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- Giada De Laurentiis turns 52 on August 22.
- As well as a beloved chef, she is the granddaughter of Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis.
- She landed her first cooking show after writing an article about her Sunday dinners for Food & Wine.
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Dino De Laurentiis is credited with bringing Italian cinema into the American mainstream. Of the over 500 films he produced or co-produced, 38 of them went on to win Academy Awards.
However, the film mogul had roots in the culinary arts. According to IMDb, he spent his childhood in Italy selling spaghetti with his father. He later moved to the United States where he began producing iconic films like "King Kong," "War and Peace," and "La Strada."
De Laurentiis passed away at the age of 91 at his home in Beverly Hills, California.
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Born on August 22, 1970, Giada De Laurentiis is the daughter of two Italian immigrants. De Laurentiis' mother, Veronica De Laurentiis, is primarily known for her roles in "Red Dragon," "Dante's Hell," and "Waterloo."
De Laurentiis' father, Alex De Benedetti, also worked as an actor and producer. After the couple divorced, Veronica remarried film producer Ivan Kavalsky.
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When Giada De Laurentiis' family settled in Los Angeles, she "didn't speak a word of English" and was bullied at school as a result, she later recalled to Redbook.
Speaking to Insider in 2019, she added: "My family takes their culture very seriously, so even when we moved to the US, we still lived very Italian lives. We spoke Italian at home, we only ate Italian food — and let me tell you, back in the late '70s and early '80s, people were not as proud of their unique heritage as they are now."
However, she found solace in spending time with her family. Every Sunday, the De Laurentiis family would gather for a traditional Italian meal at her grandfather's home, and she would usually help with the cooking.
"The way that I learned to connect with my grandfather was on a food level," she told First We Feast in 2016. "I couldn't get enough — of food, of the smells, of hanging out in the kitchen and asking questions. Sundays my grandfather would have the whole family over and we would have a big spread. And when I say a big spread, I mean it took hours to eat lunch. A lot of us kids would fall asleep at the table, it was so friggin' long."
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In an interview with Bon Appétit, the chef revealed her favorite childhood meal was spaghetti with melted chocolate.
"Once in a blue moon, I'll still have it," she said. "I made it for my daughter recently, but she didn't like it. She thinks it's slimy and gross. I guess it's not for everyone?"
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In 1996, De Laurentiis graduated from UCLA with a degree in anthropology, according to Biography. However, cooking was her true passion, and she decided to pursue it.
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While studying at the prestigious Parisian culinary school, which also trained the likes of Julia Child, she specialized in both cuisine and pastry. After she finished her training, she returned to Los Angeles with the skills she had learned in France.
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After working at the Ritz-Carlton Fine Dining Room and Wolfgang Puck's Spago, De Laurentiis launched GDL Foods. Among her clients, she reportedly cooked for director Ron Howard.
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De Laurentiis was helping to style one of Food & Wine's Thanksgiving photo shoots when an editor at the magazine asked her to write an article about her family's Sunday dinners. After she did, she was contacted by a Food Network executive about having her own cooking show.
"He said he had seen my recipes and seen me but didn't know how I'd be on camera, so he asked me to put together a demo. Nine months later I did it, and 'Everyday Italian' was born—purely accidentally," she told Food & Wine in 2016. "I really thought I'd become a food stylist and then went in a completely different direction."
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"I was so, so goddamn nervous because I had never been in front of the camera alone," she told Bon Appétit. "I was like, who am I talking to? Who is this?"
However, she soon got the hang of it, and despite a "horrible" first season, "Everyday Italian" went on to be renewed for 11 more seasons.
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The pair tied the knot in 2003 and welcomed a daughter, Jade, five years later. However, in 2014, the couple announced they were divorcing.
"Although our decision to separate comes with a great deal of sadness, our focus on the future and overwhelming desire for our family's happiness has given us the strength to move forward on separate, yet always connected paths," she wrote on her Facebook page, according to People. "Todd and I share a beautiful daughter and a lifetime of great memories that we both treasure more than anything."
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In an interview with People in 2018, De Laurentiis said she practices "self care" by stretching and taking yoga classes five times per week.
"If I think about it, my free time is all taken up by maintenance for myself," she said. "I think people forget how much women, as we get older, have to keep up."
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Following accusations that De Laurentiis would have others taste her food for her on "Everyday Italian," a representative for Food Network said, "[De Laurentiis] absolutely eats her own food while filming."
They added that, because of the number of takes and episodes filmed a day, De Laurentiis "doesn't always eat and swallow every time."
"The bottom line is, she most certainly does eat the food she prepares on the show, but does not always consume the whole dish, as that would be too much for most people to eat in one day," the rep said.
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The chef told Insider in 2019 that cooking for the royals at a polo charity event in Santa Barbara, California, in 2011 was one of the highlights of her career, but she had no idea it was even happening beforehand.
"I had no idea the royal couple would be attending," she told the Today show. "And when I finally found out, it was actually kind of a bummer. I couldn't tell anyone — I had to keep it hush-hush until their California itinerary was released."
"I'm not usually star-struck, but I'll admit I was pretty anxious meeting them," De Laurentiis added to Insider. "It was nerve-racking cooking a meal for actual royalty, but I kept reminding myself that I was in my element."
She also revealed that Prince William even asked her for a few cooking tips following a "disastrous lasagna" he had made.
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In 2008, she took home the Emmy for outstanding lifestyle host for her first show, "Everyday Italian." Years later, in 2020, she also received the award for outstanding culinary host and outstanding culinary series for "Giada Entertains."
14 things you didn't know about Giada De Laurentiis
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