More on Julia Child than you ever wanted to know

In addition to having one of the better articles explaining the fall of AIG, Vanity Fair’s August edition also has a refresher biography about the life of Julia Child, who’s being portrayed by Meryl Streep in the upcoming Julie & Julia.

Child’s life has been well-documented by multiple biographers but she remains an enigma, which makes sense considering that she spent several years as a spy in the Office of Strategic Services. The article attempts to explain what Julia meant to America’s cooks:

America’s First Lady is not always the president’s wife, though she does

tend to be tall and tireless, and has in the past come from Wasp stock.

The 20th century can count three such women, all of whom were

cheerfully generous in the spotlight and wholly dedicated to causes

that were democratic in character … The first was

Emily Post, the author of 1922’s Etiquette … The second was Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and a moral beacon through the 40s

and 50s. When Post died, in 1960, and Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1962, it

was not the svelte and sloe-eyed Jacqueline Kennedy who moved into this

matriarchal role — she was too young, too shy, too feathery, too

fashionable. It was Julia Child, just turned 50.

Child is portrayed as someone who felt out of place during the early part of her life.