exude joie de vivre. that's what she had. she seemed to be happy to be alive every day that she was. stalived to be1 research because i just hadn't put it together, because she seemed so ageless, really, was that she didn't become julia child until she was 50 years old. >> r re: and we conclude this evening with the remembrance of a friend,

architect charles ga watt me gwathmey who died of cancer on monday. >> architecture as frank lloyd wright said appropriately is the mother of all art it is holistic it affects all our lives both consciously and you be conscious ly. it is about the environment, the man-made environment. and that when you think about it, people who travel, who take long trips, actually go to places to see buildings, to experience architecture. so i believe it's impact upon the conscious and the perception -- persept all parameters of one's existence is total. >> rose: julie and julia the movie and charles gwathmey the life, coming up. >> funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following:

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: food is one of life's pleasures and necessities it has been a subject in society for centuries. permeateing literature and art and music, and certainly movies. ♪ food dollaruous food ♪. >> i will be slinging pizza for the rest of my life. >> the best pizza!

>> tell me what the rat wants to cook. >> it's a peasant dish. >> too hot for you? >> no. >> i read your article about ice cream and i have to tell you i disagree with you about haagen-dazs rum raisein. >> what can i say. >> so vicious. >> i'm a viciouserson. >> blueberry pie and cream, it's the most marvelous blue perry pie i've ever tasted. >> holy toledo, what's happening to your taste. >> cool it dad, let me finish. >> violet, you're turning violet, violet. >> i know what i want, -- >> i ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. >> leave the gun. take the canolli. >> well, he came in, you

came. in i figured, you know -- >> you know what time it is. >> i'm so happy to see him. look, go inside. make yourself comfortable. i'm make you something to eat. >> this is what the customer asked for. make it. make the pasta, make it, make it, make the pasta. come on, let's go. >> but i would like the pie heated and i don't want the ice cream on top, i would like it on the side and i would like strawberrys if you have it, and if you didn't no ice cream. >> now the director and writer nora etch ron has taken her passion for food and paired it with her passion for writing and directing. her new dish is called "julie and julia" it stars meryl strep and amy adams and others. and speaking of meryl streep as julia child, the new york time says in its review, by now this actress has exhausted every superlative that exists and to suggest that she has outdone herself is only to say that she has done it again. her performance goes beyond physical limitation -- imitation though she has the rounded shoulders and the

fluting voice down perfectly. and "the washington post" notes julie and julia might have started out as a -- to the joys of cooking but it turns out o to be an even more profound appreciation of the mutual comprehension and erotic charge that defines a great marriage. and finally "the wall street journal," nora ephron's julie and julia gives us meryl streep in a grand comic performance. a a arless actress playing the fearless julia child in post world war ii paris where she is in the process of transforming herself from an embassy wife in a world famous apostle of french cuisine. here is the trailer for julie and julia. >> i'm julia child. bon app at this time. >> before she changed the world, julia child was just an american living in france. >> shouldn't i find something to do. >> what is it that you really like to do? >> eat. >> and you are so good at it. look at you. now --

>> i'm growing in front of you. >> what does julia child have to do with me? lowly cubicle worker julie powell. >> how is your job, julie. >> are the person to speak to about your insurance form. >> you can speak to me. >> do you have any power? >> no. >> heartbreaking. >> so sad. >> painful. >> not in a bad way. >> do you think i'm lost. is this lost, if you met me would you think that well is lost. >> i would think that woman is strangely repetitive. >> did you hear what happened to this one. >> showtime bought my blog for a miniseries. >> i could write a book. i have thoughts. >> not a real cook like julia child. >> julia child wasn't always julia child. >> why don't i go to cooking school. bonjour. >> julie -- julia project, i cook my way through julia child's cookbook, 35 days, 524 recipes. i'm risking me well-being for a deranged assignment. >> is it crazy? >> yes.

