Grey Gardens
I was captivated by Grey Gardens and will watch it over and over again. Truly eccentric, probably nuts, the two Edies are certainly two women living their lives to the fullest. Depressing as all get out and as exhilirating as it is depressing, I am so glad to have discovered the two Edies and their 28 room dump in the Hamptons.
The Two Edies
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Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (October 5, 1895 – February 5, 1977), aunt of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, was an amateur singer known for her eccentric lifestyle. Her life and relationship with her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale were highlighted in the documentary Grey Gardens.
Early life
She was the daughter of John Vernou Bouvier, Jr. and Maude Sergeant Bouvier (the paternal grandparents of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis). Beale's mother was the daughter of a wealthy paper manufacturer and her father was a successful attorney who was appointed Major in the Judge Advocate Corps for the United States Army during World War I. He liked to be addressed as Major Bouvier and later invented a faux royal mythos of his Bouvier lineage in the privately printed Our Forebears, which gave his grandchildren the quote: "The hallmark of aristocracy is responsibility."
Beale enjoyed a privileged upbringing along with her brothers John Vernou Bouvier III, William Sergeant "Bud" Bouvier (1893-1929), who died prematurely from alcoholism, and her red-headed twin sisters Maude and Michelle.
Marriage and children
Beale pursued an amateur singing career and in 1917 married lawyer/financier Phelan Beale (who worked at her father's law firm Bouvier and Beale) in a lavish ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. The couple lived at 987 Madison Avenue (now the site of the Carlyle Hotel). They had three children, daughter Edith (who was referred to as "Little Edie"), born November 7, 1917, and two sons (Phelan Beale, Jr. - born 1920 and Bouvier Beale - born 1922).
In 1923, Phelan Beale purchased the 28-room Grey Gardens mansion on Lily Pond Lane in the Georgica Pond neighborhood of East Hampton, a block from the Atlantic Ocean. The Beales separated in 1931 when Little Edie was 14, with "Big Edie" retaining the Grey Gardens house. Beale received child support, but no form of alimony. She continued to pursue her singing career, giving recitals in her home and at local functions. Her sons went off to college and World War II duty and had families of their own.
When she showed up at her son’s 1942 wedding dressed like an opera star, Major Bouvier cut her mostly out of his will - leaving her only a small trust of $65,000 (Beale's mother Maude died in 1940 and Major Bouvier died in 1948). Beale became depressed and gained weight. She also had several eye operations in the 1940s. In 1946, Phelan Beale revealed their divorce via telegram from Mexico. (Little Edie referred to it as a "fake Mexican divorce" because it was not recognized by the Catholic Church).
Major Bouvier and her son Bouvier "Buddy" Beale urged Beale for many years to sell her "white elephant" Grey Gardens, but she refused.
Life at Grey Gardens
Beale had two live-in male companions at various times at Grey Gardens: her accompanist George "Gould" Strong and handyman Tom "Tex" Logan. In July 1952, her daughter Little Edie returned after five years in Manhattan to live permanently at Grey Gardens when Beale was age 57. In 1960, when Beale was 65, her niece Jacqueline Kennedy became First Lady. After a 1968 robbery of antiques while Beale was at a party in East Hampton, she began to leave the house less frequently.
In the 1970s, the First Lady's sister Lee Radziwill discussed creating a documentary with Albert and David Maysles about Jacqueline Kennedy's girlhood in East Hampton. At about the same time, the Edies received national attention when the National Enquirer ran an expose on the deplorable conditions in which they lived. The Suffolk County, New York, Board of Health made a raid, ordering them to clean up the property, which was falling into disrepair and was being overrun with dozens of feral cats, raccoons and opossums.The once-elegant grounds were a tangled jungle; 25 of the 28 rooms were unused,In the dining room, they found a five-foot mountain of empty cans; in the upstairs bedrooms,it was said they saw human waste and the fleas were so thick that the filmmakers wore flea collars around their ankles during the filming. After the publicity, Jacqueline Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis donated $32,000 to clean the house and install a new furnace and plumbing system, and cart away 1,000 bags of garbage. Beale did not have the funds for trash removal and house repairs. Beale's sons agreed to pay the back taxes on the property, which they had hoped for decades their mother would sell. After the stressful raids by county officials, Beale never left her home again in fear that she would lose permanent legal access to her house.
