...
That's where I met Paul.
[]
We were building
the Burma Road at that point,
going to China.
And Paul, he was in charge
of maps and diagrams.
He was a graphics artist.
COUSINS:
Paul was a polymath.
He did not go to college.
He was self-taught.
But he was
a very, very bright guy.
PRUD'HOMME:
Paul was 10 years
older than Julia.
He had experienced life
in a way that she hadn't.
[]
PRUD'HOMME:
After Sri Lanka,
they were posted
to Kunming in China.
WILLAN:
When she met Paul,
she felt she really knew
so little about civilization
and just enjoying the world.
[CAMERA CLICKING]
Paul was a gifted photographer,
and he gradually introduced
Julia to artworks
and the way people lived
and to food.
JULIA:
We were able to go out and eat
in the restaurants,
and that food was delicious.
[FOOD SIZZLING]
[]
WILLAN:
I'm sure it was a revelation.
Paul helped open up
another world, other worlds.
REICHL:
Try and imagine
what it must have been like
for her to discover food
and love and everything else
all at the same time.
What a whoosh of joy and life
it must have been for her.
NEWSMAN:
Unconditional surrender
and the return of happier days.[CHEERING]
JULIA:
After the bomb dropped,
the war ended
really immediately.
We went back home
and decided we'd get married.
So we had a nice wedding.
PRUD'HOMME:
Paul Child and John McWilliams
were at either ends
of the spectrum.
Julia's father would
dismiss Paul as an artist
and a liberal
who cared about food and wine.
Paul would dismiss Big John
as a conservative businessman.
COUSINS:
Julia's father
was very Republican.
When Julia married Paul,
she became a Democrat.
My grandfather was, "What?"
[LAUGHS]
That's not supposed to happen.
JULIA:
After the war,
the diplomatic corps
sent people abroad.
And Paul spoke
beautiful French,
so he was sent over to Paris.
And that was where
our wonderful life together
really began.
[]
[SHIP HORN BLOWS]
We drove through this
beautiful French countryside.
I was just beside myself
with excitement,
seeing these ancient buildings
and old churches.
And we landed in Rouen.
I remember my first meal there.
We had a beautiful first lunch
at La Couronne.
They have this delicious
filet of sole with butter.
It was my first French food,
and I never got over it.
Sole meunire.
If you have a sole meunire...
[]
First, you need a big sole.
Thick filet.
You melt butter,
and when the butter
start to make little bubbles,
you put your sole
on both sides.
[FOOD SIZZLING]
And the flesh is transparent.
It's absolutely delicate.
It's one of
the finest things in life.
You just add some salt--
Very few salt.
- -and some drops of lemon.
Just a fish.
Perfect fish in butter.
C'est parfait. It's perfect.
And she said, "Voil. Voil.
I found my way with a sole."
JULIA:
It was just
absolutely delicious.
And as soon as
I got into France
and realized
what it was all about,
it came upon me that
that was what I'd been
looking for all my life.
One taste of that food,
and I never turned back.
["SOUS LE CIEL DE PARIS"
BY YVES MONTAND PLAYING]
We settle in the top floor
of an old private house
in Paris.
[MAN SINGING ROMANTIC BALLAD
IN FRENCH]
JULIA:
They take food so seriously,
and that's what really got
to me when I got over there,
that the waiter is so much
interested in what you order.
It's a very serious business.
SIMON [IN FRENCH]:
PRATT:
She didn't care
about fancy things
like Louis Quatorze.
And what a lot of people love
about France is froufrou
and all that.
But she loved the way of life
and the food.
[]
[SONG ENDS]
[CHATTERING IN FRENCH]
PRUD'HOMME:
In the summer of 1950,
Julia invited her father
and her stepmother
to come to France.
Paul and Julia did their best
to take them
on a trip around the country,
show them
some of their favorite places.
But John would spend
a lot of his time
complaining about the French
and didn't understand
the culture,
didn't understand the food,
and didn't really want to.
JULIA:
I decided
that I would really like
to do serious delving
into cuisines,
so I enrolled
in the Cordon Bleu.
COINTREAU:
The Cordon Bleu,
it's the oldest
cooking school in Paris
with the top, top chefs--
Professional chefs.
- -and we glorify
the artistry of cooking.
You have to understand that
French look to their cooks
and always has been looking
to their cooks as artists.
JULIA:
They had classes for
the GIs on the Bill of Rights.
COINTREAU:
Because of the GI Bill,
all the soldiers who had
come back from World War II
had the right to be funded
to go back to civilian life.
So Julia was in fact
with 11 GIs,
being trained by Max Bugnard,
a fantastic chef.
Let's face it: Max Bugnard,
as very many, uh...
chefs-- Uh, male chefs,
was thinking,
"She was the only female
with the 11 GIs.
Was she going to be serious?
Could she even be
a true professional?"
[]
DELPEUCH:
In France,
cooking was a world of men.
SIMON [IN FRENCH]:
In my youth, I always heard
a woman cannot be a chef
because, uh, in kitchens,
pans and pots are heavy.
JULIA:
It was just fascinating
to see how much
there was to learn.
The more I got into it,
the more I loved it
and the more I appreciated it
as a true art form
that you could spend
your life over.
We French love codifying.
The last 200, 300 years,
France codified
the technical skills
and the fundamentals
of cuisine.
It's like architecture
or, um, in music:
you have to know
your fundamentals,
and then you can play with it.
JULIA:
A lot of it's handwork
that you have to develop
how to chop rapidly
or the perfect dicing
of things.
All that takes practice.
It really requires
every aspect of your psyche
and imagination and creativity.
Nothing was too much trouble
if it's gonna produce
a beautiful result.
I would go to the Cordon Bleu
at 7 in the morning
and finished at around 11.
And then I would rush home
and prepare a fancy lunch
for my husband Paul.
["LA VIE EN ROSE"
BY YVES MONTAND PLAYING]
[MAN SINGING ROMANTIC BALLAD
IN FRENCH]
DELPEUCH:
God knows it's a love affair
with Paul.
I say it was obvious.
He was smaller than Julia,
but he was looking at her
with eyes, magnifique,
and, uh, and she would...
