Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California. She graduated from Smith College and worked for the OSS during World War II; afterward she lived in Paris, studied at the Cordon Bleu, and taught cooking with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, with whom she wrote the first volume of┬аMastering the Art of French Cooking┬а(1961). In 1963, BostonтАЩs WGBH launched┬аThe French Chef┬аtelevision series, which made Julia Child a national celebrity, earning her the Peabody Award in 1965 and an Emmy in 1966. Several public television shows and numerous cookbooks followed. She died in 2004.
Alex Prud'homme┬аis Julia Child's great-nephew and the coauthor of her autobiography,┬аMy Life in France,┬аwhich was adapted into the movie┬аJulie & Julia. He is also the author of┬аThe Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century, Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know,┬аand┬аThe Cell Game,┬аand he is the coauthor (with Michael Cherkasky) of┬аForewarned: Why the Government Is Failing to Protect Us--and What We Must Do to Protect Ourselves. Prud'homme's journalism has appeared in┬аThe New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Time,┬аand┬аPeople.