>> you should have seen the way those men looked at me. >> but then they discovered i was fearless. >> oh, julia, you make it sound so simple. >> your book is going to change the world. >> what if i don't make my deadline. i'll wasted a whole year of my life. i used to be thin and now i'm fat. >> just your face. >> it's supposed to be a big adventure but then it just turned out to be a lot of meltdowns. >> there's all of this stuff on the floor. >> oh, never apologise. >> from writer/director nora ephron. >> this is good. >> that is good, isn't it? >> meryl streep, amy adams. >> i was drowning and she pulled me out of the ocean. >> what's for dinner. >> what's for dinner? >> you have no -- for

cooking. >> and mi pleased to be joined by two friends, nora ephron the writer and director and meryl streep, a great actress. julie and julia, would have been as good or better or half good if it was just the story of julia child? >> well, i don't know. she had a pretty great life. >> rose: yeah, exactly. >> but i love -- i love -- i immediately loved the idea of playing the two lives off against one another. one that i immediately thought about was the hours which is a movie i loved that meryl was. in and which is really about one book. and how -- how, you know --. >> rose: one book by phillip roth. >> no, no, that was by virginia woolfe. >> and how her book mrs. dellway reached years and years into the future. >> to other people's lives. >> rose: yeah. >> and so i started out really thinking this -- this a movie about a book. and then of course i realized it was a movie

about 18 other things. and depending whom i'm talking to, i change the thing. if you were a food writer i would tell you was about food. and last night i was at the smithsonian museum where they dedicated a whole wall of julia's pots. and i informed everyone there that it was a movie about america. >> rose: by the way, the smith sonia has a lot of her stuff. >> it has her kitchen. >> rose: as well as her momento. >> it had her kitchen minus one wall of pots and yesterday they arrived there. so that is why i was there. >> oh, i didn't know that. >> yeah, so -- >> great. >> rose: were you a devotee of julia child. >> i was in high school, i was in the 8th grade. >> rose: but the book has been -- >> when her show started. >> rose: but the book is in its 1,000th printing. it doesn't mater what generation are you from. >> no, no, exactly. my mother was not a devotee it was hurry up and eat it. >> rose: but go you cook.

>> we had a lot of steaks, chops and tuna fish and noodle casserole. >> rose: but you, did you cook. >> me? >> rose: you. >> yes, i cook. >> rose: because she is obsessed by it, aren't you. >> i love food. i loved if and i like cooking a lot, i do. i do. >> rose: so this was even more so a labor of love foror you. >> and i lost love there being good food on a movie set. and we not only had good food in the sort of craft service place but then we had all this julia child food that there was always a huge amount left over and we got to eat it. >> rose: why was she magical? >> oh, gosh, how do you define charm and that thing that certain people have where they exude joie de vivre. that's what she had. she seemed to be happy to be alive every day that she was. she lived to be 92. and even --.

>> rose: and she found the love of her life after reswrekting others. >> yeah. >> rose: looking for the right -- >> yes, i don't know how much rejecting she did turn down the guy who was going to be the -- that owned the "l.a. times", one of those chandlers. >> rose: turned him down. >> turned him down. >> rose: she wasn't quite ready. >> yeah. and i think you know, she was 6, 2, her sister was 6, 4. i think they were used to being sort of outsized -- out -- sized out of the competition for men. >> rose: tall women have a hard time. >> well, especially then, i think. people were littler. >> rose: she was in the oss which made her always when you heard julia child, when you found that little nugget out she somehow became even more interesting. >> yes. but i don't -- i certainly don't think she was a spy in any -- in any real way. i think she had -- i think she worked with classified

material and -- and filed it beautifully. but i don't think, i could be wrong, but she -- she was a truth teller. and she always said she was a clerk. and i think she was telling the truth. there weren't a lot of women in -- in high positions in the oss. >> rose: . >> she was fantastically organized. >> rose: when you tarted to do -- started to do this you had one phone call to make, didn't you. >> yes. that's true. i did. >> rose: an ififhe had said no would you have still made it? >> i don't think the studio would have made it. i would happily have made it with someone, some lesser human being, you you know, but you know, meryl had done -- us a gigantic favor by having two smash hit movies. so --. >> rose: the studio wanted her badly. >> well, everyone does. >> rose: so the story you want us to understand and

appreciate is these two very interesting people who are bound by one single thing, julia child's life and julia child's wanna-be. >> one of the themes there are so many overlapping themes. i moan this is really about love. it's really about marriage. it's really about a kind of marriage that actually exists, thank god it does or people would have accused me of making this up. but there are guys who really do take enormous pleasure in their wives growth. and change and all of those things. so that was -- that was one of the things i loved that it was about. i loved realizing that halfway through that i was writing a movie about marriage. and how rare it is that you get to do this kind of marriage. because movies require plot. but a marriage, a good marriage requires the