"Paul?"
She was always asking,
you know?
It was like--
How's a pigeon do?
"Oh-coo," you know. "Paul?"
[]
[SONG CONTINUES IN FRENCH]
Cooking, it's an expression
of what you learn
and what you see,
what you smell,
what you are able to do
with your fingers.
And when you cook,
you give your love.
It's more than
to feed your body.
It's, um... Have pleasure.
SIMON [IN FRENCH]:
REICHL:
With Julia and Paul,
clearly you read
between the lines.
I mean, he comes home,
she makes him a great lunch,
and they obviously
go to bed every day.
[SONG CONTINUES IN FRENCH]
[]
HERSH:
Julia's advice
for a good marriage
was to maintain the three Fs. [SONG ENDS]
You had to feed your man,
you had to fuck your man,
and you had
to flatter your man.
JULIA:
Everyone we knew in
France was interested in food.
Most discussions
were about food, really.
THIBAULT:
Julia met Simca
at a party, and they found
many, many things
that they could share.
JULIA:
Simca, Simone Beck,
she was a very good cook.
We met and we just immediately
became bosom friends.
I had some American friends
who wanted to learn cooking.
So they said,
"Will you teach us?"
And I thought, "Heavens,
I'm not ready for that."
But Simca was.
And then she also had
her colleague and friend
Louisette Bertholle.
So we started our little
cooking school in our kitchen,
which had room enough
so we could have six pupils.
[]
Simca and Louisette
had been doing a book
on French cooking
for Americans,
and they needed
an American collaborator.
They needed an American view.
American attitude.
JULIA:
So we started writing our book.
PRATT:
The goal of the book was
to make French cooking
for Americans
with American products
so that you could
replicate it here.
Simca, her partner,
found that difficult
'cause Simca felt
it should only be done
the French way, regardless.
THIBAULT:
My aunt Simca
was a very willful woman.
"You don't do it like that!
No. That's not how you do it.
You do it like this!"
It sounded like orders,
like she wanted
to regiment everyone,
like a police officer.
Simca was not an easy woman.
Nor was Julia.
They both had
very strong opinions.
JULIA:
I had started in quite late
when I started cooking,
and I found that the recipes
in all the books I had
were really not adequate.
They didn't tell you enough.
So I felt that we needed
fuller explanations
so that if you followed
one of those recipes,
it should turn out
exactly right.
PRATT:
They would try
the recipes again and again
to make sure they work.
There were a lot of revisions.
COUSINS:
Julia was quite scientific.
She was kind of like a chemist,
doing the experiment
over and over
and over again
until she got it right.
REICHL:
She did not know
how to take shortcuts
or to do things
by half measures.
"Okay.
It's not working this way.
We're gonna have to do it
all over again."
Do it all over again.
[]
JULIA:
I sent a copy
of this group of recipes
to a friend of mine
at Houghton Mifflin.
And they offered us
a contract for a book,
so we were delighted.
THIBAULT:
Then Paul Child's career
took them away to Marseille.
At the time, we didn't have
the means that we have now,
email or anything.
So it was all by mail.
Simca would type recipes,
send them to Julia.
Julia would send her own ideas,
and back and forth.
[PAPER RUFFLING]
COUSINS:
It was a tremendous
amount of work.
It took 12 years
to write the book.
She would type all of
the recipes in triplicate,
and she would send one copy
to my mother,
who was her younger sister,
to test out the recipes
as an American housewife.
Her directions are as though
she's standing there
in the kitchen with you,
holding your hand
each step of the way.
[]
JULIA:
The book was finished,
and we sent it
to Houghton Mifflin...
[TYPEWRITER KEYS CLACKING]
...and they rejected it.
BOGAARDS:
They said to her,
"Nobody wants to read
a treatise on French cooking.
People want
a mix-and-stir cookbook.
They want something
that's convenient."
Cookbooks at that moment
in time,
they would not
go particularly deep
in terms of explaining recipes.
And Julia's book was
[CHUCKLES]
a very different proposition
than anyone
had ever seen before.
PRATT:
That was very disappointing,
to have Houghton Mifflin
turn it down.
Terrible.
She really had great hopes
that it was gonna take off.
PRUD'HOMME
At the same time,
Paul was deeply frustrated
with the bureaucracy
and the petty politics
in the U.S. embassy.
He was called back
to Washington
and was accused of being
a communist and a homosexual.
The accusations were untrue,
but he was humiliated
and furious,
and he ended up
taking an early retirement.
In 1961, Julia and Paul
moved into their house
in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
PRATT:
Paul didn't have
a career at that point.
I think they were
a little mystified
as to what they'd do.
[]
BOGAARDS:
An editor at Knopf
by the name of Judith Jones
got the manuscript, read it,
and in a memo, she wrote,
"Reading and studying this book
seems to me
as good as taking a basic
course at the Cordon Bleu.
I think this book
will become a classic."
Judith needs to convince
Alfred A. Knopf,
the publisher, that this is
a book that has merit.
Alfred was not convinced
at the outset,
although Judith's passion
for the project
led him to believe
that this is a book
that they should
take a flier on.
The title that
they arrived at is
Mastering the Art
of French Cooking.
When Judith presented
that title to Alfred,
he said to her,
"If anybody buys this book,
I will eat my hat."
JULIA:
When the book came out,
Simca came to the USA.
At that point, in 1961,
I don't think
there were many book tours.
But we decided
to go around the country
to promote the book.
I was invited
to be in a book review program
in Boston.
To liven things up,
I made an omelet.
So that's how the idea
of a cooking show started out.
RUSS MORASH:
From the first time
she appeared on that show,
Julia was different
from anything on television.
[LIVELY ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
PLAYING]
FAIRCHILD:
On television, women were
basically part of
the window dressing
young and attractive
in a sexy way,
or everyday housewife type,
but a housewife on steroids
because nobody dressed
like that in reality
to be in their homes.
And you certainly
didn't see them
telling people what to do
or teaching in any kind of way.
They were objects.
There are no clean socks.
ZINBERG:
The tradition was essentially
that only the men
were important.
Women were really to be
in their place.
