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The gray garden story1/1/2024 ![]() “The mother did not want her doing that so there was a lot of conflict in the house in the last year.”īig Edie died in 1977. This was her chance to become a star,” says Bartram. “It gave Edie even more access to people, and as they were promoting it, she really wanted to get out there. The release of the film in 1975 made Edie a celebrity of sorts and offered her the kind of opportunities she’d long dreamed for. “People look at the house and think, oh it's so eccentric, these old ladies with their cats. ![]() “They lived in desperate poverty,” she says. But Pam Beale, who met Edie in 1982 when Pam married Edie's nephew Chris, believes what the film misses is just how much the Beales were suffering. Grey Gardens was a critical success and became a documentary classic. The gay community, in particular, embraced her and provided her with friends for the rest of her life. Little Edie won many fans through her sharp wit, propensity for dance routines, and a unique wardrobe consisting of turbans and cardigans worn as skirts ("the best costume for the day," as she put it). Little Edie seems to seethe with contempt for the situation she’s found herself in and the mother who requires so much of her. In another, she indulges in a predilection for showboating that had her singing along to “Tea for Two” as the record played. In one scene Big Edie looks longingly at her wedding portrait, years after her husband left her destitute. They’re sentimental, nostalgic, and narcissistic. The Beales are mercurial and uninhibited, pouring out their regrets to the camera and sniping about each other’s failures. They were fascinated by the pair’s faded glamour and uniquely intense-some would say dysfunctional-mother-daughter relationship and began filming Grey Gardens in 1973. The Maysles were introduced to the Edies through Radziwill and quickly knew they’d found a subject they couldn’t walk away from. It was reported at the time that Jackie and her sister Lee Radziwill contributed thousands of dollars that allowed the Beales to fix up the home and pay off some back taxes. The Beales became notorious in 1971 when a police raid uncovered a high level of squalor and the county health department threatened them with eviction. In 1952, after years spent modeling and pursuing show business fame in New York City, Little Edie returned home at age 34 and spent the next 25 years living in relative isolation with her mother, a large pack of cats, and the occasional raccoon, their formerly grand home decaying around them.Įdie’s cousin jackie kennedy (right) and her younger sister lee radziwill smile as they ride an elephant while on a trip in india, 1962. ![]() Her father, Phelan Beale, left Big Edie in the 1930s and provided scant financial support. Kent Bartram, who is writing a biography of Little Edie called Staunch Character, refers to Edie’s post-Grey Gardens life, which began in her 60s, as “her second debutante season.”īorn and raised in Manhattan, Little Edie, famously the first cousin of Jacqueline Onassis, was a long way away from her days at Miss Porter’s School and the Barbizon Hotel when documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles made her acquaintance in 1972. Over the following two decades she’d sell her famous home, relocate to New York City, and live in Florida, Canada, and California. Little Edie at Grey Gardens, in a still from the documentary. “The audience was obviously predisposed to love her, but she was completely charming and it was a huge success.” Those who knew her believe it was one of the greatest periods of her life. She was a wonderful performer, and she sang songs and then put little bits of her life in between the songs, and so on,” says Muffie Meyer, who co-edited and co-directed Grey Gardens. “She was never a fantastic singer, but she was sure a great show person. At the end of my 12 performances, I will know a little more about myself, and what I should do in life.”īeale performed six shows to a packed crowd of friends, devoted fans of the 1975 documentary and, reportedly, luminaries like Andy Warhol and Truman Capote. “I'm finally beginning to live!” the New York Times reported her as saying a few days later. The evening may not have taken the exact form of the Grey Gardens star’s long-held dreams of fame, but after 25 years of living in seclusion with her mother, it was more than good enough. On New Year’s Day in 1978, Edie Beale was onstage at the Greenwich Village nightclub Reno Sweeney, crooning “Tea for Two,” a riot of red feathers atop her head.
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