absence of plot. the last thing you want is for something to happen. you know, you do not want the thing that makes people walk out the door or -- or, you know, that's the normal movie about a marriage always has somebody walking out the door at the end of the second act of the movie. well they didn't really have that kind of marriage. these people were really together. and that was fun. that was fun to do. >> rose: they had it all. there was sex and there was food. >> there was food. and you know, here -- julie powell was turning 30, had gone to amhurst, was really smart and very talented. and was working in the manhattan redevelopment corporation, whatever it's called, dealing with all the victims of 9/11. this was not, and i think she took that job thinking it would be very rewarding and instead it was -- it was unbelievably difficult. and it was very hard at the end of the day to think

she'd done anything. and these -- this thing, this little idea of hers meant that every single day she actually accomplished something she cooked something out of this cookbook. and then the next morning at 5:30 she got up and wrote about it. it i ia remarkable daunting thing she did. >> rose: regimen and discipline. >> and so was what julia did, you know. and they both changed their lives. and julia, one of the things i was so knocked out by when i started doing the research because i just hadn't put it together, because she seemed so ageless, really, was that she didn't become julia child until she was 50 years old. this person who was famous all my life wouldn't -- >> didn't going famous until she was 50. >> she didn't become julia child. >> rose: okay, she didn't become julia child but she became this sort of person when she found -- when she

was in france. i mean france opened up everything to her before she went on television to become famous. >> yeah, but i think she had always been a very -- you know, i think she loved france and she came to life in france and she found her calling. but then i think she spent eight years with, you know, saying and i'm writing a cookbook and everyone going oh, of course you are, dear. >> like sayinging i'm writing a children's book which many people do and then it just goes on and on even though it is 35 pages. yeah, i think that -- it's very interesting to me that they fell in love, that he fell so hard for her before she knew what she wanted to be. and for many years before is she knew if that was ever going to work out. >> rose: and why did he -- why. >> how could you not. i mean in a way, in a way he was an unusual man but they met -- in china and -- >> he loved food and wine and books and -- >> yes, i think he was in

his late 40s when they met. >> rose: 10 years difference in age. >> yeah, he had had a lover for a long time who died. he -- he was, you know, he had been through stuff and he wanted only something real, it seemed to me reading about them. and he found someone real. and he just loved that about her. that's the thing that just went right through the indecision of her early years and then the certainty of her later years. just her authenticity as a person, her character. >> rose: if you have someone who is so pronounced in size, in personality, in voice, distinct and different, easier to do or harder to do? >> hmmmm, um, well, it depends if they're there rooking at you. when i made heartburn, there she was on the set. and i couldn't really do

her. but it was kind of certain elements were irresistable. and so you know, i felt like -- wearing a straight jackets. >> rose: like which ones. >> just the way of wrangling a phrase and sort of polishing it with the front of your mouth, you know that whole thing. >> rose: what makes her unfriging believable. but i think if they are out there observing you, that is my only thing. >> rose: when you played her what you were trying to capture when you played her. >> julia. >> rose: no. >> yes. >> rose: nora. >> oh, no, no, no, no. >> yeah, you know, it was -- it was a very familiar, the outlines were very familiar to people i knew that. and me too. and but in a way danny akroyd's version was even more vivid in our mind.

so it was already kind of caricatureed in your head. and i didn't want to -- i wanted to look at her in the idealized way that julie did. i wanted, because this is julie's imagined julia, in her head she imagines this gal in paris with her -- with her husband. and i think because it's in this rosyed hue, i just wanted to make it as real as it could possibly be but i didn't feel that i really had to adhere to every piece of research i'd done on julia. i just wanted to make a human being that lived. >> rose: did you watch a lot of tapes and all that? >> yeah, yeah. some of them were incredibly unhelpful because you know, the show became kind of more performed later in her life. but the very earliest ones

when she first put herself in front of a camera, in those days hard to remember, people didn't know what they looked like on tape. people weren't being photographed from the fetal stage, you know, and thrown up on the tv screen. so she was sort of really authenticly who she was. and she was 50 and formed and done, you know. >> rose: do you believe success is better when it comes late in life? >> oh, success is okay whenever it comes, you know. >> because it ebbs and then it goes away and then it comes back again sometime. >> rose: how would you know? all right, here's a clip from the film. julie and julia with meryl streep as are yoyo preparing an omelet. >> she changed everything, before her it was frozen food and can openers and marshmallows. >> don't knock marshmallows. >> when you flip anything you just got to have the

