It was 1993.

There was going to be a party for Julia Child for her eightieth birthday and five hundred “foodies”, plus sixty seven of the world’s greatest French chefs had been invited.

Ten days before the event, my phone rang, and a friend, who doles out prescriptions for better business practices, known to his clients as “Dr. Revenue”, asked me if I would go to lunch at Citrus with his friend Michel Richard, the renowned and colorful chef. If you like food, that is one invitation you just don’t refuse, and I left the house a half an hour later and headed into Hollywood, curious to know why I had been invited to share a meal with the greatest French Chef in Los Angeles.

The meal was served to us in the privacy of his small office; filet mignon, pomme de terres, and a bottle of Chateau Latour 1989. He began … “Rupert … I want to have a party magnifique for mon amie, Julia Child, a week from Saturday. She is eighty, and I am crazy with problem and need to talk with you about ze plans.

I popped a tender morsel of beef into my mouth, and swishing it down with the Latour. I could literally single out the taste of fresh walnuts, leather, and black currants, and the meat was as tasty as taffy.

“Go on, Michel,” I ventured between chews.

“Do you know the funny man Dom Deluise,?” he asked.

“Yep … but why? I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“I had him.”

“What do you mean, you had him?”

“He was going to be my maitre de ceremonie, and he was making the show,  but now, he’s too fat,” he gasped, looking stressed and uncomfortable. “He cannot get out of his bed … he cancelled me.”

“and … ?:

“My friend John, ze Doctor of Revenue told me … you are very funny, no? … and a producteur?   I need a show. You … well, I have no choice … it’s late … so I want you to be my maître de ceremonies …”

“Moi? Mon Dieu,” I responded with a smile.

He went on … “I have chefs coming from Paris, from London, even from Texas … and people …  there will be all of those friends who are paying five hundred and fifty dollar each for Julia, and … to see a … I don’t know … some kind of show. We need something, and I have nothing. Please. I beg you … help me.”

I thought for a few moments, fighting both a sense of fear and the thrill of the challenge. I had never been asked to do anything like this, but I liked the idea, and there was no way I could say no. “Okay… I’ll do it. But first, Michel, you should know that I don’t know that much about food. I can’t even cream spinach.”

“C’a va.” he growled. “There is too much bullshit … food … wine. You will be fine. Oh, merci Rupert.” He picked up the Latour and poured more till it filled my glass. Savoring the moment, and the wine, I didn’t wave him off.

When we got down to specifics, it turned out that he really didn’t have anything planned, except for a band … fourteen pieces and some traditional French music. No focus, no toast, no entertainment. So, although there were only ten days left, I put on my Producer’s hat and went to work.

Some opening remarks, a birthday tribute, some jokes about food, a team of ballroom dancers, a parody by Florence Henderson, two verses of original lyrics, and a song that I remembered from a tryst in my teens with a young French woman in the town square in Biarritz. I sang the song, as I remembered it, into a tape recorder and delivered it to the band leader so he could orchestrate it and accompany the crowd just in case they felt like singing.  The date was drawing near, and I got more and more excited about the menu, the guests, and the chance to amuse the great lady while entertaining the room full of foodies.

The night before the event, as the Maitre d’ceremonie, my wife and I were invited to John Wayne’s yacht for a reception for the visiting Chefs, which was sponsored by Moet and Chandon, the great Champagne maker. We ate and drank with the giants of French cuisine, and I felt more and more comfortable in the star-studded food community with each glass of bubbly that I consumed.  It is rumored that by the time the evening was over, ninety two magnums of champagne, four hundred thirty eight oysters, and six pounds of Beluga caviar had been consumed by the nearly one hundred well soused and staggering guests.

It was dark when we left the yacht, and we had to walk down a rickety gangway to get back to terra firma. We gripped the side rails as we struggled along, and I looked up and saw a CHP motorcycle officer, kind of hiding behind a jacaranda tree, watching the guests debark. “Just ignore him …” I whispered to Karen. “Son of a bitch … got nothing better to do.” 

We got in the car, and as I started the engine, and Chips crossed over to his bike, kicked the Harley into life, and as we pulled out onto Admiralty Way, sure enough … he followed.  After a few blocks, he turned the flashing lights on, and I watched as the little “boy scout” get off his bike and started walking my way.

I rolled down the window … “Good evening, Officer. You know, I saw you behind those bushes and I didn’t speed because I knew that you didn’t have anything better …” “Shhhh …:” whispered Karen.

“Sir, have you been drinking?” the little prick said with a slight grin on his twisted little face. “You probably know that my wife and I were attending a party on John Wayne’s yacht, sponsored by Moet and Chandon, the world’s greatest Champagne maker. No, Sir … I ordered a diet Pepsi! Of course I’ve been drinking, but I only live a half a mile from here. Give me a break. I’m the maitre d’ cenemorie.”