REICHL:
They were told,
"Stay at home, be docile,
and forget
that you ever had a brain."
[]
JULIA:
When we started
The French Chef,
I think I was paid $50 a show
because it was
just an experiment.
RUSS MORASH:
The station executives
wanted to see
if this thing would fly.
And they said,
"You know, not everything
we try is successful."
We had no studio space
for the show,
and the Boston Gas Company
came to the rescue,
and they said, "You know what?
We have
a demonstration kitchen.
It's got a nice flat floor
so you can roll your cameras
around on it."
WGBH was kind of wild
and woolly.
Everything was
pretty low budget.
They scraped by month to month.
NEWSMAN:
Only with this bus
crammed with equipment
can we record
on-the-spot reports for you.
PIRIE:
Most of
the major programming was done
out of a mobile unit
that had a generator,
three cameras and a cable.
We carried all the cameras up
three flights of fire escape,
which, in the winter,
was a daunting project.
RUSS MORASH:
We had big, heavy,
awful cameras.
I hated those cameras.
Tubes-- Literally, tubes
would fall out on the floor.
[TUBE CLATTERS]
PIRIE:
There was a lot of
creative work with duct tape
holding things together,
patching things up
that started to fall down
in the middle of things.
RUSS MORASH:
I pointed out to her
that we had no tape editing.
We weren't to cut it
in any way.
There was no teleprompter,
so we had to do it
in long takes.
["THE FRENCH CHEF" THEME
PLAYING]
Welcome to The French Chef.
I'm Julia Child.
Today, we're cooking a goose.
We're gonna use
the goose liver.
And the goose liver
is enormous.
A pale liver
is usually the best color,
rather than the dark one.
So we're gonna use this
in the stuffing.
So we just chop it up.
Then we're gonna
saut it in butter.
The first shows
were live on tape,
which gave it
a kind of breathless quality
which was rather nice.
This should saut for, oh,
just about a minute or two.
But whatever happened happened.
When you're ready
to cook them...
[COUGHS]
I'm sticking on a bean.
RUSS MORASH:
She had to devise an outline
of points
that she wanted to cover,
but she didn't
memorize anything.
She prepared her work
meticulously.
She would type
these things out, single space,
two or three pages
of what happens after this
and after that.
JULIA:
And mix them all up.
RUSS MORASH:
They would do this
to the chicken,
- would do that to the chicken.
- There.
RUSS MORASH:
She knew
what she was going to do,
and I was just really
the traffic cop.
Turn the blender on...
PIRIE:
Julia was a master
at getting everything together
and then just letting it roll.
...adding a little olive oil
till it gets thicker.
PIRIE:
She could ad-lib endlessly.
...which is a smaller amount
of vinegar in the beginning.
By about this time,
it'll be so thick.
So in that case,
you thin it out
with a little lemon juice.
I had the young producer
Ruthie Lockwood.
She had a very good sense
of drama,
and she always said, "You want
to come on with a bang,
and you don't want to go out
with a whimper."
What's missing in this picture?
The goose.
And here it is,
all juicy and ready to eat.
This is a dough
with yeast in it
that I'm slapping around here.
Look at this magnificent head.
We're gonna do
bouillabaisse today.
It was often just one dish
so that we could
really go into detail.
MARIAN MORASH:
They had to have food
in different stages ready
the raw fish,
the partially cooked fish,
the fully cooked fish.
JULIA:
There. Now that's ready to eat.
RUSS MORASH:
We used the heavy, nasty mic.
In fact, it even had
a little charge to it.
Occasionally,
she would get a little shock.
JULIA:
Every time I touched the stove,
the microphone would go:
[IMITATES ZAP]
RUSS MORASH:
If Paul wasn't busy,
he'd be sharpening a knife
or he would be
scrubbing some residue
off of the bottom
of an omelet pan.
He was a big, big help.
JULIA:
We'd find that I didn't have
any feeling for time
and they're just
galloping through it.
So we changed the system
of having idiot cards.
PIRIE:
I had little signs that said
"slow down" and "speed it up."
"Sweat."
The producer, Ruth Lockwood--
Bothered her that Julia
would be dripping sweat
into the various dishes
that she was working on.
I've got my heat on so high,
I'm just getting boiled.
I would hold the "sweat" thing,
and Julia was supposed
to mop her brow
[LAUGHS]
rather than continue to pour.
Everybody in the crew enjoyed
watching her prepare the food.
And we knew we were gonna get
to eat it at the lunch break
and then again
at the end of the day.
- DIRECTOR: And how was the food?
- Oh, delicious.
[LAUGHS]
Of course.
When you hold your knife,
you take your thumb
and forefinger
and grip the top
of the blade like that,
and then hold
the rest of the knife
in your other fingers.
You see? That way.
It was really a teaching show.
I was trying to teach
the proper way of doing things.
And your knife knocks
against your knuckles
as you move your finger
down like that, see?
'Cause it makes
all the difference
in the taste.
That care,
thatcuisine soigne--
That's what gives it
that lovely French taste.
WILLAN:
She really got across
what was the essentials
of the dish.
JULIA:
If you just cook
the flour slowly,
you're gonna get
a much smoother
and nicer-tasting sauce.
If you felt that it didn't
have enough garlic,
you could put some in now.
WILLAN:
And you must remember
to taste as things are cooking.
It's good, but it needs
more salt and pepper.
WILLAN:
Does it need more salt?
We need more sugar.
Is it getting too sticky?
Well, that's very good.
Here is a great big old
bad artichoke.
And some people are
terribly afraid of it.
At that point,
people weren't
very adventurous.
The general public never
had eaten a fresh artichoke
or fresh asparagus
until we began showing them.
I'm gonna try
and flip this over,
which is a rather
daring thing to do.
You just have to have the
courage of your convictions,
particularly if it's sort
of a loose mass like this.
No, that didn't go very well.
MOULTON:
If she made a mistake,
she was not remotely rattled.
I didn't have the courage
to do it the way I should've.
But you can always pick it up,
and if you're alone
in the kitchen,
who is going to see?
MOULTON:
She felt that
making a mistake
was a good thing
just so that she could then
show you how to fix it.