courage of your convictions, especially if it's a loose sort of mass like -- oh, that didn't -- go very well. >> no, that didn't go very well. see when i flipped it, i didn't -- i didn't have the courage to do it the way i should have. but you can always pick it up if you are alone in the kitchen who is going to see. >> if are you alone in the kitchen, who is to see. >> pearls, always wearing pearls in the kitchen. >> you've just got to practice, like the piano. i'm julia child, bon app he at this time. >> bon app he at this time. and bon appetite. this julia child. >> she is so relieved it's over and that she doesn't have to hold her face in. >> rose: what was she like

off camera. she was everything we saw here with meryl off camera. >> well, my friends who knew her, i mean one of my friends bob gotlieb who was the editor and chief in knopff when they published the cookbook said that she was a christmas tree, just a twinkling human being, big, twinkleing hearn person. she was irresistable and everyone fell in love with her. when she moved to france, i mean she lived in a couple of countries where she was even taller than tall. she was in celon and china and then france. and within a week everyone there knew her because she was so -- she stood out literally and she relaxed everyone about the fact that she --. >> rose: was bigger than they were a larger-than-life character even. >> she was the real deal. >> uh-huh. >> and i'm sad i never met her. >> me too. >> rose: are you.

>> yeah. >> because i think she would have been one of those -- one of the few that just made you not remotely disappointed in them as a person. >> rose: she was -- i remember, i did two interviews with her. it was unbelievable. you will see a little bit. she was in her 80s. she died four days before she was 92. another tape just to get a sense of what this movie is like. this is julia child and her husband played by stanley -- roll tape, here it is. >> what should i do, do you think? >> about what? >> well, i don't really want to go back into governmenen work. shouldn't i find something to do. wives don't do anything here. that's not me. that's not me. >> i know. >> i saw a notice on the bulletin board at the embassy. hat making lessons.

>> you like hats. >> i do. i do. i do. >> what is it that you really like to do. >> eat. s this's what i like to do. >> i know. i know, i know. and you are so good at it, look at you. >> i am good at it. i'm growing in front of you. >> that not a good marriage i've never seen a good marriage. to talk like that, yes? >> that's true. that's true. well they -- they really helped each other at all times. helped each other up. helped each other when they were, you know, it was --. >> rose: and how did he take her success? >> oh, are you kidding? he was 60 years old. he basically --. >> rose: his career was over. >> his career was over and it had not really been the career that he dreamt of. and suddenly they were

famous. she was famous. he became -- he went everywhere, he was her manager. it was unbelievable. they were at the centre of the universe at the ages of 60 and 50. it was fantastic for both of them. >> and -- and she, the star just went brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter. was there any flaws here? >> in the marriage? >> no, in her. >> well, we don't know. but in -- you know, there's no question that the julia we show in the movie was julie powell's idea, you know. and i certainly in reading about her thought oh, i'm not like that. i'm just not like that. she's a much better human being than i will ever be. and i think you share that feeling. >> yeah. i mean no, i just, i felt

that you know, you never know, really the ins and outs of a person, a personality. i mean it's hard enough to know. >> know where -- >> understand the people in your own family. and your own parents. but to imagine that you know the inner life and conflicts and anxieties of a public person, it's very, very difficult. but it's endlessly interesting, what makes me want to be an actor. i mean it's my great fun. but i thought, you know, i have -- i never met her but i did have an encounter with her. >> rose: what was the encounter. >> during the time that i was working, for about ten years. i was working with a group called mothers and others, which was trying to get organic produce in the local supermarkets, a thing that was just impossible and unheard of.

