Julia Child

A 1962 appearance on a book review show on what was then the National Educational Television (NET) station of Boston, WGBH-TV (now a major Public Broadcasting Service station), leads to the inception of Julia Child's first television cooking show after viewers enjoy her demonstration of how to cook an omelette. "The French Chef" has its debut on February 11, 1963, on WGBH and is immediately successful. The show runs nationally for ten years and wins Peabody and Emmy Awards, including the first Emmy award for an educational program. Though Julia Child is not the first television cook, she is the most widely seen. She attracts the broadest audience with her cheery enthusiasm, distinctively warbly voice, and unpatronizing, unaffected manner. In 1972, "The French Chef" becomes the first television program to be captioned for the deaf, even though this is done using the preliminary technology of open-captioning.