Anytime that
anything like this happens,
you haven't lost anything
'cause you can always
turn this into something else.
We'll pretend that
this was supposed to be
a baked potato dish.
Some people would accuse me
of doing things purposely,
but anyone who's been
in the kitchen knows
that awful things happen
all the time,
and you just have to make do
with whatever happens.
This is
a maximum-security oven.
It's not to be opened
for 25 minutes
or everybody will be
court-martialed.
There's a souffl in it.
I think educational television
has to be entertaining.
It can't be dull.
Here it is, just sitting up,
waving at you.
We made it fun
cause I was
having a good time.
So many people
seem to hate fish.
"Oh, I hate fish!
Why do we have to have fish?
I just hate it!"
MOULTON:
She was such a character.
That voice.
...called la tarte tatin.
The fact that
she was so theatrical.
You just beat it.
Flit-gun! That's all you need!
I'm all ready to make fish!
She was always waving things
or banging things.
[CHUCKLES]
I'm Julia Child.
MOULTON:
But she really knew
what she was doing.
Terrific technique.
Here's the dome of caramel.
MOULTON:
She would make
the most ridiculously
complicated recipes
and then pretend like
it was simple as can be.
JULIA:
She comes off.
MOULTON:
Whether you cooked
or didn't cook,
people would just
watch her for fun.
WILLAN:
Everyone would say,
"Have you seen Julia
this week?"
RUSS MORASH:
The French Chef,
a mere inexpensive effort,
seemed to capture the
imagination of its audiences
and granted public television
audiences
that it never had before.
The inimitable Julia Child.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
She really had a big hand
in making public television
take off.
Welcome to my Emmy kitchen.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
NEWSMAN:
She's a celebrity
wherever people see
her television programs
or read her books.[APPLAUSE]
FRIEDMAN:
I cannot tell you
what it was like
to look out of a hotel window
at 7:30 in the morning
and see 500 or 750 women
waiting to see
Julia Child cook.
And of course, sales of
Mastering absolutely soared.
Julia really started
the whole love of cookbooks
and the whole desire
for publishers to promote them.
Mmm.[AUDIENCE LAUGHING]
Mmm. I think I love you.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHING]
Ooh, it's good.
PRATT:
It was a surprise,
how it took off.
She was in her 50s.
I don't know what she expected,
but I imagine
she hoped it was gonna work.
But I don't think she had any
idea of the magnitude of it.
Will you please welcome
Julia Child.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]
Tell me something,
is there an attitude or
a-a frame of mind
or, um, a personality type
or something
that makes for a good cook?
Would I qualify, for example?
If you're hungry, yes.
Looking forward and salivating
over what you
are about to prepare,
- I think, is very important.
- Mm-hmm.
And I find there's a sensual
pleasure in handling food.
- Oh, I think so.
- Does that mean I'm odd?
It seems that-- I think
that you're following
the modern trend of America
'cause I think
more and more people
are getting interested
in cooking...
Yeah....as a creative activity.
JULIA:
I happened to appear
at the right time,
just when people were ready
to go into
some more interesting cooking.
[]
The Kennedys
were in the White House
when I started out.
[IN FRENCH]
[IN FRENCH]
JULIA:
They had their wonderful
French chef,
Ren Verdon.
Everything they did was news.
And when they did,
the food, of course,
then became news.
BOGAARDS:
America was looking
beyond its borders.
It seemed to be a moment
where we were ready
to embrace culinary horizons.
JULIA:
We were ripe for a change,
and there I was.
Today, we're gonna make
chocolate cake,
and it's a very special,
very chocolately,
bittersweet, lovely cake.
RUSS MORASH:
Julia was not
a particularly
remarkable beauty.
She was middle-aged
with freckles,
and her hair changed daily.
But you were mesmerized,
spellbound,
by what she was saying.
PEPIN:
Cooking is--
Well, lots of it
is one failure after another,
and that's how
you finally learn.
Now shatter it.
Just like that.
[]
It's very nice
to know that you can
make all these goodies
yourself.
She opened doors for me
as a person,
that I could cook.
JULIA:
We're making the stew of stews!
Boeuf bourguignon.
HERSH:
We would watch Julia's show
with my grandmother,
and then Grandpa would
go buy the ingredients,
and we would cook that meal.
She just seemed
so unpretentious
that you thought, if she could
do it, you could do it.
MARIAN MORASH:
We all grabbed onto Julia,
and we began
cooking her things.
ANDRES:
SAMUELSSON:
You might mispronounce it
or you might not know
which fork to start with.
It's okay. But you can do it.
REICHL:
Her coming on television
and telling America
that they could make great food
out of the supermarket
virtually changed the landscape
of food in America.
People didn't make
Jell-O salads
and serve them
at a dinner party anymore.
JULIA:
There, this wonderful,
steaming stew.
You see how nice it is
to have these big chunks.
There.
That's all for today
on The French Chef.
This is Julia Child.
Bon apptit.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
THIBAULT:
In France,
Julia has no reputation at all.
Mastering the Art
of French Cooking
was never translated in French.
When I talk about Julia
and Simca, no one knows.
There's no trace of their work.
- Ah, Simca.
- SIMCA: Here we are.
Ready, finally. Okay.[BOTH LAUGH]
So we're going to make this
special ptes de printemps.
Ptes de printemps.
Epi-- Aux pinards. Aux pinards.
THIBAULT:
I remember once asking my aunt,
"Does it hurt you that she's
so successful in America?"
She simply replied,
"She's a businesswoman now."
Now, you could even use, um,
a pie crust mix, couldn't you?
I'm French.
I hate the mix.
PRUD'HOMME:
When Julia and Simca wrote
Mastering the Art of
French Cooking, Volume 2,
Julia felt that she brought
all this American publicity
to the table.
And so she wanted
to get a little bit more
than 50 percent of the deal.
And Simca balked at this,
but Julia stayed tough
and insisted.
She wasn't always
the genial Julia that you saw.
She had a lot
of her father in her.
She could be
a very tough negotiator.
And eventually, Simca agreed.
THIBAULT:
At one point,
a magazine sent reporters
to take pictures.