and nobody, you know, couldn't get it. and i thought it would be a great idea to enlist her help. but she really brushed us off in a very sort of dismissive, rough way in a letter. and that kind of -- it made my world crumble because she seemed like someone who was so sunny. and yet i -- and yet in learning more about her i learned that she was very resistant to the idea that anything to do with raising your cholesterol might have something to do with butter and all these well marbled meats and things. >> rose: i thought she might have loved the idea because most great chefs love organic food, don't they? >> but this is very early. >> this was earlyance and she changed her mind. >> and she did change her mind. and well, alice waters can talk more, author at that

timeively about this. but she did. and she came around. but before she came around, she was -- she had a titanic kind of potential to have a snit, seems to me. it was there. >> talk about stanley's performance. because we saw, every moment you can sit here like this and you look at it more closely and you see just a take that must gladden a director's heart. >> well, no, i means that's like your dream if you write a scene like that. and to be perfectly honest with you, the end of that scene is an improve that stanley and meryl did. and you know, the scene i wrote ended with the word, i like to eat. and he said and you're so good at that time. and she said i am, i'm growing in front -- i am, i am good. i am growing right in front of you. >> that your dream of what is going to happen when two actors are completely happy working together.

>> oh, we could have gone on and on and on. >> and well they did in several takes. >> rose: that is what i was going to ask. >> is your dream for them to that. >> my dream is to have the director let you do it even though, even if he or she is going to cut it out in the end. it makes you feel is creative and you feel like well, everything we do is right. >> rose: and also. >> that's a great feeling. and then you get some happy surprises out of it. >> rose: and a great script will tee it up so you can go really -- >> shutly, has to be there. >> rose: take off. let's look at one more clip here this is entertaining guests at valentine's day. here it is. >> were you spies? >> no. yes. no. (laughter) >> you were in the office of strategic services and you were not spies? >> i was only a file clerk. but paul, paul designed all of the secret war rooms for general. >> well, just maps and

exhibits and things. >> he did. he single-handedly won the war. >> well, i had to. someone did witnesses it's true. >> it was dragging on, wasn't it. anyway, so there we were in china, just friends having dinner. and and it turned out to be julia. it turned out to be julia all along. >> oh. julia, you are the butter to my bread and the breath to my life. i love you, darling girl. happy valentine's day. >> happy valentine's day. >> well, if you think that was in the script, you know, it wasn't. and i think -- >> we were walking by noter dam in one of the scenes and i thought i am noter dam. and he's my flying buttress. (laughter)

>> i have that image. he'll never forgive me for that. but he's just --. >> rose: can you just say that one more time. >> no. he's so adult. he's so generous and soulful and effortlessly there's a certain urbanity and cosmopolitan things that's very heterosexual in the way that -- it's almost like another time. and it was another time. i mean how stanley achieves that sort of effortlessly and without a lot of words, amazing. >> uh-huh. >> rose: but i get the impression that a lot of this kind of thing was happening throughout this movie. you gave them a framework. >> that what you hope is going to happen when you make a movie, you know. that's a thing i learned really early on as a writer, because i started out thinking oh, don't let them touch a word of my dialogue.

and then you start working with people who are good wrwrers and are funny. and they make it better. they change it and they make it better. and you got to be open to that. because you can always not use it in the cutting room if it doesn't work. but sometimes it's so much better than what you started out with. or it's just a natural growth from the scene. >> rose: you said everything you had done in food all your life had prepared you to make this movie. >> well, i -- i, you know t was so personal for me even though it's the stories of two other women. i love food as you know. i'm obsessed with food. i think about it constantly. and i had grown-up, i had become a grown-up in new york cooking from julia's cookbook. i had written a little bit about her once and gotten a letter from her.

and and so that part of the story was so personal, so i just loved work with it. loved trying to figure out how you put those two pieces together. >> rose: and how many of the things in that book, the recipes do you still prepare. >> three. >> rose: they are. >> they are lamb stew. they are boef borgeonon one of the stars of this movie and they are chicken breast with creams and mushrooms and port. >> rose: and why those three, do you know. >> those are the one --. >> rose: you like the food you like. >> this is the thing with cookbooks is that it usually two or three things it, a cookbook you love, the cookbook that you say i cook from it all the time, it means you have found two or three things you love in it. >> it's so true. that's so true, yeah. >> and so --. >> rose: you have said this before, that nora gave you kind of direction when she told you she needed you to

embody, you said this earlier, julia powell's idea of julia child. >> yeah. that wasn't me. that was meryl's idea that was one of the ways meryl --. >> rose: to get on to it. >> yeah, that's one of the yeahs it that i could climb on and not feel too guilty about it. >> rose: and did you that by reading -- >> about failing. >> rose: failure something you know? >> well, you just always, it is that thing where you say, you spoke of earlier the responsibility to someone who really existed and who people loved. not the population. i didn't care some of about that. but her family. >> rose: tell me about that. you wanted her family to -- >> i didn't want to disappoint, yeah. >> rose: you wanted them to say you nailed it. >> no, i --. >> rose: or you were true to her. >> i captured her. >> rose: spirit. >> yes. because really, really for me it was more like i mean honestly, it was more an