In 1973, the Maysles Brothers accompanied Lee Radziwill on a visit to the Edies and David Maysles decided that the women would make better subjects for their film. Maysles and Susan Froemke quickly edited the footage of the women and showed it to Radziwill, who balked and ultimately confiscated the film. The Maysleses returned, however, and the focus of their documentary was the Edies, instead of the First Lady. Beale and her daughter were each paid $5,000 for the documentary, which featured their daily lives, songs and dances included. They never did obtain a percentage of the film profits as originally allegedly promised by the Maysles brothers. The film was screened for the two Edies in the upstairs hall of Grey Gardens in 1975. Little Edie declared it "a classic!"
The Grey Gardens documentary was met with mixed reviews by critics, but has become a cult hit in the subsequent decades.
Death
Beale died of pneumonia at Southampton Hospital in Southampton, New York, following a fall at her home. She is buried in the Bouvier family plot at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Cemetery in East Hampton.
As she neared her death, Beale reportedly told her daughter that she had left nothing unsaid, as it was "all in the film."
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Edith Bouvier Beale (November 7, 1917 – ca. January 9, 2002) was an American socialite, fashion model and Cabaret performer. She was a first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill. She is best known as "Little Edie," one of the subjects of the documentary film Grey Gardens by Albert and David Maysles
Early life
Beale was born in New York City, the only daughter of Phelan Beale, a lawyer, and Edith Ewing Bouvier (known as "Big Edie"). She was born at 987 Madison Avenue (now the site of the Carlyle Hotel). She had two brothers, Phelan Beale, Jr., and Bouvier Beale and had a privileged upbringing. Beale attended The Spence School, and graduated from Miss Porter's School, in 1935. She had her debut at the Pierre Hotel on New Year's Day, 1936. Ms. Beale lived a gilded life as a youth. Also in 1936, The New York Times reported on her debut, at which she wore a gown of white net appliqued in silver and a wreath of gardenias in her hair.
Starting at 17, she began a successful career as a model. She felt that she was on the verge of a big break into films in 1952, when she was 35. She said she had offers from MGM and Paramount, and that her dance career was set to take off. She also said that wealthy men like Howard Hughes and J. Paul Getty had asked her to marry them. Whether on the verge of success or not, she was called home to Grey Gardens by her mother, who said she was ill and needed her. She stayed with her mother at Grey Gardens until two years after her mother died. She was also a member of the Maidstone Country Club of East Hampton
While Beale was young, her mother pursued a singing career, hiring an accompanist and playing small venues and private parties. In the summer of 1931, Phelan Beale abandoned the family, leaving 35-year-old Big Edie dependent on her family for the care of herself and children. Some time later, he obtained, as Little Edie described it, a "fake Mexican divorce" since it was not recognized by the Catholic Church.
In her youth, Little Edie was a clothes model, primarily in department stores in New York and Palm Beach, Florida. She later claimed to have dated J. Paul Getty, and to have once been engaged to Joe Kennedy, Jr.
From 1947 until 1952, she lived in the Barbizon Hotel for Women, hoping to find fame and possibly a husband in Manhattan. While she states in the documentary Grey Gardens that she was on the search for an ordered life and a Libra husband, she later confessed in footage included in The Beales of Grey Gardens (2006), and in unseen raw footage, that she seemed only to be interested in men whose zodiac sign was Sagittarius, a bad match for her. She also mused that she had "landed" in New York "at the wrong time," and had not enjoyed the experience. She had moved to the Barbizon Hotel after feeling unsafe at her previous apartment furnished in her mother's valuable antiques. Little Edie told her mother (in the documentary) that by moving back home she missed her big showbiz break via Max Gordon.
