October 13, 2025 • 50 mins
“A gothic tale of wealth and rebellion in East Hampton.” That’s how New York magazine described the plight of Jackie O’s aunt Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Little Edie Bouvier Beale in a 1972 cover story about their life together in a dilapidated mansion on Long Island. Four years later, Big Edie and Little Edie were immortalized on the big screen in the cult classic documentary Grey Gardens. Olivia Aylmer, senior editor at The Slowdown (slowdown.media), joins us to break down Big Edie and Little Edie’s enduring appeal — and to give us an on-the-ground report of this month’s 50th-anniversary screening of the film at New York’s Paris Theater featuring Julia Fox.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm George Savers, I'm Lyra Smith, and this is United
States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural fascination with
the Kennedy dynasty. Every week we go into one aspect
of the Kennedy story, and today we are talking about
the Mazles Brothers nineteen seventy five documentary Gray Gardens.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
The iconic cult classic portraying the lives of idiosyncratic and
reclusive mother daughter Duo Edith Bouvier Beale, and Little Edie
Beale in their East Hampton estate, Gray Gardens.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Big Dy and Little Edie are Jackie O's aunt and cousin, respectively.
After Big Edie's marriage ended, she found herself alone in
her East Hampton home, and her daughter moved back in
with her a few years later.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Little Edie was at JFK's inauguration in nineteen sixty. There's
a famous story of her at the reception in the
White House, where she approached Joe Senior and joked that
she was the original future first Lady of the Kennedy family,
as she was almost engaged to Joe Junior before his
death in World War Two. There are striking similarities in
the way that Little Edie and Jackie O were raised,
(01:09):
but ultimately Little Edie never married, instead staying with her
mother in the house that, by nineteen seventy one was
full of cats, infested by fleas and raccoons, and deprived
of running water.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
A series of inspections from the Suffolk County Health Department
allegedly resulted in one thousand bags of garbage being taken out.
As this was happening, Big Edy and Little Edie became
infamous to the American public after a big cover story
in New York Magazine about them and an article in
the National Inquirer.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Jackie O and her sister Lee Radswell provided the funds
for a clean up effort, which shockingly took place before
this documentary was filmed.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Enter the Mazles Brothers. The acclaimed documentarians originally visited the
Greg Gardens estate with Lee Radswell, but were immediately taken
with Big Edie and Little Edie. After spending more time
with them, they decided to make a film documenting their
day to day life life living together.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Grey Gardens screened at the nineteen seventy six cann Film
Festival and had its US premiere at the New York
Film Festival, where it received widespread acclaim, even though some
critics found its filmmaking exploitative.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
It has since become a major cult classic and resulted
in a Tony winning musical, a movie adaptation starring Drew
Barrymore and Jessica Lang, a parody starring Fred Armison and
Bill Hayter, as well as, of course, thousands of drag
interpretations across the country.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of
Grey Gardens at the Paris Theater, which hosted a special
anniversary screening with special guest Julia Fox. She was one
of many Gray Gardens superfans that showed up to celebrate
the lasting impact of Big and Little Eatie.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Among them was our guest, Olivia Aylmer.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Olivia is a senior editor at the New York based
media company The Slowdown. Olivia writes about film art, literature,
and style, and covered the unofficial prequel to Grey Gardens,
titled that somm for Vanity Fair. Olivia, thanks for joining us.
My absolute pleasure.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I think there's nowhere else I'd rather be than talking
about Grey Gardens on a Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Let's get into it so you sadly, I was out
of town for this, but you just attended a fiftieth
anniversary screaming hosted by Julia Fox, moderated by Julia Fox.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Julia Fox there to talk about how much this movie
means to her, alongside Alexis Bittar, the jewelry designer, and
Rebecca Maseles, who is the daughter of Albert, who is
one of the filmmakers. So it was a really special moment.
As I'm sure you both know that Paris is the
very theater where Grey Gardens had its public premiere and
that was fifty years ago. So huge moment and really special.
(03:42):
And you know, a crowd full of the ghosts of
Little Edie in their fabulous head scarves.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Was there sort of drag stuff happening?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Now?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I wouldn't even call it drag. It was like total devotion.
It was really like people just couldn't help themselves, Like
I think these head scarves have been waiting for their moment,
and Sunday was that moment.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
And yeah, everyone turned out.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So what was your relationship to the film before this
fiftieth anniversary screening?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
So I was giving this some thought and I think, honestly,
my first awareness of big and Little Edie was probably
the two thousand and nine HBO fictionalized portrait with Jessica
Lang Andrew Barrymore, which I'm sure I just saw an
ad for at the nilsaon with my mom and was like,
I love Drew Barrymore like she was an et and
ever after.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So that was my.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Awareness of Okay, there are these women and they look
like this and who are they. My way into the
actual documentary didn't happen until high school. I had a
really good friend named Lauren, who was the only other
woman at my suburban Richmond, Virginia high school who planned
to move to New York City. So we were like
kindred spirits. And her dad had worked in a musical theater,
had been a tap dancer, and one day he was like, girls,
(04:48):
do you know about great gardens? No, okay, Olivia, you're
coming over and putting it on, And it was this
I feel like it was the fourth of July for
some reason, which feels fitting. And he basically gave his
commentary voice over, weaving a to big Little Edies voices,
which we'll get into this more.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
But it is such a coffiness.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I would say it is the word movie and yeah
that was my official sitting down. This is education, Like
you need to know about this film.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
What was his messaging? What was he narrating throughout?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I mean I think he was just like, you two
are spirited young women who want to do things a
little differently. I like, not stay in the place that
you went high school in. And here are two women
that you need to know about who very unapologetically lived
their lives and had this just ineffable spirit. I think
it was really just about their souls and him wanting
us to have a relationship to that aspect. I don't
(05:37):
remember him going super deep into history of the making.
It was really just about them. Like I feel like
he knew some of the lines by heart, which happens.
I think once you've seen this at least twice, there
are just like stray pieces of their interactions that just
live in your brain forevermore.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, I keep thinking about on TikTok they say vocal stem, Yeah,
you know, and it's like pieces of And I realized
when I was watching this, I was like, oh, really,
Gray Gardens was my first experience with a vocal stem
that stuck with me my whole life. I can hear
little leady in my head anytime.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
It's true, what a generous reading of the film from
a dad. You know. I think that was certainly My
first interaction with it was after I had already been
quote unquote reclaimed, whatever that means. I saw it at
the Castro Theater in San Francisco and I was living there,
and if it was introduced by a drag queen, and
it was already framed to me like a gay cult classic,
(06:33):
and I was primed to be like, Okay, we love
these women. They're iconic. Look at her amazing headscarf. Whatever.
But it's such a genuinely moving thing to think that
a dad would show his ambitious and smart daughters these
two women and for the message to be they lived
life on their own terms. It's true.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I mean I get a father ahead of his time
in some ways. By again, the musical theater background I'm
sure influenced thought. And you know, I wish I could
go back and ask him, like what his first exposure,
because it is really interesting to think about how people
come to things that seem like they're just a part
of their but no, everyone has like their entry point.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Do you remember what your reaction was at that age.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I think even if I had not gone on to
write or edit or work in media, I think they
would have just had a hold on me. Like if
I had just seen it that one time, that would
have been a strong core memory. I feel like it's
one of those documentaries where you're like, I don't think
I've seen anything quite like this before. I mean, I
can barely imagine what a person in nineteen seventy five
seeing it would have felt. On Sundays at the screening
(07:34):
with my girlfriend and she was experiencing the lore of
it for the first time, and she turned to me
and whispered midway through, I feel like I'm watching the Kardashians.
And I promise I had not planted that at all.
That was a truly organic response. There is something just
so strangely familiar and also utterly strange about what we're
witnessing two people on camera being super aware of the
(07:56):
camera but also unable to stop being themselves.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And it's even kind of shot and edited in the
Housewives style. I mean, this is the larger conversation about
is it. It's really you can find a path from
great gardens to what modern reality television looks and sounds
like and it's so, I guess ironic or maybe fitting,
maybe the opposite of ironic that Carol Radswell became a
(08:23):
housewife after Lee Radswell is the catalyst for this documentary happening.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
That's true. So I know you've written about the other documentary,
That Summer, which is a documentary that came out in
twenty eighteen that is also about Big Edy and Little Edie,
but sort of a slightly different way. Lee Radswell is
a huge character in a u se Andy Warhol, which
we'll get into later. But I wonder if in your
research about the film you have a sense of what
(08:51):
it means for documentary history, Like it was not the
way things were done at the time, and it was
kind of controversial when it came out, So what is
your sense of the impact it had on documentaries at
that time.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Yeah, I think since you brought up That Summer, it
is helpful for listeners who might not be familiar with
that film and the history behind it, Like it can
basically be viewed as a prequel to what Greg Gardens
became the quick backstories that Lee Radswell had this vision
for there to be a documentary about her summer's spending
time in the Hamptons and going to visit her cousin.
And so she had this vision for a documentary where
(09:26):
it would be like big Eady is narrating it or
has some kind of little role in it, but it
really is about her and this documentation of her memories.
And they went there that summer of nineteen seventy two
with the Mazles brothers. She was like, Okay, you're going
to be our crew. She was with her boyfriend Peter Beard,
the photographer, and I think she became aware of the
Masls through their Rolling Stones documentary that had come out
(09:48):
a little bit earlier. Within a few weeks of encountering
the Beules, their attention was nowhere else but them. Whatever
vision Lee had of what this was going to be,
it became very clear that that was not the real
story here. The real stars were emerging and it was
these two women in this house and how they got
there and how they were living out their lives together.
