Was Edie Beale mentally ill or simply an upper class elite snob living by her own rules ?

Big or Little?

they were both awesome eccentric artistic icons..

Mentally ill, both of them, and they had a bad codependency.

Once freed by her mother’s death, Little Edie’s life improved.

They did have a tiny bit of money, so they could have gone somewhere cheaper and lived in… not squalor; small apartment. But neither had the skills to live in the real world, where you live in an apartment and clip coupons and don’t care what the social register people think. Big Edie was actually the recluse. Edie would go into town and do things. (That must have been a sight!)

R1 Beaver or Edie?

A mix of legit mental illness and probably a human reaction to being surrounded by such selfish elitist cunts. I think being around warmer and kinder people would have helped her mental state and made her less likely to withdraw from the world completely.

Co dependency too as someone noted above.

One thing that was pretty clear from watching GG, was that the little grocery delivery boy had been sexually traumatized by little Edie.

The longer the fall, the harder the landing.

Same as most people - a little crazy. But the money - or house more specifically - allowed them to avoid working and being forced to conform to an image of sociable “normal” people. Now that I’m retired, I realize that’s the way most people are when they have the luxury of not working.

Little Edie was diagnosed as clinically staunch.

Jacqueline had been gaslighting them for decades, calling them and saying, "I just got back from the Whitneys' and everyone was talking about you, how lovely you and the house still look. It's like nothing has changed."

BOTH WERE DELIGHTFUL

Wore a skirt on her head? Was living amongst piles of cat shit? Didn't use sun screen?

Crazy to think they were going to get me to cut all that damn Privet back so they could plant a garden!

But food was going up, Brooks! We heard it on the radio!

Neither, OP.

She was rich white trash

I've never watched Grey Gardens, but this thread inspired me to.

R16, your gay card is suspended until you do. And how you ever got it in the first place…

Privileged people are often like this. Useless in every way, they have no idea of how society actually works.

R8 makes a very point.

Candy and Tori Spelling remind me of these two.

She was completely sane. Faking it for the attention those two brother documentarians gave her.

I'm about halfway through the documentary, and Little Edie seams more unhinged than her mother

Little Edie seems more unhinged because her mother never got out of bed. You can only exhibit so much insanity lying in bed. It’s more noticeable when you parade it around town.

IMHO Big Edie was the really crazy one, possibly a Cluster B Personality Disorder such as NPD. And Little Edie was someone who'd had a mother with a Cluster B personality Disorder.

It was Big Edie who chose to live in filth and isolation, and who refused to make any concessions to reality, Little Edie was there because she was more or less stuck, nobody else would give her a place to live or a job. When Little Edie got some money from her own and was freed from the obligation of caring for her elderly mother, she went to live in a normal seaside condo in Florida and lived quietly, although she did continue to dress in her own unique style.

Little Edie should have remained living at The Barbizon. And didn’t she at one point have a male benefactor when she was young?

Didn't that vile disgusting woman Sally Quinn wind up buying that house?

R25, Sally and hubby restored house.

"Little Edie should have remained living at The Barbizon. "

She'd have been far happier if she had, but her family refused to keep funding her life in New York, and she didn't earn enough through the occasional modelling gig or married man to live independently.

That's how life was for rich girls, in the 20th century it probably still is. The family would pay for them to go live a fabulous life in a big city, but they were expected to find a rich big-city husband as soon as they could, or elese. If they didn't find a husband in a few years, they money was cut off and they were told to come home, and then they were either pressured to marry some local yutz or treated as a useless poor relation, like Edie was.

"Big Edie was actually the recluse."

She enjoyed visitors. I just think she could no longer hoist her aged girth off the bed.

Big Edie WAS the recluse: her family kept begging her to sell her huge house and live in a sensible condo on the proceeds, which is exactly what Little Edie did when she had a little money and freedom.

Like I said, Big Edie was the more seriously crazy of the two, she was the one who chose to live in a filthy, stinking crumbling ruin, Little Edie was only there because she had no place else to go. I don't know what was wrong with Little Edie, other than being an airy-fairy proto-Hippie "free spirit" who didn't want to work or get married, which isn't necessarily crazy. I haven't gotten married and don't particularly want to work, I work because I've realized it's a better deal than living with my own narcissistic mother.

Big Edie was eccentric but not mental. She was just old and obese and probably depressed. Her main goal was protecting her mentally ill daughter from the harsh world. Cloistering her away from prying eyes.

I love Little Edie. The towel adjustment in this clip is everything!

Big Edie was mentally ill and destroyed her daughter's life. However, Little Edie was a grown woman and is responsible for her descent into squalor. But tragically she was allowed herself to be dominated by Big Edie, who needed company. And I think Little Edie hated her failure at life. I don't know why Little Edie didn't keep up the place through her own labour. Revenge, anger, and self sabotage. She had nothing else to do, and she didn't need to keep it in grand fashion, but Little Edie gave up completely and actively turned that house into a trash heap. Big Edie was bed ridden. It was Little Edie who let the trash and shit pile up, let the house open to the elements so it was overrun with vermin. What was that house like in the winter? The mind boggles. It's a miracle it never burnt to the ground.

It’s funny how behavior that in the real world would get you fucking institutionalized, when you’re rich or famous (or both ) is merely deemed “eccentric.”

They remind me of the hoarders. They live with vermin and trash. They don't institutionalize hoarders so why would they institutionalize the Beales? normally hoarders just get fined if caught and the health department comes down on them.

Dr. SuZAHN ChaBAU would have fit right in at Grey Gardens r34

Is it just my interpretation or was Big Edie a major alcoholic? Among the handful of groceries delivered, grocery guy brings booze and Big Edie is clearly shitfaced as she slurs through "Tea For Two" and boils corn on the cob. Little Edie isn't bothered by her mom's drunken behavior because she's accustomed to it.

I don't see any delusional behavior or even evidence of depression, but I do see alcoholism and some personality disorders (histrionic?) coupled with years of isolation.

In 1973, women couldn't even have independent checking accounts without their husband's signatures.

“My father got a fake Mexican divorce, it isn't recognized by the Catholic church.”

[quote]Do you think her beaver was ripe ?

It smelled like pate. Or possibly giblets for the cats. Hard to tell as it was so faded.

I'm thinking that someone who lies in a bed covered in dog poop is mentally ill.

There werent any dogs at grey gardens.

OK, cats, then (it's been a long time since I saw the film).

Wasn’t Big Edie depressed because her husband divorced her? She was a high society woman with no skills who was abandoned by her husband.

It’s been a long time since I’ve watched the documentary. Little Eadie had two brothers. What happened to them? Why didn’t they help out or put the mother into a nursing home?

