Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child (62 page)

Paul still went along to every appearance and performance, even after he was diagnosed with “prostate malignancy” in July 1979 and began a series of radium treatments. Julia told Simca earlier that his “understanding of the spoken word was getting more difficult.” As one representative of Knopf noticed: “Paul would drift in and out of paying attention, but she was incredibly sweet about making him a part of it all: he sat at the table and signed the books with her. She is a tough old broad, but she is kind, and having him sign was a way to keep him a part of things.” Occasionally he would add a pithy remark to an interview (“She only liked food and men”).

Every member of her troupe reported the same enjoyment (“She likes to have fun”), weight gain, and exhaustion upon traveling with her: “I was a wet rag left in her wake,” said one of her publicity directors half her age. “When I needed a nap, she would say, ‘Let’s go to the tall gals shop (The Forgotten Woman, Lane Bryant, or Big and Tall)!’” Another observed pointedly: “Even when the line was two blocks long, she was gracious. People do not stand in line for shits. She was as pleasant to the first person as to the last one, four hours later. She stays to the bitter end.”

In 1979 Julia assisted both Simca and Louisette with their respective newly published books. When Julia was busy filming
More Company
in April 1979, Doubleday asked if she would read the galleys of the English translation of Louisette’s
French Cuisine for All
and write an endorsement, a request she could not turn down. But when Doubleday asked the next month if she would write her own memoirs, she called it “an impossible enterprise.” Julia arranged with the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe to give a reception for Simca when she toured the country in late 1979 and early 1980.

R
ELUCTANT TOUR

At the beginning of taping the
More Company
series, Julia (almost sixty-seven) said to Simca, “We all had
so much fun
cooking together … however this
is the end—no more.”
While correcting proofs for the book four months later, just after Paul’s hospitalization, she added: “But this is THE END, Finito. No more TV, no more anything of that sort, and I am even hoping I won’t have to go out and promote it this time. I’m really saying [no to] anything, and hope that will do the trick.” Then she added: “I’m really getting tired of all the cuisine brouhaha, jockeying for place and prestige.”

Because she stayed home in 1979 to work personally on the proofs of
More Company
, publication was delayed until November, too late for a tour before Christmas. Therefore, after a two-week trip to the usual spots in California, Julia and Paul left for Provence just before Christmas of 1979. It was cold and damp, Paul got influenza, and their pussy cat died, Judith Jones, who called Julia in the hopes of setting up a book tour, found Julia enjoying herself despite the weather, illness, and her cat’s death. She had eleven people for Christmas dinner, including a writer and photographer from
Bon Appetit
magazine. But Paul was unhappy and chilly and told her he did not want to return again in the winter. Though she did not want to leave, Julia knew, as she told one journalist in January 1980: “As soon as you’re off television, in a few months nobody will know who you are, which is fine. That makes fame quite bearable.” Bearable because one can always quit, though she was not ready to do that.

Upon their return, Julia embarked on a thirteen-city tour in three weeks. Initially the schedule was geared for plenty of rest for Paul, but opportunities for appearances were added as the tour went along.
McCall’s
, where several recipes were previously published in shorter form (exactly three per volume), took out full-page advertisements. (She had been writing her monthly column since 1977.) Knopf had a new publicity director named Janice Goldklang, who arranged promotions with Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s. These stores sent invitations to their credit-card customers, “who would pour in,” according to Goldklang:

A thousand people would show up, for her celebrity was a big deal…. You should see the cookbooks people brought to have her sign. You could eat them, they were so covered with food; and the pages were torn and covers fallen off. They would say, “This is my most beloved book.” … Whatever city they visited, the Wednesday papers would have huge features; sales were worth the expense for the department store. It doesn’t happen this way anymore.

Knopf, who scheduled Julia on every show from Dick Cavett to Johnny Carson, paid for Julia, Paul, Liz Bishop (and Rosie or Marian to do prep work). Julia had to fly first-class because of her height. She needed the same leg room in cars, so she preferred sitting up in the front with the limo driver, adds Goldklang, who arranged for hairdresser, makeup person, and limousine.