(10:10):
And so all of that original footage was lost or
sort of scrapped, and they returned the fall of nineteen
seventy three to make what became Grey Gardens. That film
was also made grey gardens at a time where there
was already some public scandal around, you know, the Bules,
which is inseparable from how the media was understanding them
and playing a role in this. So there were these
(10:33):
like what Big and Little Eadie called raids, but you know,
inspections happening by the local Stuffolk County Health Department, the ASPCA.
They were like, these conditions are not these are not sustainable.
We need to do something and tried to basically raise
the house. And that is when Lee and also Jackie,
which we're get into, stepped in to try to restore
(10:54):
it or at least get it into a condition where
they could keep living there.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
We're going to take a short break, stay.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
With us, and we're back with the United States of Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
The raids were happening because of media coverage of the sisters,
because there was this famous like New York magazine cover story.
I think it was also covered in the Times. What
was the timeline of.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
That, well, I think the raids were not necessarily because
of the media coverage. The raids were happening because the
town of East Hampton was concerned about the fact that
they had discovered the existence of these women in a
house that was quite literally falling apart around them. There
were holes in the ceiling. It's not an exaggeration to
say it was in a state of extreme disrepair and
(11:49):
out of a faux concern for their well being, but
really just this isn't the image of East Hampton that
we want to uphold, and we need to get in there.
They started finding ways to basically raise it to the ground,
and that was basically where Lee and then her sister
Jackie stepped in to offer their support and their financial support,
their just compassion around the situation and do what they
(12:10):
could to allow them to keep living there. But this
moment of the Raid's kind of coincided with this, Yes,
this New York Magazine cover story, which brought an awareness
to the greater public about not just who they were,
but their connection to Jackie, which was what made it
interesting enough for New York Magazine to say, let's make
this a cover story. It was also by total happenstance.
It was like the writer of that story had a
(12:31):
house nearby and her daughter had found some rabbits and
was like, there's all these cats around that house, which
she called the witch House. Maybe we should go over
and see if they'll take the rabbits. And the writer
Gail sees this woman approaching in a headscarf and goes like, wait,
I think I know her. There's something familiar about her,
and comes to find what The reason she looks familiar
(12:51):
is that she has related to Jackie Kennedy, who everyone
at that moment in time knew what she looked like.
So I guess I brought that up to say, it's
very hard to separate the sort of scandal or tabloid
fodder that was just the Grey Garden's house and the
woman living in it from the emergence of Grey Gardens
the film.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
The film is.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Nineteen seventy five, right, and this cover story is a
few years prior. So there is this growing awareness and interest,
maybe morbid curiosity about who is inhabiting this space, how
did they get there?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So in that summer, are you seeing the house before
the cleanup or is that still after the cleanup.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
What it's documenting is Lee coming to try to support
that process. So I believe I don't know the exact timeline,
but let's say it's a few months after they are
these threats for the house to be taken from them,
and so I don't know if you both have seen
it. It is available I think, on Sundance channel on YouTube
for anyone who hasn't. But you see these really tender
moments of her just talking to her aunt and her
(13:48):
cousin and trying to say, Okay, maybe we should have
cut all of the really delicate and expensive porcelain in
storage because it might get stolen. Let's have these people
come up and clean. Like she's really trying to help
them through this moment where they just feel like they're
losing all of their privacy, and you know, it's an uncomfortable,
I think, transitional moment. But what's also happening is the
(14:09):
a camera for the first time is being turned on
little Edie in particular, and she's going, wait, I've been
waiting for this moment my whole life, perhaps, and so
there's this yeah, really, I don't know if magical is
the word, but something's happening, Something really interesting is happening
where they are becoming aware of people's awareness of them,
and rather than wanting to shut the doors and say okay,
(14:30):
actually we want to be even more private, they're like, wait,
we're having a nice time. People are taking an interest
in us, and maybe we should keep the door open,
and they do.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, And that is so interesting because even Lee said
it took weeks for them to open the door for
her when she first tried to go out there. So
they reached a point where they seem to have a
desire to be presented publicly.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I think that started to happen.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, but there was a skepticism certainly, for you know,
do these people actually want to help us, did they
really care about us? Or are they just trying to
take away our home? The place, especially for big Ead
like she had been living there at that point since
I want to say the twenties, like her husband feel
and Beale had purchased it and they had lived there
together and then they separated and he eventually served her
(15:16):
divorce papers and that was it. But that was where
she had put down her roots and welcomed her daughter back.
And I think they had this really deep connection to it,
and to lose it would have meant losing a sense
of identity and any sort of groundedness, which they were
losing the longer that they stayed there without many guests.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, along those lines, walk us through just abridged history
of the relationship with the house. So how long had
they been living there? How long were they there just
the two of them. I know that little Edy at
some point was gone and then she came back. What
led to what we actually see in the documentary.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, it's a good question because the documentary doesn't really
get into the backstory. It opens with some headlines, so
you have a sense again of this growing public awareness,
but it doesn't really tell you how they got there.
So basically, in nineteen seventeen, Big Edie married this lawyer
financier named Phelan Beal who had worked at her father's
law firm Moovi and Beal. They had this really grand
(16:12):
wedding ceremony at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Something like twenty five
hundred people attended. You do see in the film her
wedding portrait, which is quite striking. But so they were married.
They lived on Madison Avenue, which is actually now the
site of the Carlisle Hotel. They lived at that site
for a while and then in nineteen twenty three, Filan
purchased the Great Gardens Mansion in East Hampton, right a
(16:33):
block from the ocean. The couple separated in nineteen thirty one,
but big Ead was able to keep the Great Garden's house.
And you know, she had two sons as well, Utle
Eay's brothers. They had gone off to college and serving
in World War Two and kind of had families of
their own, so they were really nowhere to be found
in nineteen fifty two. That summer, Little Edie had spent
(16:53):
a few years in Manhattan and was trying to make
it as a dancer, performer, an actor, was trying to
kind of get her big break and it just wasn't happening.
And I think the narrative around that shifts depending on
who's talking about it. But she went to live with
her mother, and ostensibly because her mother had gotten cats,
so it was really it was all about the cats,
like she had to come back and help take care
of them. And so that sort of is the pivot
(17:15):
point right nineteen fifty two, and then they are there
into the early seventies. I was also struck just in
revisiting all of this history that Biggie died in nineteen
seventy seven, so two years after Greg Garden's actually premieres
and is out in the world. She's not with us
for that much longer, And just to put a finer
(17:35):
point on the history of the house, when Big Eadie dies,
Little Edie does go on to sell the house, and
she actually sells it to Ben Bradley, who's the former
executive editor of The Washington Post and his wife, the
journalist Sally Quinn. So it ends up kind of being
passed into new hands, but still in this sort of
median culture bubble, which is quite interesting. I mean, really
(17:56):
people were describing it as a haunted house in the seventies,
but now I can't even imagine. Maybe because it's been
so refurbished, the ghosts of left, but it's.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, and they really cared for the house. They you know,
Sally Quinn, they made sure to sell to somebody that
was going to care for the home and not just
raise it.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, And part of the terms was that they weren't
allowed to raise it. They could renovate it, but they
could not completely tear it down. That's correct. And part
of the mythology of all of this is that these
are formerly wealthy people that are now living in Squalor,
and the fact that they are adjacent to the Kennedy's.
Of course adds to the sort of desire to gock
get them and be like, can you believe this is
(18:36):
happening in terms of purely the money? Am I right
to say that Jackie's father, Blackjack Bouvier, was somehow in
charge of their inheritance, and then it did not make
its way to them, and so all they had was
this house.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I think that part of what happened with Jackie's father
was like the stock market crash. I mean, I think
he had some financial troubles of his own, so that
inheritance was shrinking as it was, and then there's very
little of it left and they started to receive like
a small allowance. I want to say it was like
thirty five hundred a year. But it was going from
big Edie being married to a wealthy man and having
what seemed like a life of comfort ahead of her
(19:13):
to also his leaving, and I think that rupture in
their relationship. Suddenly she is a single mom now, and
she wasn't working, like, she wasn't bringing in her own money,
so she was reliant on family and the men in
her life to support.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I do think from.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
What I've been reading that has like totally changed my
perspective of Big Eadie is that she was very young
when she got married and he was fourteen years older,
and she really wanted to be a professional singer, and
she continued to pursue that dream the entire time she
(19:49):
was married, and that is what led to their separation.
And the way they don't explain it in the documentary
sounds more like, oh, he left her and he married
somebody else, But there's two decades worth of that separation
occurring before he actually marries someone else. And that is
(20:13):
just wild to me because as a teenager watching it,
I didn't really pay much attention to Big Die. I
was just hypnotized by Little Edie.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
That's so funny. I also, this time around, was really
struck by a Big Edi. I have this memory of
her as you know, kind of like a quote unquote
crazy lady, and then this time around I found her
so wise. When she talks about the value of looking
back versus looking forward, she just has these lines where
she cuts right to the chase, as Little Edie is
(20:41):
still kind of half living in a dream world and
living this still very childlike existence. Obviously, they both have
their flaws, but this time around I came out with
quite a bit of respect for Big Edie. That's a
really good point.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
And also I think there is the aspect of the
kind of temporality of the way the film is shot.
It feels like it's happening in this perpetual press where
it could just be one long day in tonight. But
actually I think the footage was shot over the course
of six weeks. And to your earlier question about what
kind of documentary was this and how is it received,
they're not trying to tell the full story of what
(21:13):
led to this state of affairs, which you just went
into a bit lyra It is the portrait and it's
in this style that they were kind of pioneers of
which they called cinema Barry Tire direct direct film, trying
to capture what they were seeing before them, not trying
to set it up too much, but just letting these
people tell us who they are. And I think that's
where some of the controversy around was this just tabloid
(21:35):
fodder or was it sensationalized or exploitative like That's where
those questions arose. But yeah, there was a choice in
saying we want these women to be kind of letting
us into their world. They didn't invite themselves in like
they were invited in. They built enough trust for that
door to be opened to them.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, the idea of a perpetual present is so apt,
and I think that's also part of what makes it's
so eerie, is that part of the on an existential level,
part of them, like leaving the house to be as
is and never cleaning is basically it's like hitting pause.