Rich people who hoard are never called hoarders, they are simply "eccentric".

"Wasn’t Big Edie depressed because her husband divorced her? She was a high society woman with no skills who was abandoned by her husband."

Big Edie's husband decamped because she was fucking her voice teacher, and she didn't give a rat's ass about her marriage. All she wanted to do, and all she did, was sit around her grand house and sing, and that's all she did as the money ran out and her grand house began to fall apart and Society forgot her existence. Eventually, there was nothing left but the crumbling walls and her daughter who had no place to go, but Big Edie still refused to change, in her own mind she was still a Grande Dame who had nothing to worry about but her artistic pretensions.

I really think Big Edie was the crazier of the two, but of course by the time the documentary was made, she was so old that her crazy was less obvious than Little Edie's. By that point, all we could see was the helpless old lady who lived in the past, we didn't see how she'd been the one to create the horrible situation they were in.

I thought the husband was the one fucking around. He was a dick.

I'm not schizophrenic ... I have a hell of a temper, it's Southern!

He probably was, R45, but Edie was also having an affair when the marriage ended. I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Beale were both happy to be away from each other, and have their freedom.

Big Edie should have been fine after the divorce, she had enough money to live on and a big house, she was still beautiful, and if she'd married well again or just lived within her means, she'd had have reasonably prosperous life. But she didn't want to marry again or live within her means, or sell her house when she needed money to live on. If she'd had the sense to sell Grey Gardens and buy a smaller place, she'd have been fine, but she hung onto a house she couldn't afford to maintain, until even her sons got fed up and let her rot.

[quote]Big Edie's husband decamped because she was fucking her voice teacher

He was gay as a goose.

Are we talking about the character Malcom Gets played in the movie? That seemed like years after Mr and Mrs Edie split up.

R48 her voice teacher, or her husband?

R6 you should watch the parody on the Netflix show “Documentary NOW” I think its season 1, episode 1. Sandy Passage.

Edie’s husband wasn’t gay. He had three children.

Ask Elaine Stritch how many children John Bays gave her.

Muffie Meyer, the editor of Grey Gardens, said they purposely constructed the narrative of the film in such a way as to keep the viewer guessing as to whose "fault" it was that the two women ended up that way. At the beginning of the movie, Little Edie is erratic and Big Edie is level-headed. It flips halfway through, and more and more you see Little Edie trying to assert her independence (i.e. have a private conversation in a different room) while Big Edie's calls for help become more and more desperate. You can't judge their relationship by the movie alone, which was designed to manipulate the viewer. Neither woman was certifiably crazy, only crazy in the way you'd have to be to break from the constraints imposed on you by early 20th Century Society. Big Edie had enough confidence in herself to live her life on her terms, and didn't give a shit about keeping up appearances. Life at Grey Gardens didn't suit Little Edie at all, but apart from whether or not she was able to support herself, she felt it was her duty to take care of her increasingly aged and frail mother who she idolized and who'd have been completely alone, otherwise.

But little Edie die not raise a FINGER to keep that home livable. What did she do all day, for years? The trash just piled up. One doesn't even see any sign of hording as in object accumulation. Little Edie simply never took out the trash or washed a dish or repaired a cracked window. She let her mother live 24/7 in a filthy bed.

It was worse than camping. They lived in their own shit and that of any wild animal in the neighborhood.

My take was Big Edie was a narc and the villain. Little Edie was damaged from living her life around Big Edie.

I dont like Big Edie, I like Little Edie but I also find them both to be gross

Was there something about they no longer paid the trash collectors? But they had that big garden. Little Edie could have made a rustic compost of sorts. Would the zoning then have called them out for that? It wasn't the 80s after all and the Hamptons had a few decades when everything and everyone wasn't an uptight bitch and certainly not the off season months.

Also little Edie could have put the tin cans in a bag and used a public bin. Or got some local kid to haul away her trash once and awhile. They just let it all pile up. It's mental illness on display.

Liza likes Li'l Edie but NOT Big Edie!

[quote]the Hamptons had a few decades when everything and everyone wasn't an uptight bitch

Oh, really? They could get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday.

It was both. Even the biggest snob would get a job or downsize if it meant living amongst filth.

The filth seemed to be a choice rather than obviously caused by limited finances. You can live in a decaying house, with an overgrown garden, an on meagre rations, with stained old Hermes scarves and the very very last of your Dior and Guerlain perfume, without living in filth. Didn't anyone ask them why they lived like that? Little Edie was abled bodied.

Jackie and Ari sent in crews to clean the place up and paint. Lee oversaw some of the process. Thereafter, Little Edie received expensive hand-me-downs from Jackie while Big Edie received a $400/mo stipend from the Onassises which Jackie continued after Ari's death. What you see in the documentary is the afterward of that intervention.

Yes.

No Beale is (whispers) schizophrenic. Too strong!

If you look at Edie’s room, it’s quite tidy. There aren’t piles of things all over and cats shitting everywhere. It made me sad.

I know a man who lived in a Grey Gardens of an East Village apartment. His mother was a hoarder. When she died, he bought a house in a suburb and it is a completely normal house without clutter and dead animals and decay. He loved her and stayed with her far longer than he should have, trying to help her “clean up”. She was a nice lady, but had an intractable mental illness.

R56, East Hampton has a municipal dump where you have to bring the garbage. (You have to separate and sort it nowadays too.) Alternatively, you can pay a private carting company to pick it up. They do the sorting, apparently. There is no trash pickup provided by the town.

If the Beale women didn’t have a car, they couldn’t go to the dump. If they didn’t have much money, private carting service wasn’t an option. I suppose they maybe burned some, but I don’t know what the laws were, back then, about burning trash.

But Little Edie did keep up the house. In the film, it's ramshackle (they couldn't afford repairs) but apart from Big Edie's bed (where much of the film took place) the house itself was tidy. As an above poster noted, they couldn't afford to get the garbage picked up. In "That Summer," Edie explained that she put all the garbage in the cellar, until it was completely full, then there was nowhere else for it to go.

I always loved the contrast of the two beds side-by-side. Big Edie's stained and filthy with piles of trash, and Little Edie's perfectly made with a duvet. Says it all.

The documentary is AFTER the cleanup arranged by Jackie and Lee. This is a mess and it is not the cellar.

R68 Your image is from the first news article that published the Edies' story in the early 70s, which is how Jackie got roped into the major cleanup, which eventually brought the Maysles in to film the documentary. That picture is about 4 or 5 years before Grey Gardens was filmed.

