ANTHONY’S ADVOCATE

Anthony Bourdain’s Mother Dies at 85

Gladys Bourdain, a former copy editor at The New York Times, helped launch her son’s writing career.

Anthony Bourdain’s mother, Gladys Bourdain, died on Friday at a hospice facility in the Bronx at 85. As a longtime copy editor at The New York Times, she helped launch the writing career of her son, who became a world-renowned chef and host of his television show Parts Unknown. Her other son Christopher confirmed her death and said that she had been struggling with health issues. Gladys began working at the Times in 1984 until 2008 and worked for other outlets such as Opera News and Musical America. She profiled the famed chef Julia Child in her Southern France home for the Times in 1978. Gladys helped Anthony publish his 1999 article, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” in The New Yorker, which quickly led to him landing a deal for his book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly in 2000. Anthony committed suicide in 2018 at age 61 after reportedly struggling with depression and kicking a drug addiction. Gladys’ ex-husband, Pierre Bourdain, died in 1987.