Simca was not included
in that session.
I know that
she was really hurt.
FRIEDMAN:
The relationship became frosty
because it was hierarchical.
It was Julia Child and Simca.
Julia was the star.
RUSS MORASH:
The station executives
were determined
that we continue
these cooking programs.
We're having
a cheese and wine party
today on The French Chef!
...onto the platter,
and that unmolded very badly.
That's too bad because
it does look very nice.
Rule one, strangely enough, is
read the recipe.
Mastering was such a success
that it led to book after book.
There was a great appetite
- for any new Julia content.
- Welcome. I'm Julia Child.
You'd better have
one of these food processors
'cause then you can do it
all by yourself.
Tonight's show features
two great cooks
uh, Jacques Ppin,
uh, who at one time
was the personal chef
to Charles de Gaulle,
and Julia Child,
who needs no introduction
or explanation.
We were gonna start with some
shrimps, were we?
Yes, okay.
- Start with shrimp.
- JULIA: They're down here.
PEPIN:
Are you going
to saut those in there?
Want me to do some--Yes. Well, um,
I hate to admit that I just
cut my finger beforehand,
[LAUGHS]
so I'm gonna let you
do the saut.
PEPIN:
...and Julia took it
to cut a shallot
and take the end
of her finger off. But...
[STAMMERS]
A big piece like this.
So I push it back together.
It was all-all by the-the skin.
I push it back together,
and I tie a towel around.
And then you want
a whole orange cut into pieces.
PEPIN:
Did you do
this in the kitchen?
I did this in the kitchen.
I was... Heh.
Excuse me for laughing. Sorry....doing a show
last night...
But-but
I-I thought good cooks
were not supposed
to do that.
Well, I don't know. I just cut
a good piece of my finger.
Did it go in the preparation
or the, uh...
Well...[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
That wasn't part
of the recipe, no.
I see.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
[IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE]
I'm Julia Child.
Today, we're going to make
a holiday feast,
or le fte d'holiday.
JULIA:
We happened to turn it on,
and there it was, live.
[SHOUTS]
Err-- Oh!
Oh. Now I've done it.
I've cut the dickens
out of my finger.
Well... I'm glad, in a way,
this happened.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
You know, accidents do occur
from time to time
in the kitchen.
Oh, oh, God, it's throbbing!
Oh! Well, a tourniquet...
MOULTON:
She had a copy,
and at dinner parties
at her house,
she would show
the Dan Aykroyd tape.
JULIA:
It was very funny.
We loved that.
Why are you all spinning?
Well, I think I'm going
to go to sleep now.
Bon apptit.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS AND APPLAUDS]
One time, I said, "You know,
Julia, I sometimes forget,
when I'm with you,
how famous you are."
And she said,
"You know, so do I."
And I think she did.
Onto the buffet for 19.
DAVIDSON:
Even at the height of her fame,
she didn't become
commercialized.
...wine that you'd serve
with it.
She really felt very strongly
about not endorsing products.
When she would have products
on camera,
we were in charge of
masking tape over the brand.
PRUD'HOMME:
She would say,
"You should have some wine,"
but she wouldn't say
what kind of wine.
RUSS MORASH:
Why should her favorite salt
get promotion from her
when she hadn't tried them all
and there might be others
that she liked as well?
And not to have anyone
buy their way onto the program.
CALLAWAY:
Julia Child,
you were quoted as follows:
"I think the role of a woman
is to be married
to a nice man
and enjoy her home."
Do you stand by that?
Yes, because I'm a--
I'm a homemaker
as well as a TV cook
and a teacher.
I wondered if
the women's liberation movement
had-had caused
any adaptation by you
in your sensibility
to their needs?
No.
Well, I'm a working woman
myself.
- You sure are.
- Our working day stops
at around 7,
and when the news goes on,
I start dinner.
The making of a home is, to me,
one of the most important
things in the world.
I just love
living with my husband,
and I can't imagine not having
a happy home with him.
PRUD'HOMME:
Julia never called
herself a feminist,
although she was clearly
really important
to the feminist movement.
MOULTON:
Women were treated pretty badly
in cooking school.
Teachers were
all European male chefs,
and they'd rather not
have women in their kitchen.
FAIRCHILD:
Most women felt
that they couldn't
really have a career
making money in food.
But her success
really opened up a career path
to a lot of women
who may not have thought
about it at the time.
MOULTON:
When I started
working with Julia,
we'd walk into a restaurant
to have a meal,
then afterwards, they'd want to
give us a tour of the kitchen.
And the first thing
she would say is,
[IMITATIONG JULIA]
"Where are all the women?
How come
there's no women in here?"
She absolutely expanded
the possibilities
of what women could do.
[]
ZINBERG:
A lot of the people
in our neighborhood
were Harvard faculty.
All men.
But Julia was
one of the major figures.
She was very eager to meet
everyone, to learn about them.
But Paul was always
an enigma to me.
I never quite knew
what was going on in his mind.
PRATT:
He was very exacting
about words.
If you used the wrong word
or pronounced it incorrectly,
he would let you know.
He was very proper.
Very proper.
And he was critical.
People were afraid of him.
But she adored him.
She had a pet name for him.
It was "P'ski."
And that's
what he responded to.
JULIA:
He's a one-man art factory.
He's a painter
and a photographer,
and he can
make furniture and...
DOWNS: Huh....do just about anything.
And we've always liked
to do things together.
Hi, Julie. This is Paul.
Listen, I've got two friends
I want to bring home to dinner,
and we'll be there
in about half an hour.
Can you make it?
Aha. Company for dinner
in half an hour.
[]
PRUD'HOMME:
Paul became
her business manager,
her chief mushroom dicer,
dishwasher.
If Julia was the boxer,
he was the cornerman.
COUSINS:
Paul, who was very organized,
made sure that Julia had
everything she needed.
He helped her do the research,
he wrote up the cue cards,
made sure she had her knives.
He made sure
she was ready to roll.
JULIA:
I wouldn't be doing anything
if I weren't with him
'cause he's been
a wonderful support
and an encourager.