It's like, whatever is happening now, this is it. We
are not making an effort to change it in any way.
(22:16):
We are just like this is sort of it's almost
like this is the this is the conclusion. We have
arrived where we are meant to be, And it's basically
this until the end. And it's striking the things that
are not mentioned, like the squalor of the house is
never directly mentioned by either of them, except for one
(22:36):
moment which I thought was so interesting, where they're having
people over for dinner and Big Eadie says like, I
thought you said you were going to clean, which is
such a fascinating thing coming out of her, because if anything,
she's the you know, quote unquote messier one. I mean,
her bed is famously filled with cats and old newspapers
and stains. So it's so funny to the one time
they address the messiness for her to say, I thought
(22:58):
you were going to clean, and then the other thing
that's never really mentioned. They mentioned their family, but the
Bouvier and Kennedy connections are not like drilled into you
as much as you would think they would be. And
it's funny because Carol Radswell is almost like a contemporary
version of this where she doesn't mention her Kennedy connection
as much. In the Real Housewive, she sort of like
lets you infer it. So there's something almost classy about it,
(23:22):
like they're not being loud about their famous connections. I mean,
I guess there's some name dropping when it comes to
the marriage proposals.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
That is like telling the story that's true, and they're
having this fight, and within the fight, Big Eadie starts
dropping the names as examples of like, you're not really
telling the whole story there, little Edie.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after
this break.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
And we're back with un States of Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So in terms of how it was received as a documentary,
obviously there is inevitably going to be a debate around
whether it is exploitative versus delivering on the promise of
cinema very day and just like telling a story on
the subject's own terms. So what is your interpretation of
how that debate happened when it was released and then
how it evolved over the fifty years since then.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
I'm not at all surprised that that debate was happening,
especially because, as we said, now we can look at
it and with our familiarity with reality television and that
style of seeing people on screen, it doesn't seem that
shocking or strange to us, like how these women are
coming across in some ways any sense of like are
they crazy? It's like they are so reminiscent of so
many people we watch on TV every day now. But
(24:45):
I think at the time there was something really unfamiliar
about what people were witnessing, and the Kennedy connection only
exacerbated that. And I would like to get into that
a little more in a moment, But I think that
it's a fair question to raise always, like what is
the agency of the subjects in any sort of portrayal
or documentation? But I think what cuts through that debate
(25:07):
is the way in which Little Edy, in particular, these
were women who couldn't stop themselves from performing like they
were performers, they were stars. And if we didn't have
Grey Gardens, if that original footage had been shelved and
Grey Gardens ever came to be, the fact that we
wouldn't know them, that to me seems the bigger heartbreak disappointment.
I think that one thing that revisiting all of this
(25:29):
inspired me to do was to learn more about whether
Little Edie had been at the premiere or whether they
had gotten to see the final film and what they
thought about it. And I was really heartened to discover
that not only did Little Edie attend the original New
York Film Festival premiere in October of nineteen seventy five,
but she received a standing ovation, and there's this detail
of her throwing flowers into the crowd, like she almost
couldn't believe what was happening, and then when she did,
(25:51):
it was like that star power turned right on and
she was like, this is my moment, Like this is
what I've been waiting for. And it really delights me
just to know that she knew that she was a
shaded and seeing even if all this controversy is still
valid to talk about and it's unsurprising.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, and she also did a short lived cabareto of
some sort afterwards because there was interest in her as
a character, and so she did attempt to do a
stage show afterwards. It's a real testament to her on
screen charisma that regardless of what the accusations of exploitation are,
you just come out of it with such a deep
(26:26):
love for her as.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
A character and her quotes. I mean, when I watched
it as a teenager, a lot of the heavier stuff
I will say went over in my head. And I
think partially because of what you were saying out. They're
not talking about the past. This is them today really
with no narration, there's no music, just presented plainly. And
as a teenager, I really hooked on to the parts
(26:51):
of Little Lady when she talks about freedom, when she
talks about not wanting to get married, and her never
ending love of herself, and there's like a moment where
she says to her mom, I can do anything. I
know that I can do anything. Now as an adult
watching it, it's heartbreaking because she's sitting in this room
(27:14):
that is like the one room of the house that
is they can.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, and that coexists exactly what you're describing Lara, how
in her own way liberated she is coexists with the
fact that she also is just literally trapped. She both
completely owns who she is, but also is constantly blaming
others for the things she doesn't have. And so I
think this could serve as an argument against the idea
(27:37):
that she's being exploited, is that she actually is allowed
to be a very complex figure on camera, and I
think she could so easily have been just caricatured. But
the quotes that you get from her actually paint a
pretty complicated picture.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
But you know, and we are saying that the film
doesn't really bring in the past, or at least the
filmmakers don't in terms of how they're contextualizing it. I
think we should be really clear that the past is
constantly bumping up against the present in their surroundings and
these photographs in their memories, right, that's where we're getting
the glimpse into the past. And little Edie, this is
a woman who is being told most of her young
(28:13):
adult and teenage life, Oh, she's so beautiful. She has
so much promise and potential, and all these wealthy men
they talk about this, there are these marriage offers that
were made millionaires. She was wanted, she was desired. And
then she gets a little older. She's a woman in
her mid fifties at the time that the film emerges,
and it must have felt really frustrating to not be
taken seriously or given the same validation for who she
(28:36):
was the woman she was growing into, who is just
as fabulous, probably even more because now her personality is
sort of like on display and she's not playing by
whatever rule she was brought up with, And so I
think it's just important to bring that context in as well,
Like she is a woman without a husband or a partner.
She's being supported by her mother, and that is part
of what's trapping her there, but it's also just her
(28:57):
unwillingness to accept the path that was clearly laid out
for her and that she very well could have walked.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yeah, can you talk a little bit about all the
stories of marriage proposals and the futures that could have
been not to fact check little Edie in real time,
but I did wonder how much of it was just
really wonderful storytelling. Do you have any idea of which
parts are you know, a little bit more flowery. I
(29:25):
wish I had a little.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
More to say about it, but I honestly, I think
I was so taken with her stories of like, well,
this one almost asked me to marryam but I turned
them down. This one intrigued me, but it wasn't right
that I just didn't even take the next step to
go like did those proposals actually happen? I was on
that one piece. I was kind of buying what she
was selling, and I think we should, we should find out.
I kind of agree with the show, But then part
(29:46):
of it is like, yeah, I have no doubt. I
just want to kind of guttural intuitive love life. No
doubt that she was sought after. I mean, you see
the photos of her modeling, and I think the piece
that I feel a little more like hmm, skeptical about
is what happened in New York, like that trajectory of
trying to have this breakthrough. Is she charismatic? Is there
(30:07):
this like star power presence to just like flying off
the screen?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (30:11):
But was she talented in a way that would have
built like a lasting career on stage. I don't know,
Like in some ways I'm like, yeah, what were the
expectations then, and how was she showing up in those
auditions that she speaks of. And she does have a
very quirky way of being in personality that probably just
wasn't always aligning with more of the presence than a
(30:31):
Lee Radswell or a Jackie was bringing. It's a good
juncture to say that little Edie is not the only
one who had some dreams deferred of being a working,
successful actor performer.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Lee made a stage appearance.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
She was in a film called Laura. These efforts were
panned by critics pretty unambiguously. There is a great clip
I recommend everyone watch on YouTube of Lee with Truman Capoti,
the writer who was a friend and supporter, and she
is receiving some pretty nassy questions from a reporter who's saying,
do you think the only reason you've got these opportunities
is because you're Jackie's sister? Or why are you still
(31:08):
trying this? Didn't you hear the critics like you're not good?
That's story of the tone of the interview, And she's
just handling it very elegantly. Kind of not even dodging,
just sort of they are rolling right off of her.
She's not engaging with it. It's like she's above it all.
And I think that you can tell watching Little Edie
that she wouldn't have handled those questions in the same way.
She would have been like, what do you mean, I've
got something, I can do anything. It was more, if anything,
(31:31):
the biggest difference between them is like a lack of
media training and a lack of interest in being perceived
in that way. Lee and Jackie also had their own
very very fair share of major heartbreak, loss, grief, haunting
life experiences that they had to carry with them along
with disappointment, failed auditions, et cetera, et cetera. And I
(31:52):
think it's so easy to say that these are polar
opposite women and that that's where the tension lies. But
I think the tension is actually in house similar they
really are, and with a few different choices, they might
have been in a very similar place.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Also in the fact that all three of them were
raised to marry well, I mean that was the messaging
that they got was regardless of who you are, what
you achieve in order to have the support that you
will need in life. Your first goal needs to be
marrying well. And yeah, Jackie and Lee took that very
(32:30):
seriously Jackie at least, I would say, and Gidi didn't.
It seems that's true, except.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
That Lee went through two divorces, right, This is a
woman who is divorced twice. I mean when she is
at Grey Gardens the summer nineteen seventy two, she's there
with her lover, her boyfriend, Peter Beard.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
They're not married.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
So what's more scandalous not following the safe path and
having a husband or having multiple lovers and partners and
divorces in a lifetime. It's not so neat, is when
I'm coming to after revisiting all of this.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Oh completely, it's easy to look at little Edie without
any context and be like, why is she wearing a
cart again as a skirt? She looks a complete mess.
But in fact it's the same impulse that Jackie has
when she looks really fabulous on camera. She has a
personal sense of fashion and sometimes it's really incredible, and
she is using what she has at her disposal, which
(33:18):
is way less wealth and way less money and way
less access to designer clothes than Jackie has, but despite
the fact that she's literally surrounded by a cat shit,
every time she's on camera, she makes sure to have
her head covered. She's making very sort of interesting choices.