I grew up in a small town in NH that had a lot of old money wealth. We had a woman very similar to Little Edie, in fact she is still alive, but has been placed in a home by her siblings. She would walk around town in the summer with her fur coats and designer bags, sadly she smelled terrible. She lived with her mother in a huge house, once the mother passed Tracy was moved to a home. Some days you could have a coherent conversation with Tracy, but most days she was rambling. Most of the rambling had to do with her father, he had divorced her mother and married another woman...the odd thing was that the other siblings were "normal" but the mother and Tracy were the odd one's out.

Little Edie was stunted by her mother. Her mother was selfish and seemed to have dementia. Both had mental illness by a sad and bizarre situation. They lived in filth, until Jackie had help come and clean up the house, so they wouldn't be evicted.

The Beales remind me of "The Glass Menagerie." Their characters could have been written by Tennessee Williams.

IMO, both were mentally ill. I'd say Big Edie bore more responsibility for their plight, but Little Edie was an adult.

The trash, alone, was horrifying. Even if they couldn't afford trash service, they could have relegated the trash to one are of the property.

As far as restoring the house, I don't see the reason for it. If I did have the money & the desire to buy the house, I'd renovate it however I wanted. I'm sure the cat piss and other smells were hard to neutralize.

The owner that bought it from the Beales gutted it and said you could still smell cat piss when it rained ^

R72 You would be correct about some of the odors. Apparently, even after the Bradlee's very expensive makeover of Grey Gardens, the whiff of animal pee still appears on particularly muggy days in certain parts of the house.

Once pee gets into wood, it's impossible to get it all out.

Very sad about the neglected animals, filthy and crumbling home, but those two were damn fascinating. Like Truman Capote characters, they lived in a world of their own, obsessed with the small details and grievances of their lives. Classic. I do not tire of watching GG, but now only clips rather than the entire film.

Funny, I hadn't read the entire thread but after posting saw R72's post. Definitely Tennessee William and the Glass Menagerie. Southern literature is full of such characters but they are everywhere.

Living in a generally run-down but particularly fine (in relation to one's rooms) house isn't something really demented, Voltaire and Mme. du Châtelet lived like that at Cirey, most of the palace was in a rather poor state but their rooms were luxurious; Mme. de Graffigny judged that: "Except for her rooms, and Voltaire's, the house is filthy dirty."

The Documentary Now 'Sandy Shores' is one of the funniest things I've seen in years. My gut hurt from laughing so hard.

Calling the modest Chateau de Cirey a "palace" is a reach.

Photo taken at one of their last social outings. Grey Gardens was robbed while they were away.

Little Edie made the most of what she had in clothing, which wasn't much, making her unique style her own. She wore the same items in different ways. In a weird way, she became a style icon...influencing designers. A safety pin, placed just so, on a skirt wrap....the scarf on her head and the famous pin, which has been duplicated for sale. It was her thing, I guess, to keep control and have a ritual in her life.

R79 [italic]Château[/italic] means palace in French... And Cirey isn't one bit modest.

Château means castle, actually. A palace in the Age of Enlightenment was royal or the residence of a bishop (and pope of course) and sometimes (Arch) Dukes or Princes, etc, depending on the country.

R83 "a) Maison de maître de grandes dimensions située au milieu d'une vaste propriété."

One of the many definitions for [italic]château[/italic] given by the [italic]Trésor de la langue française[/italic]. Americans really will argue on no basis about everything. Here's the Wikipedia even: "Most French châteaux are "palaces" or fine "country houses" rather than "castles", and for these, the word "château" is appropriate in English."

I think Bradlee added on to the house. There is huge wing to it now, but back in the day it was square and not that enormous.

The carriage house is very large, however.

And in the "Age of [the] Enlightenment" I know of no king, prince and bishop that lived in a fortress; Versailles, Schönbrunn, etc. nobody speaks of them in English as castles, in French or German it's different because [italic]château[/italic] or [italic]Schloß[/italic] does mean palace beside fortress.

Oh my god will you shut up!? Chateau de Cirey is a chateau. Not a palace. At all. Chateau means Castle in French. 16th -19th "Chateau" came to identify large country manor, not a castle, of course. But NOT A PALACE. "Palais" means palace in French. For crissakes.

R78 thank you for the recommendation! Bill Hader is great as Little Viv (Little Edie).

The introduction had be duped into thinking I was watching the real thing! 😆

Your dotty aunt with more money.

Thank you...French HAS a bloody word for palace! It's palais!

A chateau is...a chateau!

"Definition of château 1: a feudal castle or fortress in France 2: a large country house : MANSION 3: a French vineyard estate

Why didn't Edie clean up that sty, or at least make an effort? Maybe she'd tried and given up, maybe she suffered from depression and couldn't motivate herself, maybe she didn't know how and didn't have anyone to teach her household skills, maybe her mother demanded constant attendance and she couldn't get away long enough to make a dent in the filth.

Or maybe she was one of those weird formerly rich people who refuses to adjust to reality, like the woman I heard about who spent her adult life walking around with her clothes unfastened, because she still expected maids to dress her and button her blouses and zip up her skirt... and she was NOT going to do it herself. Maybe it was that level of crazy, maybe not, we'll never know. We just know that Edie didn't live in filth when she was able to make her own decisions.

What's the story with the sons/brothers? Why didn't they stage an intervention?

R93, apparently the Beale brothers/sons spend years trying to convince Big Edie to sell her damn house and live a sensible life in an affordable home with garbage pickup, after decades of failing they gave up. Neither was rich, they couldn't afford to repair the crumbling house or support the Edies.

What could they do, Big Edie may have been crazy, but I don't think she was crazy enough to be institutionalized and to have her finances put under the control of her sons, and it's not like the sons wanted to take responsibility for that filthy house.

Presumably the sons had families and that gave them the entitlement to fuck all the way off. Single people are always the ones stuck with looking after elderly parents.

It is odd because the sons were not rich but if they could have managed to keep Big and Little in touch with reality they could have maintained the home and at least have had a fabulous summer beach house to enjoy. I guess Big Edie held no value as a grandmother. All very strange. The house is 2 blocks from the beach. They must have frozen their tits off in the winter, when the first floor was totally destroyed and seemed open to the elements.

It was just possible to fill in all the blanks by putting the puzzle pieces together before "That Summer" was released but that documentary plainly shows how the Edies were actively victimized by the local government. Lee Radziwill's shock when the social worker lets slip the number of unscheduled visits to the house they made is very telling. That Summer also shows the state of the house before the clean-up was completed: the original paint and wallpaper on the walls, their antique furniture. Somehow it looks more livable. That garish paint covering every inch makes the place look derelict.

You can’t just persuade mentally ill people to do something. If you watch Hoarders, it’s evident how impossible it is for the hoarder to get rid of even one item. No way big edie was going to give up her “lifestyle.”