“Out of the car, Sir. Now!” For the next fifteen minutes he put me through the drill, and as the guests from the party were leaving, they had to drive right passed us. Some waved, some turned away, and as I stood there on one leg counting backwards, one fat and jolly food consumer actually giggled. So I threw him a quick bird from one of my outstretched arms, and he gunned it out of there.

I don’t know to this day why that cop let me go without a ticket, Perhaps it was the fact that I talked a lot … I told him I made Electra Glide in Blue, about a short motorcycle cop that was misunderstood, and that my father, who had just passed away had been a decorated New York Police Inspector, but whatever it was, he let us go and we went home that night, scot free. So anybody that tells you that it does no good to make up an excuse if you’re stopped for speeding  is wrong. It worked that night on Admiralty Way.

We arrived at the Ritz Carlton the next evening, dressed in formal clothes, and were greeted in the front lobby by a pyramid of champagne glasses stacked on top of each other so that the leakage from the top of the stack dripped down and filled the glasses below. Two giant screens with live camera feeds flanked the stage, and there was a festive air in the room. Julia was holding court and when it was my turn, I greeted her with a kiss on each cheek, and she thanked me in advance for my part in her birthday party.

“Bonsoir, Mesdames et Messieurs, je m’appelle Rupert Hitzig. Je suis un metteur en scene ici dans Los Angeles. C'est un grand honneur  d”être le maître des cérémonies ce soir pour Mme. Julia Enfant. Je suis American, in case you couldn’t tell, and I can’t even boil an oeuf.”

They laughed. I went on. “Now, for those of you that don’t speak French, oeuf means egg, and enfant means Child, and that’s who were are here to celebrate … Mme. Julia Enfant.” They laughed again, and I got more comfortable.

The menu was a thing to behold, and we had positioned live cameras in the kitchen so that those who had gathered to celebrate French food  could watch on the big screens as the master Chefs prepared each course … three-star French chefs like Roger Verge, the owner of Moulin de Mougins, and Paul Bocuse, whose restaurant near Lyons, France, bears his name, as well as Daniel Boulud, of Le Cirque in New York,  David Bouley of Bouleys and Jean-Louis Palladin of Jean-Louis in Washington. Big deals in the food world.

They split up the chores … supervising the stuffing of eggshells with a glorious mixture of scrambled eggs and vegetable vinaigrette; forcing foie gras into prunes that had been soaked in Armagnac for two weeks; cutting 500 scallops into 3,500 slices for the third dinner course of mariniere de coquilles St.-Jacques, and poaching 500 black-olive quenelles for the artichoke and fennel soup.

The high point for me was the song that I learned on the streets of Biarritz, thirty five years earlier. Danielle, my little friend, took me under her wing back then, and as we sat in the street on the Main Square, we drank from bottles of wine that were handed from teen to teen, while singing. My version substituted Julia’s name and I sang it a capella.

l'amie Julia, l'amie Julia prends donc ton verre
et surtout, ne le renverse pas !
Et frontibus, du frontibus
au nasibus, au nasibus
au ventribus, au ventribus
au sexibus, au sexibus,
Egloue, gloue, gloue, gloue …
Elle est de notres ! Elle a bu son Champagne comme les autres !

Most of the Chefs were in the kitchen when I started singing the song, unaccompanied, but clearly, the melody and words were not that obscure. All of the Chefs from France who were cooking in the kitchen knew it, and we could see them react on the big screens. They dropped the Coquilles they were preparing and ran out into the ballroom. All of them, sixty seven chefs in white toques, surrounded Julia’s table, and lustily sang the verse over from the beginning. The orchestra joined in and so did everyone in the room.

   AMIE JULIA, AMIE JULIA
        PRENDS DONC TON VERRE

It was a magnificent moment, and Julia was moved … the old iron horse even had tears in her eyes.

The show went off without a hitch, the food was incredible, and Merrill Schindler, the restaurant critic wrote about it in the Times a few days later. “The celebration of Julia Child’s eightieth birthday party at the Ritz Carlton was a resounding success, all tied together by a rather surreal host that was given center stage.” I might have appeared surreal to Schindler, but not as surreal as it all felt like to me.

Last month, fifteen years after the party night, I went to see the movie, Julia et Julie, and loved it. When I got home,  I went to the attic and dug out a rolled up poster that Julia had sent me as a thank you so many years ago, and which suddenly had new meaning. It was a picture of her, standing hands on hips, lording over all with great authority. Every one of the Chefs that night had signed the poster, and she had written on the border, Merci, Rupert, pour une grande partie, Julia Child. I had it framed and hung on the wall over our stove where she watches with seeming disdain as I try now and then, to cook some creamed spinach.