There's one scene where she has two small scarves tied
around her ankles, which is something I had never seen before.
(33:41):
It's just so clearly coming from a mind that is
thinking in terms of esthetics and thinking in terms of
combining different patterns and fabrics and whatever. It's obviously a
different quote unquote poise, but it is poison. Nonetheless, it
is kind of dressing herself up in a way that
elevates you compared to your surroundings. And your surroundings can
(34:01):
be either tragic in the literal sense or they can
be tragic in the more spiritual sense of having gone
through so much trauma and whatever. So it is, you know,
not to take it in a completely different direction, but
that also is I think very clearly what makes both
the wealthier Bouvias and these Bovia's into such gay icons,
because they become these women who have overcome tragedy and
(34:23):
overcome trauma while looking good for the camera.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
It also reminded me of Paris's burning every time I
saw Little Edie come out in a costume that was
her words.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I mean, the relationship with Greg Gardens and drag is
one of the most lasting influences that the film has had. Literally,
when I went to see it in San Francisco, was
introduced by a drag queen. Funnily enough, pink Flamingos came
out two years before Greg Gardens did. And there is
the scene of the mom being in bed and like
a sort of Greg Gardens esque environment along with the daughter.
(34:58):
So John Waters have had some sort.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Of you know, oh yeah, he references them in hairspray.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
These are women who are like dressing for or at
least Little Edie is dressing for the life she wants,
not for the surrounding she has. And I think the
biggest difference that I see in their serritorial approach is
Jackie and Little Edie. I think Jackie is often presenting
herself in a way that she thinks the public expects
of her, or that the camera kind of wants her
to appear, and Little Edie is dressing a way that
like the camera can't turn away from her. And this
(35:27):
is a film that in some ways just had to exist.
Once there were cameras in that space, A film was happening.
Whether or not, I mean they did agree to it, right,
that's important to say, but it was happening either way.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Did Jackie O ever speak publicly about the documentary after
it was released?
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Oh, that's a really good question. I actually wish I'd
looked into that, and I didn't. Let's look it up.
I would be really curious. I think that Little Edy
and Big d I was more interested in whether they
had seen it and gotten to understand how it was
being received. But Lee, I'm sure felt a little uncomfortable. Again,
that footage was hidden for many years, and I think
she wanted it to be her movie, and it very
(36:03):
much did not turn out to be her movie. And
if any of you all end up watching that summer,
I think you'll just see like, she's so sweet and
tender on screen, and that's lovely to see, but she's
not captivating. I don't think we would be talking about
it on a podcast in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Frankly, we'll be back with more United States of Kennedy
after this break, and.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
We're back with the United States of Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
This movie was a phenomenon in its own right. It
was both critically acclaimed and controversial. It was accused of
being exploitative while also immediately becoming iconic. It popularized these
two women who then became on screen legends and their
own right. It has become a TV movie, as you said,
is Jessica Lang and Drew Barrymore. It has become a
musical that was nominated for ten Tonys. It was more
(37:01):
recently parodied by Fred Armisson and Bill Hayter in documentary
Now where they play versions of Big Edy and Little Edie.
It's been on Rupol's Drag Race, Endless Drag performances have
been influenced by it. What do you think accounts for
its lasting power?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
I think that to me, this is like a funhouse
mirror of a film, and it is a litmus test
whenever you encounter it, if you are a teenager watching
it for the rich time, like you're talking about Lyra,
or a thirty something woman at a particular place in
her career, unmarried or married. Wherever you are going to
take something a little different from this film, different quotes
(37:35):
are going to stick in your mind. Whether you experience
discussed repulsion, pity, whether you're watching them and going like
this is unbelievable. These women have such charm and charisma,
and I can't get enough. You're feeling sympathy, you're whatever,
you're feeling. It just I think it really brings up
a lot of strong emotions in people. And even if
you don't necessarily have your own version of an eccentric
(37:57):
grandma and aunt living on Long Island, there's family dynamics
that are so universal playing out here. One thing I
want to mention that Julia Fox brought up in her
remarks on Sunday was the ways in which they're having
these caddy moments or like back talking about each other,
but the moment that one person leaves the room, there'll
be this like sweetness or Biggie being like, actually, you know,
she's always had a better voice than me, even though
(38:19):
she's just been telling her, it'll stop saying. There's so
much that people can relate to in their own family
and friend dynamics, and I think it's we're seeing such
a heightened version of it, and yet there's something really
familiar in these little interactions of like, yeah, if I
had made a different decision, if I hadn't decided to
move back in with my parents that one year. If
(38:40):
I hadn't ultimately decided not to go to the audition,
what would my life be. And there's this poetry, like
an internal poetry to the film that I think is
why I really do think we'll be watching it for
the next fifty years and the fifty years after that.
And to me, that is the legacy. It's the fact
that their legend was born on screen through this movie,
but it's one that keeps finding people, and to me,
(39:02):
that's the sign. Those are my favorite pop cultural time capsules,
are things that you are constantly finding something new in.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, and it almost exists out of place and time
in its own way, like it really is just the
two of them. Because the house is so, you know,
kind of funky. There's nothing tying into a specific time period.
It's not like the furniture is specifically seventies or their
fashion is specifically seventies. Like it is almost like they
are already fictional characters living in a fairy tale, which
(39:31):
is in fact why the scene of the guests coming
for dinner is so shocking, because they suddenly have this
brief interaction with the outside world I'm wondering, do you
have any moments that you keep coming back to. Do
you have like a favorite quote or something that when
you first watched it you responded to.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
There's so much, and I think you alluded to a
couple of these moments, Lyra. I did have to take
note of the moment about freedom, where little ladies like
I like freedom and her mom's like, well, you can't
get it, darling, you're being supported. Get any freedom when
you're being supported, And they go back and forth about this,
and little Edie winds up going, you know, I think
you're not free when you're not being supported. It's awful
both ways, like these truthful little gems. You know, there
(40:11):
is the moment with little Ye reading astrology book with
a magnifying glass and talking about if I could just
find that librin husband like that.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I just need a little order in my life. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
I think that it's the ways in which they're both
so aware of that camera and yet un self consciously
just rattling off these what did you call them, tiktoks?
I'm not really on TikTok oh.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Vocal stems as well stems.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Yeah, they are queens of vocal stems before that was
even a thing.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, the magnifying glass. I'm glad you brought up because
the use of the magnifying glass and the binoculars pretty binocularly,
because she refuses to get glasses, but she still needs
to see, so she literally uses binoculars for seeing far
and a magnifying glass for seeing close. It is one
of the most incredible. It also is, in its own way,
almost a fashion statement. It is her version of glasses.
(41:00):
Something fabulous about her being on a scale and using
binoculars to look at the number on the scale and
then being like, oh my god, it's up to one
forty five. The naming of that number too.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
I think the number on scale is akin to the
moment in Materialists where she reveals she's making eighty thousand
dollars and people lost their minds.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Speaking of lines about freedom, because I would say, like
freedom is one of the main themes of the film,
and also sort of free will and choices is another one.
Like there's so much reminiscing about potential futures that were
forwarded because someone didn't or did make a choice, and
their current existence is almost like a metaphor for all
these things. And one moment that I truly could not
(41:42):
believe was in'tscripted, which I wrote down, is you know,
famously a cat peece behind a portrait in the house
and Big d says, you know, cat's going to the
bathroom right behind my portrait, and Little Edie says, God,
isn't that awful? And then Big Edie says, no, I'm
glad he is. I'm glad somebody's doing something he wanted
to do, which is like, that's I mean, that is
(42:03):
like so poetic. How do you even come up with
that on the spot?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
I know, I know, well it's a dig at Little Leady.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Well, of course I know.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
I feel like that must be sitting on top of
her head at all times. Every time Little Lady starts complaining,
she's like, these were all your choices?
Speaker 3 (42:21):
Well, it is embodying that kind of codependent love that
goes so far as to spoil and turn into a
sort of it's never hate, but it is like they
know each other so well, it's hard to know where
Big Eadie begins and Little Edie ends. Sometimes and you
hear this in like I set up top, it is
a film in which it's almost like one long monologue
(42:42):
where it's voices talking over each other, interrupting each other, disagreeing, agreeing,
suddenly being on the same page, suddenly having two wildly
different narratives, Like there's this unstoppable force of ideas and
voices colliding, and you can only really have that with
someone that you deeply know well on such an intimate
at level.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Were there other moments at the fiftieth anniversary screening that
stuck out?
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that people watching was great.
Usually I'm sort of against audience Q and a's, but
with this one, I would love for everyone to go
around the room and say what their relationship to the
movie was. Was there anything else sort of memorable that
you want to share?
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Absolutely well, So it needs to be said that Jerry
Tory was in the crowd the Marble Fawn himself, Jerry
Tory being kind of a runaway who somehow ended up
at their home taking care of it. And as far
as little Leadie was concerned, like falling in love with
her and he was going to be the ex proposal
coming and she was scared about that. But yeah, he's
(43:39):
a sculptor, he's an artist. He's still with us. And
he was in that crowd, which is truly remarkable. And
there were also so many people I want to say,
at least fifty hands raised seeing it for the first
time ever, which how special to see it on the
big screen with you know, mister Julia Fox there too.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
But these two.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Younger women behind me as we were leaving, were just like, God,
I'm so glad that I am alive in this era,
because if I had been living the life I'm living
then they would have been calling me a spinster. They
just could not believe how far in at least that regard,
how much more acceptable it seems to be to be
unmarried in your thirties, for example.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Well, and it's being unmarried, but it's also not having
the ability presented to you at any point, not having
the opportunity to support yourself financially, And this is like
they're butting up against the very end of that. Really,
I think that starting at that time, no one in
(44:38):
the general population was raising their daughters to never work
and just marry, you know, to support them to live,
to be able to live in a home and eat food.