Was the fur coat from a mink or Fox or pelt from an in-house critter?

BE wouldn't have lived like that if she'd had the money.

It was a mink supposedly given to her by one Julius Krug, then Sec of the Interior. He was a married man with whom LE was having an affair while living at the Barbazon in NYC during the 1950s.

There's a pic from 1975 at Getty Images of Little Edie having lunch with Lillian Gish and Anita Loos at the Russian Tea Room. That is just so bizarre!

That house was too much for one elderly lady and one middle aged lady with no money to take care of. Those kinds of houses and grounds were built to be taken care of by a ream of servants.

In regard to the house being expanded, I'm not entirely sure. However, the last time I drove by (3 or 4 yrs ago perhaps), it was stripped down to the studs. It also looked like a new foundation was being erected, and that the house was being raised/elevated. I imagine that would be to make it more flood-ready. From the sides I could see, the earth was excavated, with new concrete poured. I didn't see any solid walls, just framing. This would have been after Quinn finally sold it. It must be worth a fucking fortune now. Primo location.

Hopefully all foul smells are finally gone, even on muggy days.

R101, his Wikipedia page includes the following sentence, without sourcing and in a totally incorrect style:

[quote] Dated Edith Eddie Bouvier from Grey Gardens on the side.

Also, "Eddie"? Come on.

Her beau n'était pas beau.

R102 that was taken for (I think) Interview Magazine, and the accompanying article is just as strange. Edie looked lovely, though.

What in God’s name would LE have to talk about to Lilian Gish and a former secretary of the interior?????

R107 it was the Village Voice, Arthur Bell did the interview. I've read about the interview but I don't know which issue it's in, though would love to read it. It was part of the Grey Gardens publicity, I believe.

The new owner of the house is maternity designer Liz Lange. Here's a photoshoot that shows a little of the interiors. Looks like a different garish wallpaper in every room. She raised the house up to make room for a gym and a wine cellar.

Here's some pics showing the new grounds. She restored the upstairs porch the Edies sunned themselves on. She got rid of the rectangular pool and the tennis court from the Sally Quinn era and replaced it with a big round pool and a pavilion

Liz Lange in her caftan in r111's article reminds me of Sue Mengers.

I hate what she has done, but something tells me LE would absolutely love it.

I notice Liz put some trellis on the front of the house. Looks like she's gonna let the vines grow up again. In that documentary That Summer Big Edie was upset about the vines having been removed.

[Quote]Was Edie Beale mentally ill or simply an upper class elite snob living by her own rules ?

I think she simply wasn't taught to think for herself, and live independently. She was raised to be someone's wife and spend whatever money he gave her. Had she become a singer/actress, she still would've expected that to be lucrative enough to continue living a wealthy privileged life. Outside of those possibilities, she was lost.

She simply didn’t know how to live. She had never been taught then later in life either didn’t care to try - perhaps beneath her or there was mental illness. It speaks volumes that her sons were estranged from her at the time of the intervention.

It's all odd since the Bouviers never had big money, so they all had folie de grandeur. Expecting to live in the lap of luxury forever, until death. Say what you want about the hideous gold-digger Janet Norton Lee, she had the good sense to force her daughters to marry big fortunes. Lee kind of muddied the agenda. She seemed to get distracted by jet set social pedigree. Michael Temple Canfield had family money, but he was adopted, but also was rumored to be the illegitimate son of Prince George, Duke of Kent. Then she bagged the Prince but who knows how much cash that Radziwiłł had of his own. Impeccable grandee standing, of course. Janet herself hit paydirt with the Auchincloss.

Little Edie's life would have been different had she married young, with a good starter husband. Even if she got divorced, she could go back on the market without shame.

GG is sacred. I hate seeing those vapid women on those grounds in those caftans.

Mentally ill but not to the point where she would require commitment.

If this "designer" stripped the house to the studs, is it still the house? Did they save whatever original elements were possible? Bradlee also stripped it and rebuilt.

Why don't these zillionaires raze it and build it new, perhaps 20% larger in scale.

r119 Big or Little?

R117, yes, LE's social position would have been better if she' married young, but she really didn't want to marry just because society thought she should. IMHO that's to her credit to a certain extent, nobody should marry just vecause they're being pressured to.

But I guess she was one of those people who had a clear idea of what they *don't* want, but no clue what they *do* want.

edie and mommy were creative angels from another dimension who had the ill fortune to have been born too early/late.

FLY ROBIN FLY

Little Edie wrote a lot of poetry, some of which has been made available, that spanned her entire life. As a young woman she wrote frequently about wanting a soulmate and falling in love. In The Beales of Grey Gardens, she spoke of the boring stockbrokers she'd date, and how there was no romance. This is was one reason of many that she was such a thorn in the side of her family-- she was a romantic, she wanted to fall in love, she wouldn't marry for any other reason, especially after seeing the way her Mother was left by her Father and looked down on for asserting her own independence. I do believe that she had several real opportunities to tie the knot, but the only man she felt that real connection with was a married one (as stated above).

Falling in love with an unavailable person is so self-sabotaging that one could say its a form of mental illness. I know its a story as old as time but so is emotional and behavior self sabotage. It's one thing to kind of accidentally fall in love with someone unavailable during an illicit affair but that is an opportunity to take stock and be a grown up and decide to ACT to get with Mr. (OR Ms.) Available.

If little edie had married a rich guy who was also into Edie being such an eccentric and creative person, she could have had many nice years. She might have been a fun mother. Encouraging her kids to speak their mind and pursue their creativity themselves. All with some cash to make it easy.

[quote] GG is sacred. I hate seeing those vapid women on those grounds in those caftans.

IMO, not sacred. Two delusional women living in a house with cat piss and trash all over. I'm not a fan of the caftan lady, but she dumped a shitload of money into that house. It's not a historical site. If it were, the buyer could at least get a break on property tax.

Not sensible. They were supposed to sell the home, get a smaller place and use the proceeds of the sale to support themselves.

Someone upthread pointed out this is exactly what Little Edie did when her mother passed away.

Sell the home and buy something inexpensive in Florida. A condo where the maintenance is cared for.

Both of them wanted to be famous, and in a way both got their wish. If they’d done the rational thing none of us would know who they were.

Well, they were deeply ahead of their time with that sentiment, Tony... fame above your dignity or your family name. Fame first and only.

R130, that decision was made when BE refused to go back to town and stayed out on Long Island to practice her singing. The later squalor might have been one of the reasons she eventually found fame but Edith Bouvier Beale was a ruined woman in the eyes of her peers long before the house fell down around her.

Who knows...

We don't know what you are talking about. She was a doll.

And staunch.