“We were awfully lucky,” Julia said to reporter Nao Hauser, who was catching an interview on the way to O’Hare Airport after the Chicago appearance. Just as Julia was recalling her romance with Paul in 1946 and “going to Paris with my loved one,” she noticed Paul stumbling up ahead, then turning back toward her. To the reporter, out of earshot of Paul, Julia said, “Oh, it’s rotten getting old,” and hurried to guide him to the limousine, hand him his cap and briefcase, and assure him that she was there. She was now the anchor, haven, and direction for her once wise and worldly guide.

She began the tour reluctantly, for Paul’s infirmities complicated the logistics. She did not intend to leave him behind nor would she allow her career to languish. She loved the action, and she was their major financial support. As her career moved away from cookbook writing, she had to continue tours, demonstrations, and television.

“It’s my job,” she would say. But the contact with people energized her. She did, in fact, enjoy her career and could not imagine the adventure coming to an end. Her only problem was her knees. “[My] cartilage is worn out from standing around too much,” she wrote Mary Frances on September 30, 1980. “It will gradually get worse and when [I] can’t walk, [I] will get an operation (new joint). This is the first real evidence of the machine wearing out (except for the glasses) that I’ve had so far.”

They concluded their tour on the West Coast with Dorothy and Ivan in San Francisco, and then Los Angeles, where Charlie was now living with his daughter Rachel. Julia appeared on all the major talk shows, including one day on both
The Mike Douglas Show
at 1:15
P.M
. and Johnny Carson’s
Tonight
show at 5
P.M
.

T
HE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY:
PASTICHE AND PARODY

The most famous talk show incident occurred on the
Tomorrow
show, hosted by Tom Snyder, when Julia appeared with Jacques Pépin, who had been on the show five or six times before. “Julia brought enough food to feed a hundred people, and I was late,” said Pépin, who always carried his knife with him. Before they began their hour and a half of cooking, she cut her hand with his knife. According to Pamela Henstell (Knopf’s West Coast representative), Julia wrapped a towel around her hand and went to the hospital afterward: “To Julia it was nothing, but it was a very big cut,” adds Henstell. Julia says she went to the first-aid station on the Burbank lot. Pépin recalls that they got the studio infirmary to bandage the wound, then went out to eat afterward at L’Ermitage restaurant (“after she had stitches and a tetanus shot”). Julia also claims that Jacques said something very macho, such as “She’s probably not used to sharp knives.” She was not amused. Though the stories differ, they all agree on the cut and that Tom Snyder brought up the topic on the program. News traveled fast at NBC. The story lives on through repeated showings of Dan Aykroyd’s “reenactment” on
The Best of Saturday Night Live
.

Comedian Dan Aykroyd, dressed in full Julia drag, stood with a large knife in one hand and a naked chicken in the other. Adopting her high swinging vibrato and gay anticipation, he announced the making of a
poularde demi-désossée
and began talking about the uses of the giblets and liver. The
Saturday
Night Live
audience recognized the parody and was convulsed in laughter. “You can’t do nothin’ without a sharp knife,” he said as he ran the knife along the spine of the chicken, “toward the pope’s nose,” he said, presumably slicing off his thumb. The bleeding began. Mimicking her unflappability in crisis, her desire to turn any adversity into a teaching experience, he kept right on talking as the blood spurted profusely, filling the pan holding the chicken. “Chicken livers are a natural coagulant!” he said, applying one to his spurting hand. Chattering calmly on about every home needing the 911 number programmed into its phone, he reached for the phone: “It’s a prop phone. What a shame …,” he said, dropping it to the counter. “Why are you all spinning?” he asked the audience as the blood shot over the table and floor. Voice fading, he began slumping toward the table. Weakened by the loss of blood, he called
“Bon appétit!”
and hit the Formica (to great applause), then raised his head once to gasp, “Save the liver!”

It may have been one of Aykroyd’s (and
Saturday Night Live’s)
finest hours, but it was not the first or the last Julia Child parody.