But this is really the tail end of you know,
I think of sense and sensibility as those girls are stuck.
They're truly truly stuck until they get married and they
(44:59):
can't support them by law, and then this is really
the very very end bookend of that being a life
that would have been presented as the only option to
girls when they were born.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
I don't know if women watching it at the time
would have come away being like, that is a desirable life,
and I wish I was them, But I do think
it was resonating in ways that are much clearer to
us now, but at the time it was just a
feeling of they've got something that maybe I actually want
in my life. I will say one more quick anecdote
from Sunday, So Rebecca Masles, as I said, was there.
(45:33):
She is the daughter of one of the filmmakers, Albert,
and she read a note that he had written to
Little Edie in the nineties, and he said that he
had been at a dinner party with this woman who
was like, Greg Gardens is my favorite movie of all time.
I remember seeing you at the Paris And this woman
went on to describe that while she was in the screening,
there was someone sitting a few seats away from her
who was just so engrossed leaning forward, could not take
(45:56):
her eyes off of them, and this woman realized that
woman was Greta Garbo. So Greta Garba was sitting in
the Paris at some point in time watching gray Gardens
and going, they've got something. I can't stop looking, And
I just find that beautiful. I really do think that
in some ways, at least for a little Edie, a
version of her dreams came true. It is certainly not
the one that she thought she wanted, but she is
(46:18):
regarded as a fashion icon, as an independent spirit and thinker.
And her mother, well, I don't know. I I don't
know if I would apply the same. It's for mother
an independent thinker. No, but she's incredible at getting in
little one liners. They both got an incredible legacy, and
that makes me feel really happy.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
And you know, if anyone wants to see what the
house looks like now, it has been renovated head to
toe and there was just a New York mag piece
about it, and then there's a YouTube tour of it.
It looks completely unrecognizable, but it's still there.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
I was wondering if they had spoken at all about
Muffy Meyer or Ellen hove Dy.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
No, they didn't, and I am really glad that you mentioned,
because these were the two other films makers involved in
this production who really have not gotten their credit for it,
and I would love to learn more about them and
what they went on to make, so thank you for
bringing them into the room with us. Nope, they were
not mentioned one time on Sunday and that is a
huge oversight, where as far as I know, they were
not mentioned, but they were certainly a significant part of
(47:17):
making this happen.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Can you remind us what Andy Warhol's relationship with all
of this was, because he's in the other documentary, That Summer,
which I keep it's difficult in conversation to say that
Summer because it doesn't sound like a title, but the
documentary is called That Summer. So Andy Warhole is in
that and he was involved, So how did that work out?
Speaker 3 (47:37):
So I think that he was friends with Peter Beard,
the photographer who was dating Lee at that time, and
I'm sure Lee was friendly with them as well. They
were a part of this group of Studio fifty four
people who were coming to East Hampton in the summer,
spending time there and making art there. So I'll say
that Andy Warhol was also credited as shooting some of
the footage from that summer of nineteen seventy two, along
(47:59):
with the filmmaker Jonas Mechis. So, you know, there were
incredible artists who were spending time in Easthampton, and he
was one of them, and so he was kind of
a part of that crew.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
And I remember.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Reading something about him going to her cabaret show, being
in the front row every night.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
I need to look into this cabaret show. Is there
any footage.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Of those I know? The cabaret show?
Speaker 2 (48:19):
It?
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Unfortunately, it was widely panned. And even it's funny, like
Hilton Als wrote the essay for the Criterion release of
Great Gardens, and he's obviously being so incredibly effusive about
his love for the Beals and everything, and the one
negative thing he says is about the cabaret show. Even
someone who truly appreciates camp could not find something salvage
(48:41):
al about the gabaret show.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Listen, these were resilient women. As Little Edie calls herself.
She was a staunch character, and she says, sta U
n c h staunch. So one pan was not going
to get her down. I think if we're going to
take anything from this. It's not like, let the pans come,
let the pans fall where they may, and carrying on.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Yeah, that's a great place to end. Olivia, thank you
so much for chatting with us about Greg Gardens, both
of us. I think when we first started doing this podcast,
this was one of the episodes we couldn't wait for.
You know, so much of what we cover is so
truly tragic and includes literal murder and assassinations, and so
we just like couldn't wait to talk about genuinely one
(49:19):
of our favorite movies. And you know, maybe next time
we'll have you on with Julia Fox half We're on.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
Oh truly. I mean there could be a part two
to this. I think the amount of artists who have
been shaped by this film is countless, and the fact
that I got to talk about it, I feel mentally lucky.
I do think that they had something to do with
this as well, because your invitation came I am not exaggerating,
near hours after saying RSVP to this fiftieth anniversary screening.
So something's in the air, something's being behind the scenes. Yeah,
(49:47):
they wanted this conversation out, and I'm really glad. I
got to stock to you guys.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Thank you. So that's it for this week's episode.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Next week, we're looking at the life of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
United States of Kennedy is listed by me Lyra Smith
and George.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Severes, Research by Dave Ruth and Austin Thompson.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Original music by Josh Witzapolski.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Edited by Graham Gibson, and mixed by Doug bain. Our
executive producer is Jenna Cagel. United States of Kennedy is
a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
So subscribe and follow United States of Kennedy for All
Beings Kennedy every week
I'm George Savers, I'm Lyra Smith, and this is United
States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural fascination with
the Kennedy dynasty. Every week we go into one aspect
of the Kennedy story, and today we are talking about
the Mazles Brothers nineteen seventy five documentary Gray Gardens.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
The iconic cult classic portraying the lives of idiosyncratic and
reclusive mother daughter Duo Edith Bouvier Beale, and Little Edie
Beale in their East Hampton estate, Gray Gardens.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Big Dy and Little Edie are Jackie O's aunt and cousin, respectively.
After Big Edie's marriage ended, she found herself alone in
her East Hampton home, and her daughter moved back in
with her a few years later.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Little Edie was at JFK's inauguration in nineteen sixty. There's
a famous story of her at the reception in the
White House, where she approached Joe Senior and joked that
she was the original future first Lady of the Kennedy family,
as she was almost engaged to Joe Junior before his
death in World War Two. There are striking similarities in
the way that Little Edie and Jackie O were raised,
(01:09):
but ultimately Little Edie never married, instead staying with her
mother in the house that, by nineteen seventy one was
full of cats, infested by fleas and raccoons, and deprived
of running water.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
A series of inspections from the Suffolk County Health Department
allegedly resulted in one thousand bags of garbage being taken out.
As this was happening, Big Edy and Little Edie became
infamous to the American public after a big cover story
in New York Magazine about them and an article in
the National Inquirer.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Jackie O and her sister Lee Radswell provided the funds
for a clean up effort, which shockingly took place before
this documentary was filmed.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Enter the Mazles Brothers. The acclaimed documentarians originally visited the
Greg Gardens estate with Lee Radswell, but were immediately taken
with Big Edie and Little Edie. After spending more time
with them, they decided to make a film documenting their
day to day life life living together.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Grey Gardens screened at the nineteen seventy six cann Film
Festival and had its US premiere at the New York
Film Festival, where it received widespread acclaim, even though some
critics found its filmmaking exploitative.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
It has since become a major cult classic and resulted
in a Tony winning musical, a movie adaptation starring Drew
Barrymore and Jessica Lang, a parody starring Fred Armison and
Bill Hayter, as well as, of course, thousands of drag
interpretations across the country.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of
Grey Gardens at the Paris Theater, which hosted a special
anniversary screening with special guest Julia Fox. She was one
of many Gray Gardens superfans that showed up to celebrate
the lasting impact of Big and Little Eatie.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Among them was our guest, Olivia Aylmer.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Olivia is a senior editor at the New York based
media company The Slowdown. Olivia writes about film art, literature,
and style, and covered the unofficial prequel to Grey Gardens,
titled that somm for Vanity Fair. Olivia, thanks for joining us.
My absolute pleasure.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I think there's nowhere else I'd rather be than talking
about Grey Gardens on a Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Let's get into it so you sadly, I was out
of town for this, but you just attended a fiftieth
anniversary screaming hosted by Julia Fox, moderated by Julia Fox.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Julia Fox there to talk about how much this movie
means to her, alongside Alexis Bittar, the jewelry designer, and
Rebecca Maseles, who is the daughter of Albert, who is
one of the filmmakers. So it was a really special moment.
As I'm sure you both know that Paris is the
very theater where Grey Gardens had its public premiere and
that was fifty years ago. So huge moment and really special.
(03:42):
And you know, a crowd full of the ghosts of
Little Edie in their fabulous head scarves.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Was there sort of drag stuff happening?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Now?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I wouldn't even call it drag. It was like total devotion.
It was really like people just couldn't help themselves, Like
I think these head scarves have been waiting for their moment,
and Sunday was that moment.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
And yeah, everyone turned out.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So what was your relationship to the film before this
fiftieth anniversary screening?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
So I was giving this some thought and I think, honestly,
my first awareness of big and Little Edie was probably
the two thousand and nine HBO fictionalized portrait with Jessica
Lang Andrew Barrymore, which I'm sure I just saw an
ad for at the nilsaon with my mom and was like,
I love Drew Barrymore like she was an et and
ever after.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So that was my.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Awareness of Okay, there are these women and they look
like this and who are they. My way into the
actual documentary didn't happen until high school. I had a
really good friend named Lauren, who was the only other
woman at my suburban Richmond, Virginia high school who planned
to move to New York City. So we were like
kindred spirits. And her dad had worked in a musical theater,
had been a tap dancer, and one day he was like, girls,
(04:48):
do you know about great gardens? No, okay, Olivia, you're
coming over and putting it on, And it was this
I feel like it was the fourth of July for
some reason, which feels fitting. And he basically gave his
commentary voice over, weaving a to big Little Edies voices,
which we'll get into this more.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
But it is such a coffiness.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I would say it is the word movie and yeah
that was my official sitting down. This is education, Like
you need to know about this film.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
What was his messaging? What was he narrating throughout?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I mean I think he was just like, you two
are spirited young women who want to do things a
little differently. I like, not stay in the place that
you went high school in. And here are two women
that you need to know about who very unapologetically lived
their lives and had this just ineffable spirit. I think
it was really just about their souls and him wanting
us to have a relationship to that aspect. I don't
(05:37):
remember him going super deep into history of the making.
