The following are some of the comments that poured into my mailbox over the days following the discovery of Little Edie's death. I owe them all a highball and some of Mother's special corn on the cob.
"i've been a big fan of heres since 1976 and it's nice to see someone who i think really got her - not as "camp" but as the unique s-t-a-u-n-c h person she was. i use her quotes all the time, they just sort of got in there and never left."
"I want to scream. But at least the fact that she lived in Bal Harbour up until her death makes me happy. It was a ritzy, beautiful place, and I'm sure she was ecstatic to be there. Right on the beach, it was, and chock full o' the art deco and exclusive shops and things. That makes me glad. I bet she got to be staunch there quite a bit, what with all the old New York Jews who live down there and all."
"i'm here if you need me - i have a feeling none of my friends are going to understand why i'm going to be sad the next few days."
"My one tiny consolation was that she DIDN'T die in poverty, as Harbour House was one of the most beautiful buildings in the city (they have a web site). Also, she went knowing we were starting a fan club for her, so she felt she accomplished something. Most of all, she can be again, with her mother, whom she spoke about in every conversation and so many, many letters. That was apparently the love of her life. She needs that."
"so of course i was up until 5:30 this morning watching and rewatching the DVD, and fell asleep towards the end of what must've been my third or fourth viewing - and was woken up by the sound of a phone ringing, and Little Edie's voice coming from my TV set talking about Al Gore: it was the recorded phone conversation with Al Maysles that's tacked on to the end of the film, after the credits and color bar, a wonderful "easter egg" that i'd never heard before in the four months that the DVD has been in my possession. i feel back asleep with tears in my eyes and a big smile on my face."
There were more - SO many more - who wrote with a simple quote from the film that always made them laugh, and messages from people who had been in contact with Little Edie and had "breaking news" for me while I was piecing together the obituary, and even some messages from a representative at Maysles Films who was very kind and professional in promply confirming the news. Thanks to everyone for your assistance, contributions, help, moral support and most importantly, your loving humor during what was a sad and unusual incident. What I admired most about Little Edie was her ability to always chime in with left-field wit even under the most trying circumstances, and your interactions were proof that this quality of Edie's wasn't lost.
Again: thanks, thanks and thanks. You all helped me stumble through the road less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.
Girly URLs
The following is an article I wrote for Gay Wired on January 17, 2002.
"Little" Edie Beale of Grey Gardens fame and a member of the Bouvier family that included Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, was found dead in her apartment in Bal Harbour, Fla., on January 14. At the time of this writing, a source close to Ms. Beale claims that the cause of death was either a stroke or a heart attack. Conflicting reports have estimated her to have been between 84 and 86 years old.
Edie and her mother, "Big" Edith Beale, were the subjects of the 1976 Maysles Brothers documentary Grey Gardens , a cinema verite film which recorded the lives of the two women in their dilapidated 28-room East Hampton estate. The movie chronicled the many colorful squabbles and intimacies of the eccentric mother-and-daughter duo and has survived the following decades as a cult classic, with Little Edie serving as the film's fractured philosopher guru and outsider fashion icon.
Little Edie's over-the-top eye for wardrobe was one of her most immediately noticed characteristics. In the opening scenes of Grey Gardens, audiences were introduced to Little Edie clad in a clingy brown turtleneck, a pair of sun pants pinned around her waist as a makeshift skirt and what could only be identified as a sheer nun's wimple on her head. Casually explaining what she called her "costume for the day," Little Edie said to the filmmakers, "I have to make these things up. Mother wanted me to come out in a kimono and we had quite a fight."
In the greater pop culture lexicon, the film and its subjects have enjoyed an occasional tip of the hat, but rarely enjoyed mainstream recognition. Among the scattered references in past years, singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright included a musical tribute to Little Edie on his last album, Poses; Madonna's Sex book photographer Steven Meisel shot a fashion pictorial for Italian Vogue in 1999, featuring an image on the magazine's cover of a model decked out in Edie's signature "revolutionary costume" of a sweater wrapped around her head, tacked in place by an ornate brooch.
An even funkier tribute saw the lives of the Beale women mixed with Chekhov's Three Sisters in the off-off-Broadway play Clear/Cut Catastrophe, which played briefly in New York City and featured Justin Bond of "Kiki and Herb" fame portraying Little Edie.
Other than occasional tributes such as these, Grey Gardens continues to quietly exist as an intimate gem for film lovers to discover and share. While falling short of mainstream pop culture's ever-fickle radar, the film has recently been re-released on video and DVD as part of the celebrated Criterion Collection film series. The DVD version of the film includes audio footage of Little Edie chatting with Interview magazine in 1976 and a recorded phone conversation between Little Edie and Albert Maysles recorded soon after the most recent presidential election, in which the staunchly devoted Democrat asks, "Do you think Al Gore still has a chance? In four years, maybe?"
Soon after the movie's initial 1976 theatrical release by Portrait Films, "Big" Edith Beale passed away at the age of 80 and Little Edie vacated the decaying estate of Grey Gardens. In 1978, Little Edie briefly pursued a career as a cabaret performer with a New York-based show in which she sang standards like "As Time Goes By" and her mother's favorite, "Tea For Two." The show also featured a question-and-answer session for fans curious about life after Grey Gardens and the world according to Edie. (When asked about her views on premarital sex, she responded simply, "It's economical.")
Despite the praise of fans, critical pans put a quick end to Little Edie's cabaret career. She ultimately retreated to Bal Harbour, where she lived comfortably among her memorabilia and poetry. Little Edie is quoted as saying that when her mother was on her deathbed, she said there was nothing more to say because everything she wanted to tell the world was said in the Maysles' film. "To my mother and me," said Little Edie in one interview, "Grey Gardens is a breakthrough to something beautiful and precious called life."