This parody, and the apocryphal stories of her dropping chickens and ducks on the floor and swigging wine (the latter she resented strongly), were part of the lore of a beloved television figure. The accidental cutting off of Aykroyd’s thumb at least had a semblance of basis in fact. Paul’s letters record her tripping on the way to the table and spilling the salad for six people all over the tiles in La Pitchoune. At least three times she broke her toe. Several times she cut her hands and had to see a doctor. When Simca was coming to dinner, Julia cut her hand while trimming butternut squash and had to go to the hospital while Sara Moulton finished the meal for eleven. Julia was back in time to eat with everyone. Stories of her car accidents, particularly backing out of her driveway, are repeated by colleagues and employees. In the summer of 1978, after “a little episode,” they had to get another rental car and stick to the larger roads in Provence. Another friend evokes Julia’s joie de vivre in a story of Julia driving her car toward a crowded intersection in Provence and shouting out one of her favorite expressions: “Lurch!”

Fannie Flagg also did a takeoff on Julia earlier in her career. M. F. K. Fisher wrote to ask Julia if she saw the spoof of her by Fannie Flagg: “I did think it was quite funny, and hope you do too.” Carol Burnett did a takeoff on Julia for her 1968 variety show, Englishman John Cleese gave a convincing imitation, and “Sister Julia, Child of God” cooks the poisonous stew in
Nunsense
, a musical comedy by Dan Goggin. Julia learned to take them all in stride and was known to play the Aykroyd tape that NBC sent her.

The dozens of cartoons that appeared over forty years assumed that every reader knew Julia Child: two thin men staring enviously at three fat men in a television studio (“They’re the crew for the Julia Child show”); Macbeth’s three witches peering into their cauldron and holding a copy of a cookbook with Julia Child’s name on it; “The Cat Who Tasted Cinnamon” refused food until its owner studied Julia Child. More references appeared in the beloved “Beetle Bailey” cartoon strip than in any others.

From
The Muppets
to
Saturday Night Live
, she understood the humor and the compliment. It was only when manufacturers crossed the line, calling their products “Julia Chives” or “Julia Chicken,” that she saw their intentions for what they were and had her lawyer take action. Any “use of her name for advertising purposes” was a “con game” and “hucksterism.” Ocean Spray Cranberries was threatened and withdrew its cartoon character named “Julia Chicken;” the Sheraton Hotel in Boston promptly withdrew an advertisement that suggested her endorsement when the lawsuit was drawn up; one company paid $5,000, another $40,000. All proceeds went to public television. Such integrity allowed her to praise a blender by name onstage or comment on the tasteless mealiness of an apple by name (even if the apple grower was sponsoring the event).

Her lawyer seriously considered an offer by a ceramics company for a line of Julia Child ware in 1979. He allowed the talk to move to six figures, discussing with Julia scholarships for study at La Varenne, until the correspondence suddenly stopped. She nixed the idea. Occasionally she would allow a company to use the cover of a book, but not her name or photograph. She did allow her name to be used in a French textbook, but that was in keeping with her career as teacher and her association with educational television.

G
OOD MORNING AMERICA

In 1980 she finally became associated with commercial television, telling Mary Frances she was “now through with public television.” She had appeared on many commercial television stations before, but never on a regular basis. Now she began cooking on ABC’s
Good Morning America
, a sort of variety show interspersed with news. Julia performed two-and-a-half-minute cooking spots produced by Sonya Selby-Wright, from whom she willingly took orders as she did from her editor, Judith Jones. Julia earned $605 per appearance plus expenses for herself and an assistant. She took the job less for the money than because public television was not using her. And she was able, she told Mary Frances, to “do six spots in just a few hours.” Nevertheless, “Julia’s segments were a bigger production than the others,” says Jane Bollinger, who would become her second producer.

Julia explained to John Wadsworth, an interviewer for PBS-TV, New York: “We just KILLED ourselves [on
Julia Child & More Company]
. We had the best team we’ve ever had. But PBS—I don’t know whether they forgot we taped it or what, but it never got on in New York, and if you’re not on in New York, you ain’t nowhere.” Just beginning to warm up to her subject, she went on: