Julia Child

Television cooking personality Julia Child prepares a French delicacy in her cooking studio on Nov. 24, 1970.

Child, whose warbling, encouraging voice and able hands brought the intricacies of French cuisine to American home cooks through her television series and books, would have celebrated her 100th birthday on Aug. 15, 2012. The world-famous chef died in her sleep on Aug. 13, 2004, days before what would have been her 92nd birthday.

Child is shown during a scene from "The French Chef" in 1967. Child enrolled at the famed Cordon Bleu cooking school when she and her husband Paul, a career diplomat whom she married in 1946, were sent to Paris. She went on to open a cooking school in 1951, and made her first television appearance as "The French Chef" in 1963. Paul Child died in 1994.

Julia Child, left, and James Beard, are honored by the New York Wine and Food Society at a dinner at the Pierre Hotel on Nov. 19, 1975.

American television chef Julia Child shows a salade nicoise she prepared in the kitchen of her vacation home in Grasse, southern France, on Aug. 21, 1978.

Child said that she'd felt she found her life's work after taking her first cooking lesson in her mid-30s. She was loved by audiences not only for her cooking skills, but for the unpretentious way she approached the kitchen.

Child shows off tomatoes in the kitchen of her home in Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 13, 1992.

Child gives some cooking advice to Pine Street Inn food service trainee Andrea Stallings as she makes pork dumplings, June 20, 1997, in Boston. The master chef was very supportive of the Pine Street program designed to give people the skills and practical experience needed to get jobs in the food service industry.

Julia Child arrives at New York's Radio City Music Hall for the 75th anniversary gala for Time magazine, March 3, 1998. Child was on the cover of the national newsmagazine in 1966.

Child is congratulated after receiving an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Brown University in Providence, R.I., May 29, 2000.

Child and Emeril Lagasse are shown on the set of Lagasse's show in New York, Nov. 17, 2000. Lagasse and fellow chefs Jacques Pepin and Alice Waters, Charlie Gibson and Martha Stewart were among those featured in "Julia Child's Kitchen Wisdom," a two-hour PBS special dedicated to Child, the original TV chef.

Roger Fessaguet, right, a French restaurant owner and knight in the French Legion of Honor, presents Child with the Legion of Honor award, as French Consul General Stephane Chmelewsky looks on from the background, Nov. 19, 2000, in Boston. She was the first American chef to receive the award.

Child poses for a picture with longtime friend Martha Stewart at the Housewares Show in Chicago, Ill., Jan. 14, 2001.

Child, left, listens while Jim Koch, founder and brewer of Samuel Adams Beers, describes a lager during a tasting at the Sam Adams Brewery in Boston's Jamaica Plain, July 9, 2001. Child's gourmet philosophy also included drinking. In one TV program, chef and friend Jacques Pepin asked what kind of wine she preferred with picnics. "I like beer," Child said, pulling out a cold bottle and two glasses.

Boston-area chefs in funny hats and sunglasses surround Child at a farewell dinner in her honor, Nov. 7, 2001, in Cambridge, Mass. Child was leaving her longtime home in Cambridge and relocating to Montecito, in her native California.

Julia Child poses in front of New York's Palace Hotel on Sept. 26, 1999.

Julia Child shares a laugh with students from her alma mater, Smith College, in Northampton, Mass., on Oct. 11, 2001. Child, class of 1934, left her Cambridge, Mass., home to the school when she moved to California.

Chef and television personality Julia Child speaks on Oct. 21, 1999, at the White House in Washington. Child was among four women chosen by Sara Lee as the 1999 Frontrunner Award winners who were recognized as daring to be first in the arts, business, government, and the humanities.

Chef Julia Child is presented with a card designed by gallery owner Nancy Thomas during a charity pre-birthday dinner at the Fifth Floor restaurant on Aug. 1, 2002, in San Francisco. The dinner benefits the scholarship fund of the International Association of Culinary Professionals Foundation. Child celebrated her 90th birthday on August 15th.

Child talks about her upcoming 90th birthday and answers questions at the COPIA museum for food, wine, and art, in Napa, Calif., Aug. 2, 2002. She'd just given COPIA the pegboard wall of cookware shown behind her. The wall was from her home and was also used on her television show.

Chef Julia Child pulls on apron strings to open her kitchen exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, Monday, Aug. 19, 2002. Child donated her entire kitchen to the institution after deciding to move to California, from her Cambridge, Mass., home. Child became an official part of the national heritage, and belatedly celebrated her 90th birthday at the opening.

Chef Julia Child sits in her kitchen exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington on Aug. 19, 2002.

Julia Child was portrayed on film by actress Meryl Streep in the 1999 film "Julie & Julia."

Stanley Tucci and Meryl Streep as Paul and Julia Child in the 2009 film "Julie & Julia."