Julia Child’s Net Worth Before Her Death Makes Her One of the Most Successful Home Cooks of All Time (2024)

With dozens of bestselling cookbooks and top-rated cooking shows, it’s understandable why fans have been curious about Julia Child’s net worth and how much she made before her death.

Child—whose full name is Julia Carolyn Child—was born on August 15, 1912, in Pasadena, California. She graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1934 with a degree in history and worked as a copywriter in the advertising department of W. & J. Sloane after college. During World War II, Child joined the Office of Strategic Services after she learned that she was too tall to enlist in the army or navy. She started her OSS career as a typist before she was promoted to a researcher working on top-secret projects. Child’s job with the OSS took her around the world to places like Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where she met her husband, Paul Cushing Child, who was also an OSS employee. The couple married in 1946 and moved to Paris, France, in 1948 after the OSS assigned Paul there as an officer with the United States Information Agency.

While in Paris, Child discovered her love of French cuisine and enrolled at the Cordon Bleu cooking school. She graduated from the school in 1951 and went to study under master chefs like Max Bugnard. She also joined the women’s cooking club, Le Cercle des Gourmettes, where she met cookbook author Simone Beck, who proposed that Child also write a French cookbook for Americans. In 1961, Child published her first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, with The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. The book, which was 726 pages, was a critical and commercial success and led Child to her first cooking show, The French Chef, in 1963. The show, which is seen as one of the first cooking hows on American television, skyrocketed Child’s career, which included dozens of more cookbooks and cooking hows before her death in 2004.

Child died of kidney failure on August 13, 2004, in Montecito, California. Her death came two days before her 92nd birthday. Since her death, Child has been remembered by various TV shows and movies, including the 2009 Oscar-nominated film, (in which Meryl Streep portrays her) and the 2022 HBO Max series, Julia. So how much was Julia Child’s net worth before her death and what did she make from The French Chef, Mastering the Art of French Cooking and other projects? Read on for what we know about Julia Child‘s net worth before she passed.

How much did Julia Child make from Mastering the Art of French Cooking?

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child

How much did Julia Child make from Mastering the Art of French Cooking? Mastering the Art of French Cooking was Child’s first cookbook and was published in 1961 by Knopf. A second volume of the book—which sought to introduce French cuisine to American audiences—was published in 1970. Despite its relative expensive cost at $10 in 1965, the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking was a commercial success and sold more than 100,000 copies in its first five years. According to The Daily Meal, Mastering the Art of French Cooking sold around 4,000 copies each month by the end of 1964 and sold more than 600,000 copies by 1969. As of 2011, the cookbook has sold more than 1.5 million copies, making it one of the most successful cookbooks in history. While it’s unclear how much Child made from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the book still made a lot more than what Alfred Knopf, the founder of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, expected it to make. According to The Daily Meal, Knopf invested little money into promoting the book and told publishers, “Well, I’ll eat my hat if that title sells.”

How much did Julia Child make on The French Chef?

How much did Julia Child make on The French Chef? Child hosted The French Chef for 10 seasons from 1963 to 1973. She first filmed the pilot in 1962 before the show was picked up as a weekly series forWGBH, a public television station in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1963. The show saw Child make recipes from her 1961 cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which debuted two years before The French Chef‘s premiere and released a second volume in 1970. Each episode was filmed live-to-videotape, with few to no edits, which led to many on-screen cooking accidents by Child who would use them as “teachable moments” for viewers.

The French Chef aired for 216 28-minute episodes and won a Primetime Emmy Award in the Achievements in Educational Television – Individuals category in 1966. The show, which seen as one of the first cooking shows on American television, is also credited for introducing French cuisine to the American public at a time when it was considered expensive restaurant fare and not suitable for home cooking. Reruns of The French Chef continue to air on networks like PBS and Cooking Channel.

So…how much did Julia Child make on The French Chef? According to The Buffalo News, Child make just $50 per episode for the first season of The French Chef in 1963, which equals to around $450 today. She also had to pay for the cost of the food for each episode, as well as clean up her own kitchen, which was used as the set. Her husband, Paul Cushing Child, did most of the cleanup, however. Child’s pay is a lot different than cooking show hosts today. According to Forbes, Guy Fieri signed a three-year deal with Food Network for $80 million in 2021. The magazine also reported that Rachael Ray made around $25 million per year from her businesses, which included her talk show, Rachael Ray, and her Food Network show, 30 Minute Meals. Emeril Lagasse, who hosted shows like Emeril Live and Essence of Emeril, also made $8 million per year, according to Forbes.

What was Julia Child’s net worth?

What was Julia Child’s net worth before her death in 2004? Child was worth $50 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Along with what she earned from The French Chef(and its reruns) and both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child’s net worth also accounts for the 12-plus cookbooks Child has written—including The French Chef Cookbook, From Julia Child’s Kitchen, Julia Child & Company, Julia Child & More Company, The Way To Cook, Julia Child’s Menu Cookbook, In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs, Baking with Julia, Julia’s Delicious Little Dinners, Julia’s Menus For Special Occasions, Julia’s Casual Dinners, Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home andJulia’s Kitchen Wisdom—as well as her posthumous memoir, My Life in France. Julia Child’s net worth also includes the 12-plus cooking shows, specials and DVD releases she filmed after The French Chef ended. Those programs includeJulia Child & Company, Julia Child & More Company, Dinner at Julia’s, The Way To Cook, A Birthday Party for Julia Child: Compliments to the Chef, Cooking with Master Chefs: Hosted by Julia Child, Cooking In Concert: Julia Child & Jacques Pépin, In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs, Cooking In Concert: Julia Child & Graham Kerr, More Cooking in Concert: Julia Child & Jacques Pépin, Baking with Julia, Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home, and Julia Child’s Kitchen Wisdom.

Throughout her life, Julia was also the winner of one Peabody Award and three Emmys, including one for Achievements in Educational Television- Individuals for The French Chef and two Outstanding Service Show Host for In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs and Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home. Her life has also been the inspiration for various TV shows and movies, including the 2009 Oscar-nominated film Julie & Julia (in which she’s played by Meryl Streep), and the 2022 HBO Max series, Julia.

Julia is available to stream on HBO Max. Here’s how to watch it for free.

My Life in France by Julia Child

For more about Julia Child, read her 2006 memoir, My Life in France. The New York Times bestseller takes readers through Child’s pivotal years in France—from how she arrived in 1948 with her husband, Paul, with no knowledge of France or its language to how her life changed forever as she dove into the French culture, took classes at the Cordon Bleau and shopped at local markets. The book also takes readers through Child’s unexpected career as a cookbook author and cooking show host at 49 years old, from her conflict with the head of the Cordon Bleu and the dozens of rejections she received from publishers before she sold her now-famous cookbook, Mastering the art of French Cooking.The memoir also dives into Child’s 50-year-long marriage with her husband and how their journeys around the globe inspired her as the chef the world remembers today.

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