homage to my own mother who had so many of the outsized elements of julia's character and her joy in living and her sense of fun and mischief and being up for anything and game and not interested in whining whatsoever. you know. all those things. and i thought oh, here's mary. and i get to do it. >> rose: here is mary, your mother. >> yeah. >> rose: now are you your mother's daughter? >> i have a little bit of both, i think. >> rose: which is -- >> well, my mother and my father. and my dad is, was much more of a romantic. and a musician and a little melancholee and a little dreamy and sol taree. and i have all of those things too. >> rose: did they both live to see all the good things that happened to you. >> yes, yes.

all the grandchildren and -- yeah. but my mom died there 2001 when this takes place. this film. and it's opening today on her birthday. so i feel like there's some wonderful serendipity at work. >> rose: was that in your mind clearly. >> it's never far from my mind, yeah. >> rose: all right, here is julia child in a show that she did with me in 1995, roll tape. here it is. >> you still eat out a lot or do you cook at home. >> i cook at home more than i eat out. and this is going to be a very good meal. i would rather eat at home. i mean i don't go out just to -- just to feed. i go to dine. >> rose: you have said before that your career had a lot to do with timing and luck and being at the right place at the right time. >> oh, very much so. when we had started with french cooking five years before.

it would have laid age egg. >> rose: really? >> yeah. >> rose: why? >> because people weren't that interested. >> rose: people weren't interested in french cooking. >> i think it caught on because suddenly people were able to get a -- because you could fly rather than go by boat. so a whole the lot of people began eating this wonderful food, mostly in france at first i think. and then you had the kennedys in the white house. >> rose: and mrs. . nnedy loved -- >> she did. >> rose: french cooking. did you know her. >> no, never met her. i knew her chef, in san francisco, wonderful chef. >> rose: there is something to be said about the sort of timing of all this, when she, because of the kennedys. because you know cosmopolitan life became admired because of the kennedys, yes? she coincideed with the time or gave movement to time. >> i hadn't really connected that at all but i remember when i think the president of france came to the white house when the kennedys, and

they had the steak dinner. and i was working in the white house at that moment in my brief wing as the only intern the president didn't make a pass at. and they hading, they served chicken morengo. how this detail sticks in my head. and i was very proud because we had had it at home. >> oh, wow. >> my mother had gone into the morengo. >> rose: meryl wants that people who knew julia and loved julia to feel that she captured the spirit. what do you want? >> from this movie? >> rose: yes. >> oh, you want people to go out to dinner. >> rose: of course you do. >> i do. i do. i want people to go out and have --. >> rose: you want them to fall in love with the idea. >> or cook something. >> go with the person that they love. >> cook something nice. >> i have very modest hopes had. i just want people to feed themselves a little bit better when they're done seeing it. >> rose: to appreciate food. you want them all to become

foodies. >> no, no you don't have to do that. but the truth is, that people have forgotten how easy it is to cook and how much fun it is to cook. and what the whole point of cooking is to me which is that it makes a place a home. doesn't matter if you are related to the people in the home or not it is what brings people together. they all want to be in the kitchen anyway. >> that's true. >> are you on a roll as they say. is she not? >> no kidding. >> rose: no kidding. >> lots of rolls. >> rose: isn't it a great time to be meryl streep? >> yeah. i mean but --. >> rose: i mean everything, the family thing. the kids are -- >> i'm getting set up her. >> rose: no, you're not. i'm just fishing. >> no, i mean just by fate. we don't want to look at our good fortune, really in the eye. but i am very happy and lucky. and tired at the moment,

ready to take a break. >> rose: how long is a break. >> well, i made seven movies in two and a half years. >> rose: why? >> i don't know. because they asked me to. and -- i guess my children were older and said go, go, do, you know. >> rose: do you continue to learn? >> yeah, sure. >> rose: do you really? >> yeah. >> rose: in other words, having had this experience you are better. >> i don't know. i don't know. this was so fun and sort of effortless that it didn't, i think you learn more from the challenging things, the things that are tougher to do in the past. >> rose: what was the toughest? >> oh -- >> no, no, no. there have been tough things that i care, i probably won't go into. but just because, just because they, my molecules