Little Edie was ravishing in her youth. I found a blog from Google which has a ton if photos of her in her youth. There's no way that the gentlemen of her social circle back then weren't enamored by her. She had the looks and the figure!

Big Edie was batshit. I think her son's should have put her in a Home and hooked Little Edie up with a small studio apartment in Manhattan somewhere. Little Edie was just a bohemian before that was a thing and that's innocent. Big Edie was the loon.

Here's what I've always been curious about...where did they bathe and where was the water closet if you will?

Gail Sheehy wrote about the Beales before the documentary came out. She quoted one of Edie's brothers yelling that she would have to go to an apartment in the village. It's a fascinating article.

I don't see "ravishing" at R134.

Weren't the brothers uptight assholes?

r137 Yes, but in a way, I can understand their frustration.

Ironically, Little Edie was anything but “staunch.” She was emotionally fragile but not any more mentally ill than anyone else in her circle. But a staunch woman would not have let the domineering mother and alopecia drag her down. Say what you will about her cousins but Jackie and Lee would never, ever have allowed themselves to end up like LE.

Jackie and Lee were whores. Edie didn't have it in her to think about fucking & marrying murderers and trolls for money.

Little Edie still had her beautiful skin well into her wacky years.

Pic and brief bio Bouvier Beale. Lived in a fine estate - Cedarcroft in Glencove.

Little Edie with father

Gould - Big Edie's Boogie Woogie accompanist/fuck boy.

Little Edie and nephew, Bouvier Beale, Jr

R120 when Quinn and Bradlee bought it they had to promise not to tear it down and build new m, which would have been cheaper

Did I meet her at Silver Hill? I can't remember. It's all about Superstars, anyway.

Ciao.

In a way the Edies had the mentality of hoarders. They can be nearly impossible to reach or reason with.

R135's link to a 1972 NY Magazine article is fascinating. These are people detached from the reality that many of us cope with every day.

The lawyer brother looked like Leslie Howard.

Little Edie looks like a pill at R145.

Were they ever On Assistance?

Big and Little Edie's lives were so unique and deep and fascinating. Yeah they're camp, in a way, but it's all so much more than a person to imitate (I'm looking at you, the Broadway musical)

Harbour House, Bal Harbour, Florida (Little Edie's home post-GG)

The Documentary Now version of Grey Gardens was disappointing. The impressions are good, but I only laughed once--when Little Viv pulled out the carnival caricature and police sketch of Big Viv. The ending is uninspired.

I've got to get out of East Hampton".

Were there rumors that Little Edie was schizophrenic?

LE wasn't schizophrenic. She was just odd and dreamy, and stuck in bad circumstances.

If her family had stood her to a little studio in NY, she'd have been fine.

I didn't ask if she WAS schizophrenic, r157.

I asked if there were RUMORS she was schizophrenic.

Oh her flag dance was just tremendous!

I recreate the flag dance using an authentic mini American Flag and feature it as the star of my living room performance every Fourth of July 🇺🇸

R154 - huh, I thought the whole thing was hilarious.

[quote]I don't know what was wrong with Little Edie, other than being an airy-fairy proto-Hippie "free spirit" who didn't want to work or get married, which isn't necessarily crazy.

Yeah otherwise she was perfectly okay.

[quote] LE wasn't schizophrenic. She was just odd and dreamy, and stuck in bad circumstances. If her family had stood her to a little studio in NY, she'd have been fine.

I don't think she had schizophrenia. But I don't think she was just "odd and dreamy."

I remember neighbors, growing up - the husband was a little weird but the wife was clearly "slow." (My mom's word.) The two boys were both "slow" as well, were both fat, and were in special classes. Also, one of them was obviously gay. It's the only time I ever knew that kind of family where both the parent and children were that way.

You have to remember that the average IQ is 100.

Half the country is quite stupid. Another quarter of the country is average to slightly intelligent.

There are a LOT of morons in the world.

I think both Big and Little Edie were mentally unwell. But so entertaining!

Of course they were mentally unwell. But they were protected from their own sickness. It makes them charming and sad too. Mental illness is not always an EVENT. Personality disorders and fine cracks in our emotional makeup can become something much more pathological under duress, loss, lack of care or attention. The passing of time.

They are romantic figures, the Beales. They kind of earned it.

They had just enough money and help, intelligence, past glory days and backbone to sustain their collective insanity. Because of course they were both insane. But not genetically. There's more than one way to go mad.

Tell me about it.

Both were mentally ill- duh.

Impossible, r169!

Neither.

Re: the bathing question. There was one working sink in the house-- downstairs. Edie filled a basin with water and carried it upstairs for her mother to bathe/use the bathroom. I assume she saved herself the trouble and bathed downstairs. That was something the Maysles commented on after the fact: despite the condition of the house, both women were clean and their clothes were impeccable.

To the posted upthread who said Edie wasn't staunch, I have to disagree. She made her own decisions and lived her life on her terms, ultimately, but that doesn't mean a person isn't allowed some bitterness for what might have been, especially in her position. She later took responsibility, saying she wouldn't have done it any other way, but that doesn't mean all circumstances were ideal. Would she have preferred a life of independence in the city? Absolutely. But that would mean more support from her brothers and father for both herself and her mother, which just wasn't the way it was. She moved home to support her mother when no one else would. I think that is extremely noble. As for being victimized by her alopecia: have you seen the documentary? Edie wasn't a wilting flower. She dressed herself up, flirted outwardly, making herself beautiful, not only in spite of her alopecia, but practically highlighting her baldness. She had agency and asserted it to the best of her ability, within her circumstances.

Is there any particular reason that Little Edie never made use of at least a few decent wigs instead of the towels? We believe a wig would have been a sigificant improvement to her general appearance.

Apparently Little Edie was a recluse at the end of her life in Florida. According to coroner she died in the bathroom and wasn’t discovered for five days. Apparently decomposition had already set in. Terrible.

That poor doctor in the clip at R175 must have been so traumatized at that decomposition, etc.! If only I had been there to comfort him.

To call Edie a recluse at the end of her life is a bit of a stretch. She had many friends she corresponded with via letters and telephone, she swam in the ocean almost every day. The reason they found her body when they did is because one of her friends who she talked to on a daily basis couldn't reach her. There's also a great story on a blog somewhere of a woman who would see Edie in a Miami mall in the 90s. She didn't know who she was at the time, and only put it together years after the fact, but described an elegant woman in a headscarf and large sunglasses sitting with impeccable posture. Sounds like Edie made a concerted effort to get out of the house, even when she didn't need to.

[quote] That was something the Maysles commented on after the fact: despite the condition of the house, both women were clean and their clothes were impeccable.