It was really just about them. Like I feel like
he knew some of the lines by heart, which happens.
I think once you've seen this at least twice, there
are just like stray pieces of their interactions that just
live in your brain forevermore.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, I keep thinking about on TikTok they say vocal stem, Yeah,
you know, and it's like pieces of And I realized
when I was watching this, I was like, oh, really,
Gray Gardens was my first experience with a vocal stem
that stuck with me my whole life. I can hear
little leady in my head anytime.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
It's true, what a generous reading of the film from
a dad. You know. I think that was certainly My
first interaction with it was after I had already been
quote unquote reclaimed, whatever that means. I saw it at
the Castro Theater in San Francisco and I was living there,
and if it was introduced by a drag queen, and
it was already framed to me like a gay cult classic,
(06:33):
and I was primed to be like, Okay, we love
these women. They're iconic. Look at her amazing headscarf. Whatever.
But it's such a genuinely moving thing to think that
a dad would show his ambitious and smart daughters these
two women and for the message to be they lived
life on their own terms. It's true.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I mean I get a father ahead of his time
in some ways. By again, the musical theater background I'm
sure influenced thought. And you know, I wish I could
go back and ask him, like what his first exposure,
because it is really interesting to think about how people
come to things that seem like they're just a part
of their but no, everyone has like their entry point.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Do you remember what your reaction was at that age.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I think even if I had not gone on to
write or edit or work in media, I think they
would have just had a hold on me. Like if
I had just seen it that one time, that would
have been a strong core memory. I feel like it's
one of those documentaries where you're like, I don't think
I've seen anything quite like this before. I mean, I
can barely imagine what a person in nineteen seventy five
seeing it would have felt. On Sundays at the screening
(07:34):
with my girlfriend and she was experiencing the lore of
it for the first time, and she turned to me
and whispered midway through, I feel like I'm watching the Kardashians.
And I promise I had not planted that at all.
That was a truly organic response. There is something just
so strangely familiar and also utterly strange about what we're
witnessing two people on camera being super aware of the
(07:56):
camera but also unable to stop being themselves.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And it's even kind of shot and edited in the
Housewives style. I mean, this is the larger conversation about
is it. It's really you can find a path from
great gardens to what modern reality television looks and sounds
like and it's so, I guess ironic or maybe fitting,
maybe the opposite of ironic that Carol Radswell became a
(08:23):
housewife after Lee Radswell is the catalyst for this documentary happening.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
That's true. So I know you've written about the other documentary,
That Summer, which is a documentary that came out in
twenty eighteen that is also about Big Edy and Little Edie,
but sort of a slightly different way. Lee Radswell is
a huge character in a u se Andy Warhol, which
we'll get into later. But I wonder if in your
research about the film you have a sense of what
(08:51):
it means for documentary history, Like it was not the
way things were done at the time, and it was
kind of controversial when it came out, So what is
your sense of the impact it had on documentaries at
that time.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Yeah, I think since you brought up That Summer, it
is helpful for listeners who might not be familiar with
that film and the history behind it, Like it can
basically be viewed as a prequel to what Greg Gardens
became the quick backstories that Lee Radswell had this vision
for there to be a documentary about her summer's spending
time in the Hamptons and going to visit her cousin.
And so she had this vision for a documentary where
(09:26):
it would be like big Eady is narrating it or
has some kind of little role in it, but it
really is about her and this documentation of her memories.
And they went there that summer of nineteen seventy two
with the Mazles brothers. She was like, Okay, you're going
to be our crew. She was with her boyfriend Peter Beard,
the photographer, and I think she became aware of the
Masls through their Rolling Stones documentary that had come out
(09:48):
a little bit earlier. Within a few weeks of encountering
the Beules, their attention was nowhere else but them. Whatever
vision Lee had of what this was going to be,
it became very clear that that was not the real
story here. The real stars were emerging and it was
these two women in this house and how they got
there and how they were living out their lives together.
(10:10):
And so all of that original footage was lost or
sort of scrapped, and they returned the fall of nineteen
seventy three to make what became Grey Gardens. That film
was also made grey gardens at a time where there
was already some public scandal around, you know, the Bules,
which is inseparable from how the media was understanding them
and playing a role in this. So there were these
(10:33):
like what Big and Little Eadie called raids, but you know,
inspections happening by the local Stuffolk County Health Department, the ASPCA.
They were like, these conditions are not these are not sustainable.
We need to do something and tried to basically raise
the house. And that is when Lee and also Jackie,
which we're get into, stepped in to try to restore
(10:54):
it or at least get it into a condition where
they could keep living there.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
We're going to take a short break, stay.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
With us, and we're back with the United States of Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
The raids were happening because of media coverage of the sisters,
because there was this famous like New York magazine cover story.
I think it was also covered in the Times. What
was the timeline of.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
That, well, I think the raids were not necessarily because
of the media coverage. The raids were happening because the
town of East Hampton was concerned about the fact that
they had discovered the existence of these women in a
house that was quite literally falling apart around them. There
were holes in the ceiling. It's not an exaggeration to
say it was in a state of extreme disrepair and
(11:49):
out of a faux concern for their well being, but
really just this isn't the image of East Hampton that
we want to uphold, and we need to get in there.
They started finding ways to basically raise it to the ground,
and that was basically where Lee and then her sister
Jackie stepped in to offer their support and their financial support,
their just compassion around the situation and do what they
(12:10):
could to allow them to keep living there. But this
moment of the Raid's kind of coincided with this, Yes,
this New York Magazine cover story, which brought an awareness
to the greater public about not just who they were,
but their connection to Jackie, which was what made it
interesting enough for New York Magazine to say, let's make
this a cover story. It was also by total happenstance.
It was like the writer of that story had a
(12:31):
house nearby and her daughter had found some rabbits and
was like, there's all these cats around that house, which
she called the witch House. Maybe we should go over
and see if they'll take the rabbits. And the writer
Gail sees this woman approaching in a headscarf and goes like, wait,
I think I know her. There's something familiar about her,
and comes to find what The reason she looks familiar
(12:51):
is that she has related to Jackie Kennedy, who everyone
at that moment in time knew what she looked like.
So I guess I brought that up to say, it's
very hard to separate the sort of scandal or tabloid
fodder that was just the Grey Garden's house and the
woman living in it from the emergence of Grey Gardens
the film.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
The film is.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Nineteen seventy five, right, and this cover story is a
few years prior. So there is this growing awareness and interest,
maybe morbid curiosity about who is inhabiting this space, how
did they get there?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So in that summer, are you seeing the house before
the cleanup or is that still after the cleanup.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
What it's documenting is Lee coming to try to support
that process. So I believe I don't know the exact timeline,
but let's say it's a few months after they are
these threats for the house to be taken from them,
and so I don't know if you both have seen
it. It is available I think, on Sundance channel on YouTube
for anyone who hasn't. But you see these really tender
moments of her just talking to her aunt and her
(13:48):
cousin and trying to say, Okay, maybe we should have
cut all of the really delicate and expensive porcelain in
storage because it might get stolen. Let's have these people
come up and clean. Like she's really trying to help
them through this moment where they just feel like they're
losing all of their privacy, and you know, it's an uncomfortable,
I think, transitional moment. But what's also happening is the
(14:09):
a camera for the first time is being turned on
little Edie in particular, and she's going, wait, I've been
waiting for this moment my whole life, perhaps, and so
there's this yeah, really, I don't know if magical is
the word, but something's happening, Something really interesting is happening
where they are becoming aware of people's awareness of them,
and rather than wanting to shut the doors and say okay,
(14:30):
actually we want to be even more private, they're like, wait,
we're having a nice time. People are taking an interest
in us, and maybe we should keep the door open,
and they do.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, And that is so interesting because even Lee said
it took weeks for them to open the door for
her when she first tried to go out there. So
they reached a point where they seem to have a
desire to be presented publicly.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I think that started to happen.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, but there was a skepticism certainly, for you know,
do these people actually want to help us, did they
really care about us? Or are they just trying to
take away our home? The place, especially for big Ead
like she had been living there at that point since
I want to say the twenties, like her husband feel
and Beale had purchased it and they had lived there
together and then they separated and he eventually served her
(15:16):
divorce papers and that was it. But that was where
she had put down her roots and welcomed her daughter back.
And I think they had this really deep connection to it,
and to lose it would have meant losing a sense
of identity and any sort of groundedness, which they were
losing the longer that they stayed there without many guests.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, along those lines, walk us through just abridged history
of the relationship with the house. So how long had
they been living there? How long were they there just
the two of them. I know that little Edy at
some point was gone and then she came back. What
led to what we actually see in the documentary.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, it's a good question because the documentary doesn't really
get into the backstory. It opens with some headlines, so
you have a sense again of this growing public awareness,
but it doesn't really tell you how they got there.
So basically, in nineteen seventeen, Big Edie married this lawyer
financier named Phelan Beal who had worked at her father's
law firm Moovi and Beal. They had this really grand
(16:12):
wedding ceremony at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Something like twenty five
hundred people attended. You do see in the film her
wedding portrait, which is quite striking. But so they were married.