change in me, according to how happy i am and my creativity gets -- you know, what i learn every time out is how to wrangle all the elements that make me love what i do and make it sort of happen effortlessly. and when that doesn't come easily i don't really have a bag of tricks to go to or a method, you know. i don't. so i come unmoored. and part of that is a very good thing. because you have to reassemble. nobody knows what i'm talking about. >>. >> no, we do. >> actors do. >> but so no, no, no. >> and so it's very good to have start blank and figure out how to begin again. how to begin again. it's very good. >> rose: how are actors different than the rest of us? >> well, they live a zen

life. it's -- it's very uncertain. and all lives are uncertain. but actors know it. and actor its because you're unemployed so often. and you live so intensely in the moments that you are working. that when you come back to earth and look around, you know, that balloon has gone. and there's no other one on the horizeon. so you live where you are. i think actors live exactly where they are. the really good ones. and that's why they seem kind of crazy. >> we all should be there. isn't that where we should all want to be. >> yes, i think so. i think it is where we live, yeah. >> wow, what am i talking abouou >> two things. one, is it -- -- this will profoundly demonstrate how

stupid i am. julia child invited me to boston to have dinner with her at her house after that show. >> and you didn't go. >> rose: i didn't go. >> you know, she once invited me to lunch. i never met her but she wrote me a letter and invite immediate to lunch. >> rose: because. >> i was never in boston. >> rose: same thing with me. i just never got around to it. and then, you know -- and i just think about how stupid now, especially now having all this come forth. so there you go. congratulations. >> thank you. >> rose: really con greatlations. >> thank you. >> rose: and to you. >> thank you. thanks a lot. >> thanks. wz architect charles gwathmey died of cancer on monday here in new york. he was 71. charles gwathmey was best known for his modernist design and his passion for geometry. his work includes museums, commercial spaces, and homes

for steven spielberg, david geffen, jerry seinfeld and his parents. architecture critic paul goldberger notes he was at his best at small scale which made him the opposite of almost every other major architect of our times. charles gwathmey was just 28 and a few years out of yale school of architect when he designed a house and studio for his parns on long island. he once described the gwathmey house as a solid block thats has been carved back to its essence. it would become one of the more influential houses of the modern era. he formed the firm of gwathmey see gull and associates with robber see gull in 1968. his later works include the 1992 edition to new york's guggenheim museum and the restoration and expax of the art and architecture building at yale, his alma mater. over the years he a -- appeared on this program a number of times. here is a look at some those conversations. >> where do you put architecture opinions how do

you define what an architect does. >> i think architecture as frank lloyd wright said appropriately is the mother art. it's holistic. it affects all our lives both subconsciously and consciously. it is about the environment, the man-made environment. and that when you think about it, people who travel who take lodges trips actually go to places to see buildings, to experience architecture. so i believe its impact upon the conscious and the persept all parameters of one's existence is total. so when we talk about why we want to be an architect, i think we are affecting not only what goes on today in art, but what will go on in the future. >> we're going to see some, a whole series of things that you have done, some slides. but after pennsylvania school of architect and university of pennsylvania

and then yale, in the early '60s, as part of your exam you worked on this house for your parents who had subsequent moved to the northeast on long island. give me a sense of what you were doing there, why that was important to you and the creative force that was at work. >> well, the very lucky to have parents who trusted their son, the young architect. and -- >> out of architecture school no more than two or three years. >> out of architecture school two years. and they wanted to build a house in long island. and it was actually the second house hi done. hi done a house in fire island before, a very small one. and the opportunity was unique in that to design it and then try to build it was i very critical point in my life. i was working for another

archchect. i could have gotten involved in the architecture group at the time. and no contractor would build the house. and easthampton. no one ever saw curve forms or raw cedar wood. and i told my parents that i would like to build it. that i thought it was essential. so i quit my job. i got a job teaching at pratt institute. and i commuted from new york to long island, literally built that house. >> you were the contractor. >> i was the general contractor. >> and you found, at that time sedar wasn't used very much for these kind of houses on the outside. >> cedar was the unknown wood. there wass cedar shingles. but there was no cedar boards that were flush and that actually from the distance would look like form work for concrete. >> what was the impact of the house? >> i mean was it immediately recognized as it was say with philip johnson's house,