REICHL:
He watched
with enormous pleasure
as she eclipsed him.
Men of his generation
just did not do that.
They did not push their wives
to be the best
that they could be
and then happily stand back
and do everything they can
to help her career.
[]
COUSINS:
My aunt Julia was very sad
about not being able
to have children.
I think she would've liked
to have had at least one.
But that wasn't to be.
She saw me
as a child she didn't have,
and, actually,
all her nieces and nephews.
She embraced us
as her children.
What she said to me later was,
"Well, because
I didn't have kids,
I could throw myself
into...to work."
JULIA:
I want to do this very slowly.
Turn it over.
Push it back just a little bit.
You can see that's...
PRATT:
She got word
that she had breast cancer.
Paul was absolutely devastated.
He thought
he was gonna lose Julia.
COUSINS:
Julia was very
stoical about it.
In Julia's family, you would
never talk about illness,
let alone cancer.
You didn't want
to upset people.
She never complained about it.
She never complained about it.
She would say,
"I've got to go in
and get this taken care of."
[]
HERSH:
She had a scar
that ran from her shoulder
almost down to her belly.
And she said
she was in the bathtub
and looked down at herself
and was sobbing.
Paul came into the bathroom
and said, "What's wrong?"
And Julia said, "How are you
gonna ever love me?
Look at-- Look at me."
Paul said, "I didn't marry you
for your breast.
I married you for your legs."
And so she said she never
gave it another thought,
and that was... That was that.
JULIA:
I'm perfectly fine now,
and thank heaven.
I'm just very grateful
to be alive.
RUSS MORASH:
She is really
a "tomorrow" person.
She's not a "yesterday."
We don't care
what happened yesterday.
We only care
what happens tomorrow.
Please welcome now Julia Child.[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]
You go at things
in a rather fearless manner.
And it just shows a very
direct approach, which, uh...
You have to be careful
because you do get criticized.
[BOTH LAUGH]
COUSINS:
Julia was very
strongly pro-choice,
and she supported
Planned Parenthood always.
Have you ever been to any of
our Planned Parenthood
centers before?
The doctor will...COUSINS: She thought it was
very important for women
to be able to determine
their own lives.
Julia Child became part
of what was called
our Board of Advocates.
She opened up the idea
that we could have people
known for something
other than health care,
but who understood
the importance of women
and women's rights and women's
access to health care,
be part of this movement.
Julia's audience
were women from
all walks of life.
They were in rural America.
They were in big cities.
And the power of her saying,
"I support Planned Parenthood.
I stand with
Planned Parenthood,"
was really important.
NEWSMAN:
The crowd at
Stepherson's supermarket
was primed and ready
for the cook's arrival,
jockeying for
the best position
to buy the limited number
of autographed cookbooks.
But a group outside
was busy protesting
what they feel
are far more important matters
than how to
best broil the beef.
MAN:
We're out here
to let the people know
what, uh, stores,
what agencies and businesses
are supporting the abortionist
Planned Parenthood.
NEWSMAN:
They say
they're going to picket
every Memphis appearance
made by the culinary queen.
RICHARDS:
She risked her own celebrity,
her own reputation, to
associate herself with an issue
that some people found
controversial.
DAVIDSON:
That kind of backlash,
she just let that roll off.
JULIA:
In France and Italy,
it isn't even an issue anymore.
And if we had the Planned
Parenthood in the schools,
then we wouldn't
have to have any abortion.
When Julia had
deep convictions like that,
she was unflappable.
The best French way
of doing green vegetables
is to put them into an enormous
pot of rapidly boiling water.
Fifteen years,
I've been at people
for how to cook things
properly.
REICHL:
Julia had given
our mothers, our aunts,
the idea of trying
to make great food,
but our generation
tried to take it
to the next step.
These young cooks set out
to start going to farmers
to get great food.
Julia's notion was that
anybody who learned technique
could cook great food
out of the supermarket.
Our mantra was the opposite.
You can't cook good food
unless you've got
great ingredients.
You run into all this business
on the nouvelle cuisine
of crunchily underdone
vegetables.
Then you can't eat 'em
'cause they're practically raw.
REICHL:
She was defensive.
She'd been queen for so long,
and she had so changed
American food
that the notion that there was
a generation
that was critical--
I mean,
she was not used to criticism.
MAN:
And action.
Give me the wide shot!
Hold for me, freeze!
Give me the matches!
PRUD'HOMME:
1980, Julia had
her first really big setback
with PBS
when they didn't air her new
program all across the country.
Why are we not going to see
your new show here
on public television?
I don't know.
It's up to every
public television station
- what they want to show.
- Th-this--
Maybe they don't like food.[BOTH LAUGH]
PRUD'HOMME:
PBS started to take Julia
less and less seriously,
focused resources
in other ways.
I think it had something to do
with her gender and her age.
They were sort of
easing her out.
They were getting ready
to put her out to the farm.
Julia was
hugely frustrated by this.
She said, "Forget it, PBS.
I'm done." And she quit.
She could have
quietly gone into retirement,
but she didn't want to do that.
She would say, "If they don't
see you on television,
they think you're dead."
Julia was a dynamic force
that would not be silenced,
would not lay about,
waiting for her next
great television show.
PRUD'HOMME:
And so she went to work for
Good Morning America,
ABC's commercial show.
That's tomorrow on
Good Morning America.
This morning, Julia Child
is back with us in our kitchen.
PRUD'HOMME:
On GMA,
she had to do an entire dish
in three minutes.
But she learned to adapt,
and it provided her
a much larger audience.
GIBSON:
When I first met her,
I was intimidated.
I was meeting an icon.
How am I gonna approach her?
I didn't have to.
Knock-knock-knock on the door,
and in she bursts.
[IMITATING JULIA]
"Darling, deary,
we're gonna have so much fun!"
You don't put your hands
on that.
- Oh, you don't, okay.
- And I'll explain that later.
[BOTH LAUGH]
Julia was
an incorrigible flirt.
You say to-may-toe, I say
to-mah-toe.
No, I just...
GIBSON:
You say po-tay-toe,
I say po-tah-toe.
- I don't say po-tah-toe.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
GIBSON:
Here's this 75-year-old woman
that I'm talking to--
Or on into her 80s.
- -and yet she's flirting.
She's making you feel
as if what you're saying
is just the smartest thing
she ever heard.
If you were to invite me
to your home for the holidays--
Fat chance, but if that--[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
- Well, I would.
- Would you? I'd come too.
- I would if you'd come up.
- I'd love to.
I'd give you a wonderful--What would we have?
We'd have hamburger.[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
- But in a very special way.
- Yeah.
DIRECTOR:
She liked to flirt.
I know.
[LAUGHS]
I know.
JULIA:
We better taste it, I think.
I've got
an impeccably clean mouth.
You?
Yes.
[LAUGHS]
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]
We say in French,
She was wonderful with women,
don't get me wrong,
but she really liked men
the best.
[LAUGHING]
DELPEUCH:
She was friend with men.
They were-- Some were gay.
The other one, uh, loved woman.
You know, uh... I mean,
you know, it's life.
She liked straight men better,
although the cooking world
is full of gay men.
Many of them
she was very close to.
Bob Johnson was her lawyer,
and she felt
a great loyalty to him.
I don't think
that Julia thought
that Bob Johnson
was homosexual.
He had a girlfriend
that came to all the parties,
and she used to say,
"I wonder when they're ever
going to get hitched up."
She just didn't see it.
- Did not acknowledge it.
- Yeah.
She called homosexuals "homos."
"Did you see all those homos
in the audience?"
It was derogatory.
It was new for all of us.
We were coming out
of, uh, a period
of when gay-gay people
didn't exist,
or weren't--
Really weren't meant to.
Bob told her he had AIDS.
PRUD'HOMME:
When Bob Johnson died of AIDS,
it really hit her hard.
She did a 180,
and she had
a revelatory moment.
She would say, "Who is gonna
take care of these people?
They've got
this horrible disease
that nobody understands."
And so she did an AIDS benefit,
and she thereafter
became quite outspoken about
her support
of the gay community.
JULIA:
AIDS is just
a horrible disease,
and we have to make everyone
very well aware of it,
and this is one of
the very best ways of doing it.
Food is love, isn't it?
'Cause it gets
everybody together.
Julia came from a place
where there was
a very set notion
of how a person
lived one's life.
But she was a person
who was very much about,
"I can learn."[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]
Her whole life
was about evolving.
JULIA:
Oh, look at that.
Can I have a little taste?
Mmm.
That's a sausage.
Julia loved to eat.
What are these?
Can I try one of those?
Uh, artichokes. We...Artichokes.
- Yes, yes.
- I'll just take one.
This one okay?
Julia's appetite was
absolutely astonishing.
People were always
bringing special dishes.
"Julia, I would just like you
to taste this."
And she not only tasted it,
she would eat it all.
Mmm.
[]
FAIRCHILD:
No matter where we were,
in someone's home
or at a restaurant,
when her food came,
she started eating.
It was what she called
"French rules."
When you're served, you eat.
GIBSON:
Oh, those look tender.
Yeah.
GIBSON:
She had the fastest fork
of anybody
I've ever eaten with,
reaching across
and tasting your food,
sometimes without invitation
to do so.
She just reached out
and grabbed it.
Never had Julia Child
eat off my plate before.
That's, uh...
Mm-hmm.
Are there any foods
that you don't like?
I don't like things
that are not fresh
and not well-prepared
and cooked by someone
who doesn't know
what they're doing.
- PEPIN: Beautiful.
- JULIA: Look at that.
Isn't that nice?
- And now the best part of it.
- Is the eating.
Eating, yes.
Okay.
Mmm.
- Very good, huh?
- That's good.
- That's great.
- Mmm.
LENO:
Now, would friends think twice
before asking you to dinner?
[LAUGHS]
If they could just give me
a good steak or a hamburger,
and I'm very happy.
Good steak or hamburger?
Well, this is my kind of gal.
Sure.
Really?
You're not a health--
you're not one of these...
I certainly am not.
I hate health food of any type.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS AND APPLAUDS]
Julia would cook with butter,
a lot of butter.
JULIA:
I have six and a half
sticks of chilled butter.
Goodness, Julia,
you and your butter.
- I'm telling you.
- WOMAN: Isn't butter fattening?
DONAHUE: Nah.[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
I think there's so much talk
about health and nutrition
that a lot of people
are scared of their food.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
So I think,
know what you can eat,
and then enjoy things.
DONAHUE: Yes.[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
DIRECTOR:
What was it like
to have dinner at Julia's?
Wonderful.
MARIAN MORASH:
Once you got there,
you really got cooking.
It was...That was the entertainment.
PRATT:
We all were given tasks
before dinner to get it ready.
And if you were using
a knife the wrong way,
she'd come over and show you
how to use it the right way.
[GEORGES BIZET'S "HABANERA"
PLAYING]
WILLAN:
"Ooh," she said.
"I got a roast beef
from Mr. Savenor,"
her wonderful butcher.
[WOMAN SINGING OPERA MUSIC
IN FRENCH]
She trimmed the fat.
She slashed it in diamonds
so the drippings would escape.
She'd roast it medium
on the outside,
quite dark pink for the rest.
[]
The potatoes
you cut in big chunks.
Blanch them,
scratch them with a fork,
and they'll absorb
more of the dripping,
and so you get
a lovely, crusty outside.
And gravy.
[]
There'll be
all those nice juices
in the bottom of the pan.
And you add two three cups
of beef stock,
boil the hell out of it.
[]
Until it starts to make
a very characteristic noise.
[CRACKLING]
[IMITATES CRACKLING]
And that's gravy.
[MUSIC CRESCENDOS]
[SONG ENDS]
I'm slightly ashamed
to say, um...
I'm constantly thinking
about it.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[]
THIBAULT:
Julia always
came back to France.
Julia and Simca
renewed their friendship,
and they never ceased
being friends.
DAVIDSON:
Julia and Paul built
a house on the major property
that belonged to Simca
called La Pitchoune.
JULIA:
This is where we live
in Provence.
You smell the olive blossoms
and the linden trees
and the wild herbs.