They lived on Madison Avenue, which is actually now the
site of the Carlisle Hotel. They lived at that site
for a while and then in nineteen twenty three, Filan
purchased the Great Gardens Mansion in East Hampton, right a
(16:33):
block from the ocean. The couple separated in nineteen thirty one,
but big Ead was able to keep the Great Garden's house.
And you know, she had two sons as well, Utle
Eay's brothers. They had gone off to college and serving
in World War Two and kind of had families of
their own, so they were really nowhere to be found
in nineteen fifty two. That summer, Little Edie had spent
(16:53):
a few years in Manhattan and was trying to make
it as a dancer, performer, an actor, was trying to
kind of get her big break and it just wasn't happening.
And I think the narrative around that shifts depending on
who's talking about it. But she went to live with
her mother, and ostensibly because her mother had gotten cats,
so it was really it was all about the cats,
like she had to come back and help take care
of them. And so that sort of is the pivot
(17:15):
point right nineteen fifty two, and then they are there
into the early seventies. I was also struck just in
revisiting all of this history that Biggie died in nineteen
seventy seven, so two years after Greg Garden's actually premieres
and is out in the world. She's not with us
for that much longer, And just to put a finer
(17:35):
point on the history of the house, when Big Eadie dies,
Little Edie does go on to sell the house, and
she actually sells it to Ben Bradley, who's the former
executive editor of The Washington Post and his wife, the
journalist Sally Quinn. So it ends up kind of being
passed into new hands, but still in this sort of
median culture bubble, which is quite interesting. I mean, really
(17:56):
people were describing it as a haunted house in the seventies,
but now I can't even imagine. Maybe because it's been
so refurbished, the ghosts of left, but it's.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, and they really cared for the house. They you know,
Sally Quinn, they made sure to sell to somebody that
was going to care for the home and not just
raise it.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, And part of the terms was that they weren't
allowed to raise it. They could renovate it, but they
could not completely tear it down. That's correct. And part
of the mythology of all of this is that these
are formerly wealthy people that are now living in Squalor,
and the fact that they are adjacent to the Kennedy's.
Of course adds to the sort of desire to gock
get them and be like, can you believe this is
(18:36):
happening in terms of purely the money? Am I right
to say that Jackie's father, Blackjack Bouvier, was somehow in
charge of their inheritance, and then it did not make
its way to them, and so all they had was
this house.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I think that part of what happened with Jackie's father
was like the stock market crash. I mean, I think
he had some financial troubles of his own, so that
inheritance was shrinking as it was, and then there's very
little of it left and they started to receive like
a small allowance. I want to say it was like
thirty five hundred a year. But it was going from
big Edie being married to a wealthy man and having
what seemed like a life of comfort ahead of her
(19:13):
to also his leaving, and I think that rupture in
their relationship. Suddenly she is a single mom now, and
she wasn't working, like, she wasn't bringing in her own money,
so she was reliant on family and the men in
her life to support.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I do think from.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
What I've been reading that has like totally changed my
perspective of Big Eadie is that she was very young
when she got married and he was fourteen years older,
and she really wanted to be a professional singer, and
she continued to pursue that dream the entire time she
(19:49):
was married, and that is what led to their separation.
And the way they don't explain it in the documentary
sounds more like, oh, he left her and he married
somebody else, But there's two decades worth of that separation
occurring before he actually marries someone else. And that is
(20:13):
just wild to me because as a teenager watching it,
I didn't really pay much attention to Big Die. I
was just hypnotized by Little Edie.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
That's so funny. I also, this time around, was really
struck by a Big Edi. I have this memory of
her as you know, kind of like a quote unquote
crazy lady, and then this time around I found her
so wise. When she talks about the value of looking
back versus looking forward, she just has these lines where
she cuts right to the chase, as Little Edie is
(20:41):
still kind of half living in a dream world and
living this still very childlike existence. Obviously, they both have
their flaws, but this time around I came out with
quite a bit of respect for Big Edie. That's a
really good point.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
And also I think there is the aspect of the
kind of temporality of the way the film is shot.
It feels like it's happening in this perpetual press where
it could just be one long day in tonight. But
actually I think the footage was shot over the course
of six weeks. And to your earlier question about what
kind of documentary was this and how is it received,
they're not trying to tell the full story of what
(21:13):
led to this state of affairs, which you just went
into a bit lyra It is the portrait and it's
in this style that they were kind of pioneers of
which they called cinema Barry Tire direct direct film, trying
to capture what they were seeing before them, not trying
to set it up too much, but just letting these
people tell us who they are. And I think that's
where some of the controversy around was this just tabloid
(21:35):
fodder or was it sensationalized or exploitative like That's where
those questions arose. But yeah, there was a choice in
saying we want these women to be kind of letting
us into their world. They didn't invite themselves in like
they were invited in. They built enough trust for that
door to be opened to them.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, the idea of a perpetual present is so apt,
and I think that's also part of what makes it's
so eerie, is that part of the on an existential level,
part of them, like leaving the house to be as
is and never cleaning is basically it's like hitting pause.
It's like, whatever is happening now, this is it. We
are not making an effort to change it in any way.
(22:16):
We are just like this is sort of it's almost
like this is the this is the conclusion. We have
arrived where we are meant to be, And it's basically
this until the end. And it's striking the things that
are not mentioned, like the squalor of the house is
never directly mentioned by either of them, except for one
(22:36):
moment which I thought was so interesting, where they're having
people over for dinner and Big Eadie says like, I
thought you said you were going to clean, which is
such a fascinating thing coming out of her, because if anything,
she's the you know, quote unquote messier one. I mean,
her bed is famously filled with cats and old newspapers
and stains. So it's so funny to the one time
they address the messiness for her to say, I thought
(22:58):
you were going to clean, and then the other thing
that's never really mentioned. They mentioned their family, but the
Bouvier and Kennedy connections are not like drilled into you
as much as you would think they would be. And
it's funny because Carol Radswell is almost like a contemporary
version of this where she doesn't mention her Kennedy connection
as much. In the Real Housewive, she sort of like
lets you infer it. So there's something almost classy about it,
(23:22):
like they're not being loud about their famous connections. I mean,
I guess there's some name dropping when it comes to
the marriage proposals.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
That is like telling the story that's true, and they're
having this fight, and within the fight, Big Eadie starts
dropping the names as examples of like, you're not really
telling the whole story there, little Edie.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after
this break.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
And we're back with un States of Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So in terms of how it was received as a documentary,
obviously there is inevitably going to be a debate around
whether it is exploitative versus delivering on the promise of
cinema very day and just like telling a story on
the subject's own terms. So what is your interpretation of
how that debate happened when it was released and then
how it evolved over the fifty years since then.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
I'm not at all surprised that that debate was happening,
especially because, as we said, now we can look at
it and with our familiarity with reality television and that
style of seeing people on screen, it doesn't seem that
shocking or strange to us, like how these women are
coming across in some ways any sense of like are
they crazy? It's like they are so reminiscent of so
many people we watch on TV every day now. But
(24:45):
I think at the time there was something really unfamiliar
about what people were witnessing, and the Kennedy connection only
exacerbated that. And I would like to get into that
a little more in a moment, But I think that
it's a fair question to raise always, like what is
the agency of the subjects in any sort of portrayal
or documentation? But I think what cuts through that debate
(25:07):
is the way in which Little Edy, in particular, these
were women who couldn't stop themselves from performing like they
were performers, they were stars. And if we didn't have
Grey Gardens, if that original footage had been shelved and
Grey Gardens ever came to be, the fact that we
wouldn't know them, that to me seems the bigger heartbreak disappointment.
I think that one thing that revisiting all of this
(25:29):
inspired me to do was to learn more about whether
Little Edie had been at the premiere or whether they
had gotten to see the final film and what they
thought about it. And I was really heartened to discover
that not only did Little Edie attend the original New
York Film Festival premiere in October of nineteen seventy five,
but she received a standing ovation, and there's this detail
of her throwing flowers into the crowd, like she almost
couldn't believe what was happening, and then when she did,
(25:51):
it was like that star power turned right on and
she was like, this is my moment, Like this is
what I've been waiting for. And it really delights me
just to know that she knew that she was a
shaded and seeing even if all this controversy is still
valid to talk about and it's unsurprising.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, and she also did a short lived cabareto of
some sort afterwards because there was interest in her as
a character, and so she did attempt to do a
stage show afterwards. It's a real testament to her on
screen charisma that regardless of what the accusations of exploitation are,
you just come out of it with such a deep
(26:26):
love for her as.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
A character and her quotes. I mean, when I watched
it as a teenager, a lot of the heavier stuff
I will say went over in my head. And I
think partially because of what you were saying out. They're
not talking about the past. This is them today really
with no narration, there's no music, just presented plainly. And
as a teenager, I really hooked on to the parts
(26:51):
of Little Lady when she talks about freedom, when she
talks about not wanting to get married, and her never
ending love of herself, and there's like a moment where
she says to her mom, I can do anything. I
know that I can do anything. Now as an adult
watching it, it's heartbreaking because she's sitting in this room
(27:14):
that is like the one room of the house that
is they can.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, and that coexists exactly what you're describing Lara, how
in her own way liberated she is coexists with the
fact that she also is just literally trapped. She both
completely owns who she is, but also is constantly blaming
others for the things she doesn't have. And so I
think this could serve as an argument against the idea
(27:37):
that she's being exploited, is that she actually is allowed
to be a very complex figure on camera, and I
think she could so easily have been just caricatured. But
the quotes that you get from her actually paint a
pretty complicated picture.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
But you know, and we are saying that the film
doesn't really bring in the past, or at least the
filmmakers don't in terms of how they're contextualizing it. I
think we should be really clear that the past is
constantly bumping up against the present in their surroundings and
these photographs in their memories, right, that's where we're getting
the glimpse into the past. And little Edie, this is
a woman who is being told most of her young
(28:13):
adult and teenage life, Oh, she's so beautiful. She has
so much promise and potential, and all these wealthy men
they talk about this, there are these marriage offers that
were made millionaires. She was wanted, she was desired. And
then she gets a little older. She's a woman in
her mid fifties at the time that the film emerges,
and it must have felt really frustrating to not be
taken seriously or given the same validation for who she
(28:36):
was the woman she was growing into, who is just
as fabulous, probably even more because now her personality is
sort of like on display and she's not playing by
whatever rule she was brought up with, And so I
think it's just important to bring that context in as well,
Like she is a woman without a husband or a partner.
