By David Craig

Published: Tuesday, 05 April 2022 at 12:00 am

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The name Julia Child might not be instantly recognisable in households around the UK, but across the pond she remains one of the most influential celebrity chefs of all-time as the pioneer of the modern cooking show.

She is also credited with popularising French food in the United States through both her television work and her cookbooks, which made many people far more open-minded about the unfamiliar and at times challenging cuisine.

Her story is told in the brand new drama series Julia, which stars Happy Valley‘s Sarah Lancashire in the title role (although she is almost unrecognisable in Child’s attire and distinctive vocal range).

While Lancashire’s performance is guaranteed to be lauded as a faithful portrayal of the real woman, viewers may well be left wondering just how accurate the rest of the show is – and the truth is, it’s a mixed bag.

Julia true story: How accurate is the Julia Child biopic on Sky and NOW?

In a surprise move, the opening scene of Julia is actually set in Norway, where Julia and her husband Paul are celebrating her newly forged book deal for what would eventually become Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

This is indeed based in fact, with the Childs known to have lived in Norway for a period of two years during Paul’s time working as a diplomat for the United States government.

At the dinner party, Julia also references her time spent in Paris after the Second World War, where she trained at prestigious culinary school Le Cordon Bleu and developed French cooking as her speciality.

This period of Julia’s life is not covered in Lancashire’s biographical series, but those curious to know more may wish to seek out the 2009 film Julie & Julia (starring Meryl Streep as Child), where these important years are explored in greater detail.

The story then flashes forward to several years later, when Julia has made a name for herself with the launch of her first cookbook and is invited to discuss the title on I’ve Been Reading; a book review show broadcast by a local Boston station.

Exactly as depicted in Julia, she surprised its host by pulling out a hot plate and making him an omelette right there and then, livening up the typically dry programme and eliciting a highly positive response from viewers.

This memorable appearance served as the catalyst to Julia eventually getting her own show, but the exact circumstances by which that happened are partially lost to time, meaning this is where the show’s accuracy can be called into question.

Julia portrays television producer Russ Morash as an initial impediment towards The French Chef being made, but Morash himself gave a rather different version of events in an interview with Boston’s GBH.

“We never saw really any of that [opposition],” he said. “I can think of one unnamed person who was fairly vocal about Julia – after all she wasn’t French and she wasn’t a chef – and that was about the extent of the knock on Julia in the 50 years that I knew her.”

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When questioned on this account, Julia producer Christopher Keyser revealed that the writers did not approach Morash for his version of events, arguing that it “wouldn’t have been wise” to do so.

Keyser told RadioTimes.com: “There are lots of different versions of this story. It happened 60 plus years ago, and who said what to whom, where did the resistance arise and where did it not, is a little murky at this point.

“There’s certainly some evidence that Russ wasn’t entirely sure that this was the kind of thing that he wanted to spend his life doing and that’s the resistance that we were interested in.”

From this perspective, Julia can still be considered broadly representative of the time – particularly the prejudicial behaviour towards women – but Keyser does concede that some things were “made up” to create an interesting narrative for the show.

He continued: “It’s not so much a question of whether Russ, in the long run, is trying to stop Julia from doing what she wants. But he’s trying to figure out who he is at the same time and giving him that journey we thought was important for his character.

“Even if, as we’ve said to people on the Julia side, we’ve made some of this up – not maliciously, but based on reading between the lines in order to give every character a really interesting personal arc.” 

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In the time it takes to get Russ on board, Julia’s most loyal ally at the network is associate producer Alice Naman (played by Brittany Bradford), who firmly believes in her star quality and the revolutionary format of the show.

While Alice herself is a work of fiction, her role on the show is inspired by that of Ruth Lockwood, a real producer at WGBH who worked on The French Chef for more than a decade.

In a profile published by The New Yorker back in 1974, Lockwood was even described as “the person primarily responsible (with the Childs) for The French Chef’s style and format”, which is high praise indeed.

The significant influence that Lockwood had on the show is very much reflected in the character of Alice, who demonstrates a hands-on, proactive approach to her producing work from the very beginning.

Lockwood was not African American, but by substituting her for a character that is, the writing team behind Julia are able to tackle some of the racial issues that were at the forefront of public discussion amid the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Bradford told RadioTimes.com and other press: “By having it be centred at WGBH, where she’s the only [African American], for me, it felt a lot of the time that I had to be observing other people and I couldn’t always speak when I wanted to.

“And constantly navigating that did seem true to form, even if Alice does seem like she might have more power in some situations.”

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Another key player in the creation of The French Chef is former culinary editor Avis DeVoto (played by Bebe Neuwirth), who is also a fond personal friend to Julia outside of the workplace.

They were indeed close in real-life, but their friendship began unconventionally as Avis recalls in an episode about midway through the series, where she reveals they had been pen pals for two years before meeting in person.

In 2010, the 120 letters they sent to each other in that time were published in a book titled As Always, Julia, becoming a bestseller in the United States and earning warm reviews from critics.

Another cherished friend of Julia’s was American chef James Beard (portrayed by Christian Clemenson), who had attempted to make a cooking show some years prior to her, but it fell flat with audiences and was cancelled within a year.

As referenced in this drama series, Beard was homosexual but did not publicly acknowledge that until 1981, a mere four years before his death.

A night out shared by Julia and James in the show, which spotlights the underground gay scene in 1960s California, is seemingly a work of fiction – but epitomises the mantra the writers had when adapting Child’s life to television.

Keyser concluded: “This is kind of a fable based on the true story of Julia Child, and we’re using it to talk about things we want to talk about. And there are a lot of things we’re gonna talk about: marriage and social changes and workplace and second acts and all of that food.”

Julia premieres on Sky Atlantic and NOW on Tuesday 12th April 2022. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight.

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