It's the most lovely country.
[PEOPLE CHATTERING INDISTINCTLY]
DELPEUCH:
She really loved France
and the markets,
and she loved the people.
[IN FRENCH]
DAVIDSON:
I could see her come alive
when she got to France.
It was a very special place
to her.
It's where
she discovered herself.
It was such a respite for her
and Paul to be there.
[]
COUSINS:
Paul had a heart attack,
and he had a ministroke.
PRUD'HOMME:
That left him
with what he called
"scrambled brains."
Here's this guy who was
this, uh, wonderful intellect,
very physical person,
and he could barely speak.
He was very moody.
He never fully recovered
from that.
It was really hard to see him
lose that major part
of his personality.
But Julia treated Paul
as if he was
as okay as he could be.
So whenever they traveled,
he went.
REICHL:
You never saw her without him.
He would be sitting
in a corner quietly,
but he was always there.
[]
COUSINS:
It was sort of
a slow and steady decline.
MARIAN MORASH:
He had been having
dementia problems.
The decision had been made
that it was time
for Paul to go
to a nursing home.
We took him there,
and she had made sure
that there were photographs
and things from their home
in this room.
[]
And he sat on the bed, and
he said, "Wh-why am I here?"
You know, "Wh-why am I here?
Why am I not in Cambridge?"
And she had to talk to him
and say,
"Well, this is just
a nice place to stay tonight,
and I'll be back
in the morning."
And a lot of excuses.
And then we got into the car
and she broke down.
It was the only time
I've ever seen her like that.
HERSH:
Julia didn't really show
her grief very much.
Even when Paul passed away,
she was pretty stoic about it.
I know
that she cried privately,
but not-- She didn't kn--
She didn't know that
anybody knew or heard or saw.
You know, he was her
life partner and best friend.
It was hard.
[]
COUSINS:
It was very sad for her,
but she didn't
let things get her down.
Ever.
She just went right on.
RUSS MORASH:
Julia exceeded
everyone's expectations
in her ability
to continue in television
long past the time
when most people would've
hung up their spatulas
and gone on to their reward.
How much longer are we gonna
see you doing television?
Well, till I drop, probably.
We're gonna start out with a
bold, stuffed, roasted turkey.
But now...Oh, here you are.
[LAUGHING]
DAVIDSON:
Julia redefined age by example.
When she was 87,
she launched a 22-part series
with Jacques Ppin.
[GLASSES DING]
Happy cooking. Bon apptit.
PRUD'HOMME:
In classic Julia fashion,
she had a dtente with PBS,
and she did a few series
with them.
- This is a really good dessert.
- Oh, yes.
PRUD'HOMME:
She was 91
when we were working together
on her memoir.
RUSS MORASH:
She did not recognize
her advancing age.
She would be resistant to it.
She would not admit to it.
She would not lie down to it.
She-she was too big for that.
REICHL:
Julia became enormously
generous to young chefs.
She was very supportive
of that.
SAMUELSSON:
When Julia Child
came to my restaurant,
it was like taking somebody
out of the TV frame
and walk her
into your restaurant.
She created
a real sense of excitement
about the notion
of food people coming together
and supporting each other.
[APPLAUSE]
And here's to our chefs!
REICHL:
And the notion that there was
an American food movement.
WOMAN:
When I was a little
girl, I used to watch you.
And you could make a mistake,
and, as a young woman,
it taught me that it was okay
not to be perfect.
Yes, you don't have
to be uptight.
Yeah. Ha, ha!
DAVIDSON:
She was driven by
the social aspect
of what she did.
She loved the energy
of having people around her.
JULIA:
Oh, that's wonderful.
With a nice burn
on it too. Great.
Will you sign this one
too, for me?
I certainly will.
Age did not stop her
until her body
really failed her.
[]
Paul arranged all these.
See, when you take it off,
you can see where it's to go.
These copper ones are all from
when we went over to France,
in-in Paris, in the early '50s.
I think people enjoy
seeing things like this.
This was before
the food processor.
'Cause you would do like that.
Well, the trouble is
you can collect so much stuff,
can't you?
[]
LEHRER:
Julia Child died today.
She was 91 years old.
The cooking icon
who demystified French cuisine
and brought it
into American kitchens.
DELPEUCH:
She changed everything.
We need to tell
how important this woman is,
was, will be.
ANDRES:
SAMUELSSON:
Julia really paved the way
for this incredible moment
of food and pop culture,
making this
very domestic profession
something extremely popular.
[CLANGING]
All right! We're here![AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]
We've got
eight tablespoons of butter.
They're green beans.
Yum. Ha, ha![AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]
Stand back.
Whoo.
GARTEN:
A lot of us write cookbooks
and do TV, as Julia did.
But she got the train
out of the station.
ANDRES:
[]
JULIA:
We-- In this stew--
we don't want sliced mushrooms.
We want quartered mushrooms.
And you just cut them
like that.
We're gonna saut them.
And it always takes
a little while.
You just have to be
patient and wait.
RUSS MORASH:
One of the first programs
that we ever did
was that single take
of boeuf bourguignon.
And our sauted mushrooms.
RUSS MORASH:
She starts with the raw meat,
and she finishes
with this lovely stew.
That program,
recorded way back in '64,
was still playing somewhere,
on some educational
television station,
for 50 years.
This is Julia Child,
and for The French Chef.
And see you next time.
Bon apptit.
["FRIM FRAM SAUCE"
BY NAT KING COLE TRIO PLAYING]
I don't want
French fried potatoes
Red ripe tomatoes
I'm never satisfied
I want the frim fram sauce
With the Ausen fay
With chafafa on the side
I don't want
Pork chops and bacon
That won't awaken
My appetite inside
I want the frim fram sauce
With the Ausen fay
With chafafa on the side
A fella really got to eat
And a fella
Should eat right
Five will get you 10
I'm gonna feed myself
Right tonight
I don't want fish cakes
And rye bread
You heard what I said
Waiter
Please serve mine fried
I want the frim fram sauce
With the Ausen fay
With chafafa on the side
Now, if you don't have it
Just bring me
A check for the water
[SONG ENDS]
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