Although Little Edie maintained several mail and phone correspondences with friends and fans, she refused to be photographed and only rarely agreed to interviews. In what may be her last interview with a national publication, Edie spoke with Hilton Als of The New Yorker in 1998 about a limited theatrical re-release of Grey Gardens . She used the opportunity more for espousing her political views than for discussing the film, though she confirmed to Als that, yes, she still wore the self-described "costumes" of her Grey Gardens days.
"Living as she lived," Als later wrote, "an independent woman whose acts were infused -- not to say suffused -- by the presence of her late mother. Little Edie had spent most of her adult life with her mother; now she parted the warm, salty waves surrounding her Florida home alone."
According to sources close to Edie Beale, arrangements will be handled by her niece, Michelle Beale. Edie is said to be cremated and her wish was that she not be buried next to her mother in East Hampton. A private church ceremony will be held, probably in Florida, arranged by the Bouvier nephews, followed by a memorial next summer at the Hamptons.
"LITTLE" EDITH BOUVIER BEALE, JR.
"If you say anyone took care of my mother except for Mr. Beale, I'LL PUSH YOU UNDER THE GODDAMNED BED!" - Edith "Edie" Bouvier Beale, Jr., attacking a documentary crew.
Since I originally posted this GODDESS shrine to Edie Beale a few years back, I've been gleefully shocked to discover that this page has gotten the most response of anything I've put together at the Snowglobe. Sure, I spent about a year deconstructing the 100 wreckiest public figures of the 20th century and I've ranted about everything from Madonna to the 9 to 5 work ethic to gum under the seats at the cinema, but when it comes right down to it, all the attention to my site ultimately moves from my screeching celebrity monkeyhouse to this (until now) outdated little valentine to one of America's most disarming and overlooked sweethearts.
At the suggestion of several of the Edie-ites who wrote the Snowglobe, I hope to update the page quite a bit more regularly in the future.
The Snowglobe has also received a couple of notes from people who were friends of Edie Beale, claiming that she's been shown a print-out of this GODDESS shrine and is an Anxiety fan! For goodness' sakes.
This article is an updated version of the original "GODDESS" installment from (can ya believe) 1998. It's a very rough semblance of a "FAQ", to which I'll add as I learn more about this self-defined Staunch Character.
WHO IS EDIE BEALE?
Edith ("Edie") Bouvier Beale, Jr. was one of the subjects of a documentary directed by the Maysles Brothers ("Gimme Shelter," "Salesman") called "Grey Gardens." Perhaps more importantly to some, she was the cousin of Jackie O., and the self-titled "Greatest Dancer in the World".
WHY IS SHE A GODDESS?
First off, a couple of years back, ITALIAN VOGUE did a 20+ page photo spread based on "Grey Gardens" (shot by Stephen Meisel, no less) which featured designer versions of the "revolutionary costumes" Edie used to knot up into turbans and makeshift skirts (or "SKUUUHTS," as Edie would say). Anyone whose safety-pinned creations are later imitated by Prada is GODDESS-like in my book.
But mainly...she was just amazing.
Edie's easily-excitable personality was so much larger than life that she very nearly defies belief. Her conversation was so sharply etched in what we identify as high camp and over-the-top wit that one would wonder if maybe Tennessee WIlliams and Truman Capote used to run in front of her with cue cards as she pontificated about girdles and privot. Words that simply bounce off the top of her head during the filming of "Grey Gardens" become instantly quotable: "Isn't it sad when a dancer gets fat?" and "Mother likes everything WITHOUT GIRDLES...her and the neighbors don't believe in wearing girdles at all" are soundbytes that come to mind. And there's HEAPS more where that came from...the documentary's iconic scene of Edie in a one-piece swimsuit and giant sunhat, reading Zolar's "It's All In The Stars" with a magnifying glass and screeching enthusiastically about finding "the perfect Libra man" is another Edie moment not easily shaken.
WHO'S THIS "MOTHER" YOU KEEP GOING ON ABOUT?
Edie's mother, "Big" Edith Bouvier Beale, was the other main subject of the documentary "Grey Gardens." She too is a Goddess: Yoda-like and semi-exhibitionist ("I'm gonna get naked here in a minute, Edie..what do you think of that?"), with a vulgar sense of humor that clashes with her society-lady poses. Big Edith and Little Edie rant and shriek at each other all through the movie, and any time Edie dares to sneak into a room to speak with the documentary crew alone, one can easily hear Big Mama Edith screaming in the background, "YOO-HOO, OH EDIE! EDIE, YOO-HOO!" Mama Edith is dead now - she was 79 when "Grey Gardens" was filmed in 1975, and she died a year later. I read an article lately in which Edie said that when Mama Edith was on her deathbed, she told her daughter that she had nothing more to say because everything she wanted to tell the world was said in the movie made about them.
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO EDIE?
A few years after Mama Edith died, Edie left Grey Gardens, the huge rotting estate that they lived in for decades, and spent the remainder of her life in Florida. In 1998, NEW YORKER magazine managed to snag a rare phone interview with Edie when "Grey Gardens" was re-screened at the Film Forum Cinema. The most of what I remember is that she said she still loves the movie, and then she spent a lot of the interview dissing republicans. "Little" Edie Beale died in January, 2002.
WHAT DID EDIE LOOK LIKE IN RECENT YEARS?
Sadly, we'll never know. While Edie sometimes granted a few words to the press, she absolutely refused to be photographed. She remained in good health until the time of her death, putting together revolutionary costumes every day and swimming regularly. Despite her refusal to sit for a photographer, she repeatedly claimed that "I don't look a day over 60." After all, this staunch character never weakened. Ever.
For more info, visit Grey Gardens.