That is something I noted on many episodes of “Hoarders”. There was a woman whose condo was stuffed to the rafters with detritus, but she looked normal - even impeccable and polished - when she went to work every day. It was a marvel.

I have no doubt,, she took the "Marble Faun", with a large black strap-on, and made him keep his little painters cap on.

I have the Criterion Collection edition of the docu, and recently rewatched. The two things that leapt out at me, were:

Big Edie's grim delusion, she was some sort of singing/Opera star. I'm sure she had people around her who promoted this fantasy, but... it wasn't real. I never heard any of Little Edie's cabaret act, but her referencing her "career" during GG more than once, was sad.

All the empty Condensed Milk cans in piles (among pet food cans). What did those 2 bitches DO with all that that Carnation Condensed Milk? I'm very curious.

Little Edie was definitely off...but she seemed harmless and a bit of a character....in a fun way. Living like that for years will do a number on mental health.

The house certainly grew into its name, didn't it? Grey Gardens

R173 is 100 bullshit

I heard that another woman (I think her name was Lois, she's still alive today and nearly 95) lived with them and that they deliberately concealed this in the documentary by making it look like she visited them from time to time.

I also heard that they dressed the house down for the documentary and made it look even worse than it really did at the time for effect.

R180 There's a myth that if you heat CM long enough it will turn into caramel. Maybe they were trying to do that so they could use it as ice cream topping?

F180, I've heard that Little Edie's "cabaret act" was as dreadful as all fuck, and was possibly an attempt to embarrass Cousin Jackie into giving her some money. Which was successful, Jackie eventually gave her cousin enough to go live in Florida and stay out of the press.

Seriously, living in that degree of filth and delusion was 100% Big Edie's choice.

Wow R175. I had no idea. That is very sad.

"[R180] There's a myth that if you heat CM long enough it will turn into caramel."

Not strictly true, but condensed milk that's heated slowly will turn into a sort of caramel pudding that's really quite tasty. I've made it by slowly simmering a can of the stuff, and enjoyed the results.

But my guess is that they diluted the stuff and gave it to the cats. Back then people thought that milk was good for cats, it's not. It gives them diarreah, and imagine how the house would have smelled with all those cats pooping loose milk poops in every room!

Little Edie didn't need Jackie's money to move to Florida. After the documentary, Big Edie's death and the selling of Grey Gardens she had a nice little retirement fund for her life post Grey Gardens.

[quote] All the empty Condensed Milk cans in piles (among pet food cans). What did those 2 bitches DO with all that that Carnation Condensed Milk? I'm very curious.

As a kid in the 70s I remember having this in our cupboards, along with powdered milk. I don’t know if it’s less expensive, or was, but we were poor. It has a nearly-infinite shelf life, and maybe if you didn’t have money for fresh milk one week, you could mix your cupboard ingredients with water and make do.

^^ Those gals didn’t seem to have a reliable way of getting fresh groceries or keeping milk refrigerated. It’s a decent walk to town from GG, and you wouldn’t want to do it with bags of groceries. Maybe they had it delivered.

What did they wipe with?

Where did they buy their greeting cards?

Condensed milk used to be very popular in tea and coffee. Maybe they used it in cereal. They never threw anything out so who knows how long the cans piled up?

[quote]She might have been a fun mother. Encouraging her kids to speak their mind and pursue their creativity themselves.

And learn to love the scent of decaying raccoon.

Grey Gardens is a beautiful house, I've driven by it a few times.

Little Edie sold Grey Gardens to Bill Bradlee and Sally Quinn (a nuclear cunt, btw) for just $221,000. That property would be worth multi millions today.

R196 it wasn’t beautiful in 1971-1973

Even if there was no house on that property, the land alone would be worth millions today.

Stop thinking about dollar signs!

R198 why the CONDITIONAL. It IS worth millions today. And the garage/gatehouse is a separate property now and ALSO worth millions.

Calm down r200

One of the last photos of Little Edie, taken sometime in the 1990s.

We don't have classy batshit eccentrics like Big Edie and Little Edie anymore, and our society is poorer because of it.

Was her condoa mess like her house?

Apparently R204 can't read a thread.

I'm a billionaire and I am batshit.

Edie? Oh, Edie...

R206 it’s Ye and he doesn’t have class

[quote]I heard that another woman (I think her name was Lois, she's still alive today and nearly 95) lived with them and that they deliberately concealed this in the documentary by making it look like she visited them from time to time.

That would be Miss Lois Erdman Wright, "the Psalmist of the Hamptons." She's one of the party guests at the end of Grey Gardens, and you see more of her talking about her paintings in "The Beales of Grey Gardens." She wrote a book about her time in the house which I found very interesting. And she's a big a loon as the Beales.

R205 I've read the thread. Where does it say what her condo looked like?

[quote]Sell the home and buy something inexpensive in Florida. A condo where the maintenance is cared for.

That's all I could find just now. But I don't know exactly what that means.

The Criterion Channel offers as an extra to GG a wonderful recorded interview (sound only) done in NYC at Warhol's studio for Interview Magazine, not long after the film was released. In it she is completely lucid.

The Beales had their groceries delivered. There's a scene in the documentary where the driver pulls up and leaves a box on the porch. Edie appears completely decked out and says one of my favorite lines, "Isn't it awful when a dancer gets fat? Awful!" as she whisks the box inside. I read Lois' books and it seems a work of fantasy. Wouldn't take everything she says as gospel truth.

The only thing I remember about Lois is when she was reafing Big Edie's palm and BE says "this shit here, Lois?" - "No, this shit HERE!" - "This shit here, Lois?" - "NO, this shit HERE!"

Big Edie in her youth. She was quite lovely.

R205

Both had heady onions that’d bring tears to your eyes!

Did they ever eat cat shit?

R217 your mother ate all the cat shit in town when she was the local whore.

^^No, that was you.

Mother Dear had some serious mental issues. Edie Dear was just trying to survive with what she was given, which wasn't much.

They should have sold Amway.

To everyone saying the Carnation milk cans were condensed milk, I'm pretty sure they were evaporated milk, which they probably gave to the cats after mixing it with some water since it's cheaper than fresh milk, which goes bad quickly. Also, when you simmer cans of condensed milk for hours, you get dulce de leche!

The house stank so bad the neighbors could smell it.

The only difference between condensed and evaporated milk is that condensed is sweetened.

R224 Not so. Evaporated milk is more pourable and a lot like half and half, while sweetened condensed milk is more like a thick syrup (pourable, but not as liquid as evaporated milk) you can eat with a spoon (and it's delicious!). You have to scrape out a can of condensed milk after pouring to get all of it.

R224

Even after all the wood was removed and replaced, Ben Bradlee said he could still smell cat urine on rainy days.