that here is something. >> i don't flow if it that impact. >> not only compare but the notion is people saw this and said we forgot something here. >> yes, i think it was instantly recognized as a turning point in residential architecture. that this was a new experience. i don't think it had so much to do with place, even. even though there has always been that discussion, the fact that it was in easthampton which was an old town that had vernacular architecture, i think the impact was universal, in that this was really reductive, abstraction in a cubeistic kind of language which restated house. >> without do you think had influenced most in terms of where your thinking was as a, what, young architect three years out of architectural school. i mean who had shaped your own mind as to what you wanted to do that resulted in this house? >> i think lou kahn as a

teacher at pennsylvania was extraordinary in that he made you believe that architecture was the most spiritual endeavor and experience that you could have. >> why spiritual? >> because he talked about form and he talked about materials as if they were sacred. and he is the only architect -- architect without i have ever seen consistently make buildings which have a sense of quiet. there's a silence about his buildings that when you're there, it's an absolutely incredible condition that the architecture makes place. and is universal. and the sky is the ceiling. and you're in an isolation condition where it speaks to you. and he was compelling. >> i think -- when i went to

school at yale in the '60s, he was -- he was the great, he was the great architect. i think since then there is no question that piece and lou con, a teacher of mine, james sterling, the great english architect there is a sort of legacy of extensions from -- that have been very influential for me. and it's not that you, your derivative or you replicate it. but you definitely understand the principless and understand the ethic and that's important. >> who influenced you in your love affair with modernism? >> i think are you a victim of your times. >> really? >> yeah, i think when i went to school, there was no question that modern architecture was -- was the ethic. we studied -- we studied

history but it was always to sort of confirm and clarify modernism as an ideal. i think it's gone since then under sort of very good and very severe criticism and it's come out better for it. >> better today. >> much better. >> i think that -- >> post modernism was good or badad >> post modernism was a trial. >> a trial. >> have you ever thought in your life about abandoning it for some dramatic new approach to architecture? has anything ever tempted you? >> no i think it's really an extension. i think you keep reevaluating and refining. and you eliminate but you grow. i don't think you can grow without being self-editing and being self-critical. >> tell me how you have grown in terms of that. in terms of how you see this evolution and we'll see some pictures in a minute.

>> well, it may contradict me. >> i know but i want to put you on the record here. >> i know. >> no, i think you grow whenn you are willing to risk what you haven't done before. and i think each time at least i try with these opportunities to explore and to learn something knew. and to very consciously not repeat. that sounds simpler than it is, by the way. i mean you do repeat because you have a certain -- you have a certain backup that in a way is irrefutureable. but what you do, i hope s that you, you what is of essence and you keep that. and then you resortt of reinvent each time too discover something new. >> looking at this career, because you got prominence

very early. five architects with what, 1970 something. >> yes. >> five architects. >> five architects, you. >> ricicrd myer, peter icerman, michael grays and john -- all those five gave instant notoriety to all of you, did it. >> no, it was great but i think it also established for the first time in american a dialogue among architects about architecture and about ideas. it really started a new wave of theory and interaction that wasn't here before. >> what do you think that your either -- what do you think you contributed to that dialogue over the years since that time to today in terms of sort of gwathmey, you know, principals and sell i knoll ideas. in your own sense what would you like to be your

contribution. >> i would like to think that from that book which featured my parent's house. >> right that the commitment and the ethic and the loyalty to discovering what is essential about space and form through architecture has continued and that these buildings that we've built that some day like the dell house may be a museum. will be great. and i think, you know, you look at piladio. and he built farmhouses. and they are so powerful as images and as formal structures that they're undeniable. and i think thinking of a house as a building and dealing with all the things one does is there as viable and as critical to the history of architecture as

any other building. >> so what do they all have. i mean you could more or less. >> more or less they all have a sense of place. they have a phenomenal density of purpose. and they have a spirit actual -- spirituality which is unforgetable. in other words, if you went to any of those buildings you remember them for your life. if you never saw them again and you would remember the experience and you would remember -- remember that time as an absolutely isolated transformationn >> charles gwathmey was a great friend of mine and of this program. and our deep sympathy tonight for his wife e tty ann and his family. charles gwathmey, dead at age 71. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org