Sunday, March 29, 2009

Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Big Edie) and Edith Bouvier Beale (Little Edie)

Read the Wiki articles on these two eccentric recluses who were aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill.

While over at Aloha Nico I noticed that she posted about the movie Grey Gardens starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange(?)...whatever.
It sent me looking for the original Grey Gardens documentary about these two Blanche DuBois-like women living in a falling down house in the Hamptons.

I couldn't find part one....but, here it starts with part 2:



Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11

The house has since been restored. Big Edie dying of a pneumonia in 1977, and Little Edie found dead in her apartment in 2002. She had been dead about five days from a presumed heart attack.

What really stood out for me was how they both continued to show their breeding in the way that they spoke, and Little Edie dressing up "10 times a day" in different outfits from her modeling days...all while the house was falling down around their ears.
Bizarre in the way that European films can be...but, this was real.