DETROIT — In the HBO drama "The Gilded Age," Douglas Sills plays the ultimate status symbol for a social striver in 1880s New York City.
Sills has a dapper moustache and a certain impatience as Monsieur Bourdain, who heads the kitchen of a railroad tycoon's wife who is determined to impress her old-money neighbors.
"She has outfitted herself with every important accessory that would be part of the ruling class," he says, "and one of those is to have a French chef instead of having a cook."
