Julia Child: We need to get rid of all gay men and lesbians in the food world

Billy’s Life: A Gay Man’s Journey, 1966 to the Present

Documentary

I want to talk a little bit about Julia Child of course we LED Julia we had enormous respect for her Michael was at Berkeley as a student he was like 18 years old he was sophomore or freshman in the French Department Classics Department Greek department at Berkeley

He wanted to become a chef so he wrote to Julia at her TV station in Boston I think I still have the letter or I think I gave the letter to the slesinger library at Harvard I think it’s in the files there anyway he wrote her and said

You know I’m Michael James I would love to to become a chef what do you advise and it was a hand it was a typewritten letter and it said you must go to France and of course Michael was partly French he was half Greek and his mother was

Half French English but really French and that her family still existed in France and they had owned a chat Valley and they were very important people in France and they they owned M FR House and Garden Magazine one of his cousins was the editor uh and they were

Dupons from The Chemical Company very nice people by the way all of them very welcoming to me and everything and so he took this letter from Julia and he took it to his parents and he said I want to go to France and I would like your financial backing and your blessing and

I’ve talked to my aunt franois in Paris and she will introduce me to people in France and she will help me get apprenticeships in Paris at restaurants and I don’t want to go to cooking school I want to have on the job training I think that was part of Julia’s advice to

Don’t go to cooking school and so they did they bankrolled him his mother was enormously wealthy they sent him off to France so it was because of Julia and then his aunt Fran took him to the Gourmet Society for women in Paris there she s was Simka they had lunch a lunch

Once a month I think and she said Sima I have with me my my nephew Michael James who is an American born in American of our French family and he speaks fluent French and he wants to become a chef and I’d like you to meet him and so when it

Was over they came outside and they went to a little cafe and they talked for a couple hours and Sima said you come to my house tomorrow and uh we’ll talk some more and he did and she hired him on the spot she wanted to write a new book she was having

Trouble with Julia Julia wanted to cut her out of the the royalties for mastering art of Prince cooking Vols one and two it did not succeed she hired a litigation lawyer in New York and Su Julia it never went to court it was s outside of court and they split as they

Always had contractually the royalties of mastering both one and two Julia always said it was Paul that made her do it Sima never believed it Simka was absolutely brokenhearted it wasn’t because of the money because Sima was independently quite wealthy she inherited from her mother controlling interest in B champagne and in

Benedictine lur and real estate and an incredible house in the quaza and Gan and on and on and on and jul did not like Michael at all he did everything to break up this friendship between Sima and and Michael and then we announced the opening of the great Chefs of France

In the Napa Valley and Simon Beck was the first teacher it got enormous press and a lot of people attended it was $1,500 for five days which was that’s what it cost to put it on and we divided it by the cost and anyway to make a long

Story short it was a very expensive cooking school and arrived at this beautiful house that we had rented it was the banking family that owned the Drexel very very multibillionaire family uh of Bankers out of Philadelphia and they had bought this house they did this property it was a Victorian house Pamela

Drexel absolutely hated the Napa Valley she loved New York she loved Philadelphia she loves San Francisco she had the good taste to hire sister Parish to decorate the house it was decorated right down to 10 sets of lamos China for 40 people a piece and for setting and

Beautiful L Crystal and on and on and on and on and and the house was just absolutely beautiful so Sima came and she was there a couple of days the students hadn’t arrived and the phone rang I answered the phone it was Julia and I went and got Simka and Sima got on

The phone and Michael and I were busy in the kitchen and s was on the kitchen phone and she motioned to Michael get on the other line and Julia didn’t hear couldn’t hear her and there was an extension in the dining room that was had a long cord on it and there was

There were two telephones there I was on one listening Sima was talking to Julia and Michael on the other and Julia says to Simka Sima you have got to stop this this friendship with Michael and Billy there are bad news for you they’ll be

Bad for you I want you to know that they are into SNM satal masochistic leather sex and they get all dressed up in leather and chaps and they go to these places and they have sex in public and on and on and on and I hung up the phone

And so did Michael and Sima tore into Julia like you leave me alone I’ve had problems with you before do not talk to me like that I know what I’m doing it’s a bunch of of Lies what you’re telling people are telling you about Michael and

Billy and on and on and on and and Julia after that you know it was it was Enemy Number One she did come and teach at our cooking school when when s of France at the Robert Mami Reiner she she would never teach with Simka she would never

Appear anywhere with Sima they would be invited to appear at places in public and they very seldom ever did Julia started a few years later started a foundation I can’t remember what it’s called I think it still exists and she was looking for a director and so she would do phone

Interviews uh over the phone from San Francisco they would be recorded by a technician or a friend or somebody like that there’s this guy that applied and U Julia interviewed him on the phone and it was recorded and by mistake the recording machine was left on after the

Phone call Julia said I don’t want any pansies or fairies like that guy around me we need to get rid of all gay men and lesbians in the food world and particularly professional chefs there’s no room for pansies and fairies and game in in the professional cooking so my

Objective is to get rid of them and expunge them from this organization and any other organization that I can do such thing the person that was in the room said to me it was over Julia left they and discovered oh my God the the recording machine was on and to make a

Long story short my friend who was in the room said when the interview went to place said that