R225 Yes, and that's because one has sugar added to it and the other doesn't. 60% of the water content is removed from both of them. Sugar is added to condensed milk. Of course it's thicker and sweeter.

This milk conversation is fascinating!

r185: Apparently and surprisingly, there are no records of what Little Edie sung in her cabaret act. You'd think someone would have bootlegged it.

Andy Warhol attended every performance.

There actually are records of the content of her cabaret act scattered around. Tea for Two and Noel Coward's Zigeuner are the only two songs I can recall off the top of my head. There is a recording of a rehearsal made by her accompanist but it hasn't been made public. A few years ago, some guy was given access to the recording and took Edie's cabaret act on the road. According to those who were present for both, the recreation captured the contents and essence of what she did at Reno Sweeney's to a surprising extent.

Thank you for that, r231! I found the Times review from January 12, 1978:

EDITH BEALE, the sixtyish cousin of Jacqueline Onassis who has come out of her reclusive existence in Grey Gardens at East Hampton, L.I., to undertake a nightclub career, answers questions as part of her act at Reno Sweeney, where she will be appearing through Sunday.

“Why are you doing this?” she was asked at her opening on Tuesday.

“Because I can't dance,” replied Miss Beale.

That is reasonable. So she does not dance. But the fact that she cannot sing does not prevent her from trying to sing. Wrapped in red from head to toe—a red scarf framing her head and flowing down over a red dress, with long red gloves and red stockings (a costume designed by her, she revealed) — she felt her way through half a dozen songs, pronouncing each word carefully and deliberately, meandering in and out of the melody while Lewis Friedman, her piano accompanist, tried to stay somewhere in her musical vicinities.

Singing “Tea for Two” with the stunned expression of someone who has just discovered she has dumped the entire sugar bowl into her cup, tippy‐toeing breathlessly through Noel Coward's “Zigeuner” or trampling on nostalgic memories of “Play It Again. Sam” with “As Times Goes By,” Miss Beale follows an adventurous path from phrase to phrase. On two songs that she wrote, she seemed more secure and had a better sense of direction.

She was most at ease, however, when she did not have to sing at all but perched on the edge of a stool answering questions from a disembodied voice on the amplifying system. The questions ranged from “Where does the name Grey Gardens come from?” (Answer: “Great Britain") to “What is your opinion of premarital sex?” ("It's economical"). But neither the questions nor her brief, offhand answers were revealing or witty.

Miss Beale has said that she does not feel that she is being exploited. That may be true. If anyone is being exploited, it is the customer who pays a $7.50 cover charge to suffer a public display of ineptitude.

^^Bless you for posting! I thoroughly enjoyed reading that!

Who?

“Picture me upon your knee, Just tea for two, and two Tor tea …”

The voice was loud though a bit croaky (“I've had a 103‐degree temperature for four days!” the singer complained), and it kept straying from the melody. Naw and then, the singer would ad‐lib new lyrics in place of the familiar old ones, and sometimes the singer would forget the lyrics altogether.

The singer was Edith Bouvier Beale, best known in the past as Edie, Jacqueline Onassis's outspoken, reclusive cousin from Grey Gardens, the decrepit mansion that has long been considered an eyesore to neighbors in chic East Hampton,

But now, as she stood by a baby grand piano in a friend's elegant Greenwich Village town house, next to flickering candelabrum, she was rehearsing for what she hopes will be her new life as Edith Beale, cabaret singer. She opens tonight for a six‐day run at Reno Sweeney, the nightclub at 126 West 13th Street.

“I'm finally beginning to live!” said the “over 60':year‐old woman, who spent most of her life taking care of her mother, known as Big Edie, who died last February at the age of 81. “This is a priceless opportunity for me. At the end of my 12 performances, I will know a little more about myself, and what I should do in life.”

^^^I Love love love it

She had a brief fling as a movie star in 1975, when she and her equally outrageous mother were the subjects of a 94‐minute Mayslei brothers documentary film, “Grey Gardens,” which was shown at the New York Film Festival. In it, the two women were shown constantly bickering and romping with their 20 cats in the litter‐strewn mansion, which was raided by Suffolk County health officials in 1971 after annoyed townsfolk complained about its unsanitary, conditions.

“We just didn't have any money to fix it up,” Miss Beale explained. “After the newspaper stories appeared, Jacqueline started sending Mother a small allowance and paying our utility bills. She still does, even though Mother has died. Jacqueline is really a very kind girl, and it almost kills me to take her money.”

Miss Beale, who kept nervously donning and then removing a pair of thick eyeglasses that she wears as a result of recent cataract surgery, was dressed rather dramatically in a black wool turban, a gray‐striped sweater and gray tweed pants tucked into high black leather boots. Her handsome face looked much younger than its “over 60” years, and her 5‐foot‐91/2‐inch figure appeared almost as trim as it must have been 30 years ago when she was a fashion model in New York.

But it is her speaking voice that one notices most: booming, precise, well articulated, husky, upper‐class, a voice that has definitely known money. (Her late father, Phelan Beale, was wealthy Wall Street lawyer; her late mother, Edith Bouvier Beale, was the sister of Jacqueline Onassis's father.)

“I'm really a dancer, you know,” she said dreamily, during a break in rehearsal. “I really wish I could dance in my act, but I can't see too well yet because of my surgery. When was young, I stopped many a dance in New York City. I really stopped the whole room! I just ad6red to dance. I think I stopped a dance at Princeton once, too.” Miss Beale said that she had never had any professional training in either singing or dancing. “But when I was a student at the Spence School,” she said, “I was the Shakespearean heroine. They said I had a brilliant future when I left. And then when I went on to Miss Porter's School in Farmington, I got into the glee club.”

Ever since, she has wanted to do nightclub.,work, she said, so when she was approached by James T. Maxcy, owner. of Reno Sweeney, she quickly agreed to work up• an act. It consists of seven songs, including the standards “Tea for Two” and “As Time Goes By,” followed by a question‐and‐answer session with the audience. Her accompanist on the piancy is Lewis Friedman, a founder of Retuf‐Sweeney, who likens Miss Beale's phrasing to that of Mabel Mercer. Sneak Preview

Miss Beale tried out her aot at a sneak preview at Reno Sweeney on New Year's Day, wearing an eye patch, a slinky old red dress of her mother's and a feathery red headdress. The audience received her singing politely, with a few titters, but went wild during the snappy question‐and‐answer session. Asked what she thought of television, Miss Beale replied: “It's great for national emergencies.” Her favorite department’ store, she said; was May's, “although ‐I haven't been there. yet.” She dines once a day, at 5 P.M., mainly on fruits and vegetables, she said. And when asked whether she expected her famous cousin, Jackie, to come and see her perform, she replied: “I told her not to come here. I thought she'd upset my act.”