According to Edie Beale's diaries and letters left to her estate executor (nephew), she had an affair in the late 1940s with Julius Albert Krug, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, who was already married. The relationship is depicted in the 2009 HBO bio film. 'Big Edith' Beale also alludes to "that married man" during an argument with her daughter in the documentary ("That married man was not going to give you any chance at all.").
Grey Gardens
On July 29, 1952, Beale returned to live with her mother in the East Hampton estate Grey Gardens (at 3 West End Road). The home had been purchased for Big Edie in 1923, when it still had one of the finest gardens on the East Coast.
In a 1980 letter to her nephew, Bouvier Beale, Jr., Beale claimed that: "When Grandfather died (in 1948), he left $65,000 in trust. Jack B. ("Black Jack" Bouvier, Big Edie’s brother and Wall Street broker) had only one objective — to grab the Beale trust fund to invest for his daughters (Jackie and Lee) and he did. He was supposed to take care of Mother." Instead, Big Edie ended up with $300 per month. Mother and daughter reportedly remained independent by selling off their Tiffany pieces item by item.
After the 1963 death of the Beales' caretaker and handyman Tom "Tex" Logan, and a burglary in 1968, the women lived in near isolation, and increasing and eventually abject poverty.
On October 22, 1971, inspectors from the Suffolk County Health Department raided the house and discovered that it violated every known building regulation The story became a national scandal. Health Department officials said they would evict the women unless the house was cleaned. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis came to the rescue, paying $32,000 to clean the house, install a new furnace and plumbing system, and cart away 1,000 bags of garbage.
The Beales' fame arose out of the Maysles brothers' 1975 direct cinema documentary film Grey Gardens. The film revealed the strong ties between Mrs. Beale and Little Edie, as well as showcasing the reclusive pair's daily rituals of song, recollections, arguments, and reconciliations. Beale and her mother were each paid $5,000 for the documentary, which featured their daily lives, songs and dances included. They never did obtain a percentage of the film profits as originally allegedly promised by the Maysles brothers. The film was screened for the two Edies in the upstairs hall of Grey Gardens in 1975. Little Edie declared it "a classic!"
Later life
After her mother's death in February 1977, Beale attempted to start a cabaret career at age 60 with eight shows (January 10–14, 1978) at Reno Sweeney, a Manhattan night spot at 126 W. 13th Street. The club kept the bad reviews from her (The New York Times, on 12 January 1978, called it "a public display of ineptitude"), and she faced two new audiences a night, even through a fever and although she recently had undergone cataract surgery. Beale lived in the house for about two years, according to her mother's wishes, holding out against selling Grey Gardens as a teardown. In 1979, she sold the house to Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee after they promised to restore it and paid her $220,000.
Beale then moved to a small rental cottage in Southampton, New York, and then moved to a studio apartment on East 62nd Street in New York City, where she lived from 1980 to 1983 before moving to Florida. She lived briefly in Montreal in the mid-1990s (to master speaking French), and with relatives in Oakland, California, in 1997. She returned to Bal Harbour, Florida, in the fall of 1997, where she remained in quiet isolation, writing poetry and corresponding with friends and fans. She reportedly swam every day until close to her death at the age of 84.
Death
Edie Beale was discovered dead in her apartment on January 14, 2002, after a concerned fan could not reach her on the phone. She had been dead about five days from a presumed heart attack. She was cremated, and a memorial service was held in the local Catholic church in East Hampton. She was survived by three nephews and one niece.[1]
She reportedly did not wish to be buried alongside her Mother in East Hampton, and had requested having her ashes scattered in/near the Atlantic. Her remains are interred in Long Island's Locust Valley Cemetery, next to the grave of her brother Bouvier "Buddy" Beale.
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