Julia Child
Internationally famous chef, cooking teacher, cookbook author and TV personality Julia Child, who was born and raised in Pasadena and died in 2004 shortly before her 92nd birthday, is back in the national spotlight with a new documentary about her formative years set to open Friday in Los Angeles and New York theaters.
Oscar-nominated directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West, who produced and directed “RBG,” the 2018 documentary on the life and career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second female Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, are directing “Julia,” which brings to life the legendary cookbook author and television superstar who changed the way Americans think about food, television, and even about women.
Using never-before-seen archival footage, personal photos, first-person narratives, and cutting-edge, mouth-watering food cinematography, the film traces Julia Child’s 12-year struggle to create and publish the revolutionary “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” (1961) which has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date, and her rapid ascent to become the country’s most unlikely television star.
“It’s the empowering story of a woman who found her purpose – and her fame – at 50, and took America along on the whole delicious journey,” says a Sony Pictures Classics description.
Julia Child was born in Pasadena on August 15, 1912, as Julia Carolyn McWilliams. Her father, John McWilliams, Jr., was a Princeton University graduate and prominent land manager. Her mother, Julia Carolyn “Caro” Weston, was a paper-company heiress and daughter of Byron Curtis Weston, a lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts.
Julia attended Pasadena’s Polytechnic School from 4th grade to 9th grade. In high school, she was sent to the Katherine Branson School in Ross, California, which was at the time a boarding school. She played tennis, golf, and basketball as a young woman. She attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1934 with a major in history.
After graduating, Child moved to New York City, where she worked as a copywriter for the advertising department of W. & J. Sloane. In 1942, she joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) after finding that she was too tall, at six-foot-two, to enlist in the Women’s Army Corps or in the U.S. Navy’s WAVES.
She began her OSS career as a typist at the Washington, DC headquarters, but later, because of her education and experience, was given a more responsible position working directly for General William J. Donovan, head of the OSS.
Her work with the OSS took her to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in Asia, China, and to Europe, after she married Paul Cushing Child, also an OSS employee, who joined the U.S Foreign Service after the war and was assigned to Paris with the U.S. Information Agency.
Paul Child was a New Jersey native who had lived in Europe and was known for his sophisticated palate. It was Paul that introduced Julia to fine cuisine, which she began to love and which she introduced to the American audience in her first book, “Mastering the Arts of French Cuisine,” subsequent writings, and her later TV shows.
Later in her media career, Julia Child wrote magazine articles and a regular column for The Boston Globe. She would go on to publish nearly 20 titles under her name and with others. Many, though not all, were related to her television shows.
Her last book was the autobiographical “My Life in France,” published posthumously in 2006 and written with her grandnephew, Alex Prud’homme. The book recounts Child’s life with her husband, Paul Cushing Child, in postwar France.
“Julia,” the new documentary, produced by Sony Pictures Classics, will likely be released nationwide before the end of the year.
In September, “Julia” was among the new films featured in both the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado and the Toronto International Film Festival.
For more information about the film and to watch a trailer, visit www.sonyclassics.com/film/