Miss Beale, who is guaranteed minimum of $1,500 for the six‐day stand, scoffed when asked after the rehearsal if she thought she was being exploited.

“Nonsense,” she said. “At my age, I'm lucky to get any kind of work. Besides, this is my dream, what I've always wanted to do. I once had two chances to go to Hollywood, with MGM and Paramount. But my mother didn't want me to go. I was madly in lcive with my mother. She was a psychia and a terrific legal brain, and she always told me what to do. She made all the decisions. She had me absolutely buffaloed.”

And then there is the matter of Miss Beale's financial condition, which she candidly described as “precarious.” “I pay my own taxes, though,” she said proudly. “You have to, or whoever pays them, will gain possession of your house. The taxes are almost $3,000 year, and I'm probably going to have to sell the furniture to pay them. sold the silver to pay the probate fees.”

Miss Beale said she and her mother had received only $5,000 each for appearing in “Grey Gardens,” which was much less than they expected, and which did not last very long. The money “was terrible,” she said “We were very serious, and we actually thought we were going to make profits. Famous last words.” She giggled caustically.

Miss Beale, who stood through much of the interview because, she said, she has a feeling that sitting down “puts on weight,” said she had been living at. Grey Gardens full time since 1952, when, at the age of 34, her mother made her leave her brief modeling career in New York and come home.

“I never lived,” she said sadly. “I never had any options, any choices. I had to go to East Hampton and take care of my mother, or she said she'd die. I have two brothers, but I was the one who was supposed to do it. Decause I was the oldest.”

Despite the constant bickering between the two women in the film. “Grey Gardens,” Miss Beale said she and her mother actually got along rather well, except when it came to the subject of suitable suitors.

“That's the only thing we didn't agree on—the opposite sex,” she said with a smile. “I liked very solid older businessmen, and she liked young artists, musicians and painters. She would pick someone out and say should marry this boy, and I thought she was crazy, out of her mind.”

She sighed. “I think I'll be an old maid until I die,” she said, finally ting down in a chair. “I'll probably sit around with cats the rest of my life. Whatever happens, I certainly won't start to drink. But I do have what you call entrenched habits, and I'm not going to change them.”

Last spring, after her mother's dead% Miss Beale briefly put Grey Gardens up for sale at a price of $500,000. When no one bid, higher than $200,000, she took the house off the market, Now: she's thinking of selling it again.

“I'm probably absolutely insane to sell it,” she said, with a dramatic wave of her right arm. “It's fabulous proper: ty, on a •private road, right behind the dunes. But I think I've had too much. of Long Island. I don't want to do. around in a car all the time. I don’ think it's healthy. But if they see you walking on a road out there, they think you're eccentric.”

Lives Alone

She has lived in Grey Gardens alone ever since her mother died, she said, leading a simple life that includes reading The New York Times every morning, walking on the beach, feeding her five remaining cats as well as the wild. raccoons•that live near her house, sing‐, ing, writing poetry, and preparing, fruits and vegetables for her 5 P.M. meal.

“I went to two cocktail parties last summer to stop the gossip about my being a recluse,” she said evenly, “Most of them looked at me like I was from Mars. I shouldn't have gone; don't drink. If you don't do exactly what everybody else does out there,. if you don't go to the Maidstone Club or join the Garden Club, you're written off as crazy.” •

What will she do after her singing engagement is over. She shrugged. “I'll probably have to rest for five years.” At this point, a friend who was at the rehearsal reminded her that a club in London called Country Cousin had expressed interest in booking her.

A big smile spread across her face. “London,” she said. “I'd really love to go there. London. LONDON. Can you believe it?”

The New York Times/Fred R. Conrad

R240 I love you!!!

Most of them looked at me like I was from Mars

[quote]“Why are you doing this?”

[quote]“Because I can't dance,”

My new go-to response in any situation from this moment on.

Of course she was mentally ill. Both she and her mother were. Mental illness ran in that family.

Awww, shucks, r240. It's my pleasure!

Edie was NOT stupid. She was a much sharper than she appeared in "Grey Gardens".

[quote]Do you think her beaver was ripe ?

As ripe as about 20 lbs of bad Quahog clams...in the hot sun

TBH, it kind of breaks my heart to see that Real Housewives types have taken over Grey Gardens. I wish they had kept the old charm of it from the Beale glory days.

R247 That's because you didn't have to smell it.

R247 Read again, The Beale glory days, when they were young, before the stank.

Poor Edie had just had an eye operation before her stint at Reno Sweeney's, and when she's not wearing an eye patch you can see that only one eye was made up, giving her usually pretty face an off-kilter appearance. She really kept up her looks-- had an amazing body (she was tall, I think 5'-9") and great skin, despite the sun worship. And nothing I can say can surpass what has already been said about her sense of style. She fashioned something quite extraordinary for her cabaret performances.

I have a kinship with Little Edie. Maybe because I’m a trust fund baby, an only child held back in a manner of speaking, to care for my aging parents. I’m a performer at heart and have an endless reserve of panache.

R251 Model Dawn, model !

I’m a choo choo Charlie and a CLASS ACT.

You know, one of the Maysles said in an interview that despite the mess and the reclusiveness, the Edies loved each other very much, and were kind of living happily on their own terms, something their neighbors could only wish for. Little Edie talked about leaving a few times, and she could have, but the love she had for her mother was too tremendous to do so.

R249 Read this again.

[quote]TBH, it kind of breaks my heart to see that Real Housewives types have taken over Grey Gardens. I wish they had kept the old charm of it from the Beale glory days.

How could the Real Housewives types take over Grey Gardens from the Beale glory days? What they took over was the house as it was left after the Edies moved out.

254 Yeah, they loved each other, it doesn't mean that was a healthy life. Don't over-sentimentalize it. They had wild animals coming in the house.

R254

R255 I meant that seeing a whole bunch of Real Housewives types lunching in the garden in a video about Grey Gardens, just felt kind of sad to me. I liked the previous owners (the Bradlees, I think, who Edie liked and sold it to) who fixed up the house, yet kept the charm, but the latest owner came off as vapid and shallow.

R256, of course it wasn't healthy, AT ALL, and Big Edie guilting Little Edie into moving back home was wrong and sad, but it doesn't mean there wasn't a deep love between them that most wish they could have even once in a lifetime. And TBH, they do seem happy in the doc, albeit a bit crazy.

R259 Ok, I guess I've had better relationships than that, so I'm not exactly envious of theirs.

Big Edie was a bully.

Happy birthday, Little Edie! Born November 7, 1917.