The FiFi Report 190

Grey Gardens
What: A 1976 Documentary directed by Albert Maysles
Who: Edith ‘Little Edie’ Bouvier Beale, Edith Bouvier Beale
The Scoop: Grey Gardens is a must see 1976 documentary that is now a cult movie… and is now playing muse to the fashion world and Hollywood. ‘It’s the unbelievable but true story of Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter ‘little’ Edie, the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
The Fashion: Little Eadie’s wildly original style and way of dressing has now inspired a 9-page fashion spread in the 2007 September issue of US Harpers Bazaar with Ashley Olsen and Lauren Hutton. The documentary has been adapted into a full-length musical, Grey Gardens and Drew Barrymore will now star in the upcoming movie. Their way of dressing is now playing muse to designers from Marc Jacobs to Phillip Lim. Grey Gardens was also featured in the September issue of Teen Vogue A to Z of Fall Fashion.’
The Movie/Musical: The documentary has been adapted into a full-length musical, Grey Gardens and Drew Barrymore will now star in the upcoming movie.Grey Gardens (2008), a film for HBO based on the documentary, starring Jeanne Tripplehorn as Jacqueline Kennedy, Drew Barrymore, Daniel Baldwin, and Jessica Lange, directed and co-written by film-maker Michael Sucsy, will begin filming on October 22, 2007 in Toronto. www.mayslesfilms.com.
The Story: Totally intriguing. ‘Mother and daughter live in a world of their own behind the towering privets that surround their decaying 28-room East Hampton mansion known as "Grey Gardens," a place so far gone that the local authorities once threatened to evict them for violating building and sanitation codes. The incident made national headlines in 1974 — American royalty, living in squalor! For the Beales were nothing short of the upper crust. Mrs. Beale, a.k.a. "Big Edie," was a born aristocrat, sister of "Black Jack" Bouvier, Jackie O’s father. "Little Edie" was an aspiring actress of striking beauty who put her New York life on hold to care for her mother - and never left her side again. Together they descended into a strange life of dependence and eccentricity that no one had ever shared until the Maysles arrived in 1974 with their camera and tape recorder. The Beales were ready for their close-ups. Little Edie — a still-attractive woman at 56 — parades about coquettishly in her trademark improvised turbans reminisces about her brilliant past, still hoping that her Big Chance and Big Romance are just around the corner. Big Edie, trained soprano in her bohemian days, trills romantic songs of yesteryear in a slightly wobbly, but still rich voice. The women bicker, prattle, and flirt like characters out of Tennessee Williams or Eugene O’Neill., The film is a bittersweet love story, a record of the powerful and complex relationship between mother and daughter…"
US$19.99 www.amazon.com