She's being supported by her mother, and that is part
of what's trapping her there, but it's also just her
(28:57):
unwillingness to accept the path that was clearly laid out
for her and that she very well could have walked.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yeah, can you talk a little bit about all the
stories of marriage proposals and the futures that could have
been not to fact check little Edie in real time,
but I did wonder how much of it was just
really wonderful storytelling. Do you have any idea of which
parts are you know, a little bit more flowery. I
(29:25):
wish I had a little.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
More to say about it, but I honestly, I think
I was so taken with her stories of like, well,
this one almost asked me to marryam but I turned
them down. This one intrigued me, but it wasn't right
that I just didn't even take the next step to
go like did those proposals actually happen? I was on
that one piece. I was kind of buying what she
was selling, and I think we should, we should find out.
I kind of agree with the show, But then part
(29:46):
of it is like, yeah, I have no doubt. I
just want to kind of guttural intuitive love life. No
doubt that she was sought after. I mean, you see
the photos of her modeling, and I think the piece
that I feel a little more like hmm, skeptical about
is what happened in New York, like that trajectory of
trying to have this breakthrough. Is she charismatic? Is there
(30:07):
this like star power presence to just like flying off
the screen?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (30:11):
But was she talented in a way that would have
built like a lasting career on stage. I don't know,
Like in some ways I'm like, yeah, what were the
expectations then, and how was she showing up in those
auditions that she speaks of. And she does have a
very quirky way of being in personality that probably just
wasn't always aligning with more of the presence than a
(30:31):
Lee Radswell or a Jackie was bringing. It's a good
juncture to say that little Edie is not the only
one who had some dreams deferred of being a working,
successful actor performer.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Lee made a stage appearance.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
She was in a film called Laura. These efforts were
panned by critics pretty unambiguously. There is a great clip
I recommend everyone watch on YouTube of Lee with Truman Capoti,
the writer who was a friend and supporter, and she
is receiving some pretty nassy questions from a reporter who's saying,
do you think the only reason you've got these opportunities
is because you're Jackie's sister? Or why are you still
(31:08):
trying this? Didn't you hear the critics like you're not good?
That's story of the tone of the interview, And she's
just handling it very elegantly. Kind of not even dodging,
just sort of they are rolling right off of her.
She's not engaging with it. It's like she's above it all.
And I think that you can tell watching Little Edie
that she wouldn't have handled those questions in the same way.
She would have been like, what do you mean, I've
got something, I can do anything. It was more, if anything,
(31:31):
the biggest difference between them is like a lack of
media training and a lack of interest in being perceived
in that way. Lee and Jackie also had their own
very very fair share of major heartbreak, loss, grief, haunting
life experiences that they had to carry with them along
with disappointment, failed auditions, et cetera, et cetera. And I
(31:52):
think it's so easy to say that these are polar
opposite women and that that's where the tension lies. But
I think the tension is actually in house similar they
really are, and with a few different choices, they might
have been in a very similar place.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Also in the fact that all three of them were
raised to marry well, I mean that was the messaging
that they got was regardless of who you are, what
you achieve in order to have the support that you
will need in life. Your first goal needs to be
marrying well. And yeah, Jackie and Lee took that very
(32:30):
seriously Jackie at least, I would say, and Gidi didn't.
It seems that's true, except.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
That Lee went through two divorces, right, This is a
woman who is divorced twice. I mean when she is
at Grey Gardens the summer nineteen seventy two, she's there
with her lover, her boyfriend, Peter Beard.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
They're not married.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
So what's more scandalous not following the safe path and
having a husband or having multiple lovers and partners and
divorces in a lifetime. It's not so neat, is when
I'm coming to after revisiting all of this.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Oh completely, it's easy to look at little Edie without
any context and be like, why is she wearing a
cart again as a skirt? She looks a complete mess.
But in fact it's the same impulse that Jackie has
when she looks really fabulous on camera. She has a
personal sense of fashion and sometimes it's really incredible, and
she is using what she has at her disposal, which
(33:18):
is way less wealth and way less money and way
less access to designer clothes than Jackie has, but despite
the fact that she's literally surrounded by a cat shit,
every time she's on camera, she makes sure to have
her head covered. She's making very sort of interesting choices.
There's one scene where she has two small scarves tied
around her ankles, which is something I had never seen before.
(33:41):
It's just so clearly coming from a mind that is
thinking in terms of esthetics and thinking in terms of
combining different patterns and fabrics and whatever. It's obviously a
different quote unquote poise, but it is poison. Nonetheless, it
is kind of dressing herself up in a way that
elevates you compared to your surroundings. And your surroundings can
(34:01):
be either tragic in the literal sense or they can
be tragic in the more spiritual sense of having gone
through so much trauma and whatever. So it is, you know,
not to take it in a completely different direction, but
that also is I think very clearly what makes both
the wealthier Bouvias and these Bovia's into such gay icons,
because they become these women who have overcome tragedy and
(34:23):
overcome trauma while looking good for the camera.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
It also reminded me of Paris's burning every time I
saw Little Edie come out in a costume that was
her words.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I mean, the relationship with Greg Gardens and drag is
one of the most lasting influences that the film has had. Literally,
when I went to see it in San Francisco, was
introduced by a drag queen. Funnily enough, pink Flamingos came
out two years before Greg Gardens did. And there is
the scene of the mom being in bed and like
a sort of Greg Gardens esque environment along with the daughter.
(34:58):
So John Waters have had some sort.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Of you know, oh yeah, he references them in hairspray.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
These are women who are like dressing for or at
least Little Edie is dressing for the life she wants,
not for the surrounding she has. And I think the
biggest difference that I see in their serritorial approach is
Jackie and Little Edie. I think Jackie is often presenting
herself in a way that she thinks the public expects
of her, or that the camera kind of wants her
to appear, and Little Edie is dressing a way that
like the camera can't turn away from her. And this
(35:27):
is a film that in some ways just had to exist.
Once there were cameras in that space, A film was happening.
Whether or not, I mean they did agree to it, right,
that's important to say, but it was happening either way.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Did Jackie O ever speak publicly about the documentary after
it was released?
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Oh, that's a really good question. I actually wish I'd
looked into that, and I didn't. Let's look it up.
I would be really curious. I think that Little Edy
and Big d I was more interested in whether they
had seen it and gotten to understand how it was
being received. But Lee, I'm sure felt a little uncomfortable. Again,
that footage was hidden for many years, and I think
she wanted it to be her movie, and it very
(36:03):
much did not turn out to be her movie. And
if any of you all end up watching that summer,
I think you'll just see like, she's so sweet and
tender on screen, and that's lovely to see, but she's
not captivating. I don't think we would be talking about
it on a podcast in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Frankly, we'll be back with more United States of Kennedy
after this break, and.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
We're back with the United States of Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
This movie was a phenomenon in its own right. It
was both critically acclaimed and controversial. It was accused of
being exploitative while also immediately becoming iconic. It popularized these
two women who then became on screen legends and their
own right. It has become a TV movie, as you said,
is Jessica Lang and Drew Barrymore. It has become a
musical that was nominated for ten Tonys. It was more
(37:01):
recently parodied by Fred Armisson and Bill Hayter in documentary
Now where they play versions of Big Edy and Little Edie.
It's been on Rupol's Drag Race, Endless Drag performances have
been influenced by it. What do you think accounts for
its lasting power?
Speaker 3 (37:14):
I think that to me, this is like a funhouse
mirror of a film, and it is a litmus test
whenever you encounter it, if you are a teenager watching
it for the rich time, like you're talking about Lyra,
or a thirty something woman at a particular place in
her career, unmarried or married. Wherever you are going to
take something a little different from this film, different quotes
(37:35):
are going to stick in your mind. Whether you experience
discussed repulsion, pity, whether you're watching them and going like
this is unbelievable. These women have such charm and charisma,
and I can't get enough. You're feeling sympathy, you're whatever,
you're feeling. It just I think it really brings up
a lot of strong emotions in people. And even if
you don't necessarily have your own version of an eccentric
(37:57):
grandma and aunt living on Long Island, there's family dynamics
that are so universal playing out here. One thing I
want to mention that Julia Fox brought up in her
remarks on Sunday was the ways in which they're having
these caddy moments or like back talking about each other,
but the moment that one person leaves the room, there'll
be this like sweetness or Biggie being like, actually, you know,
she's always had a better voice than me, even though
(38:19):
she's just been telling her, it'll stop saying. There's so
much that people can relate to in their own family
and friend dynamics, and I think it's we're seeing such
a heightened version of it, and yet there's something really
familiar in these little interactions of like, yeah, if I
had made a different decision, if I hadn't decided to
move back in with my parents that one year. If
(38:40):
I hadn't ultimately decided not to go to the audition,
what would my life be. And there's this poetry, like
an internal poetry to the film that I think is
why I really do think we'll be watching it for
the next fifty years and the fifty years after that.
And to me, that is the legacy. It's the fact
that their legend was born on screen through this movie,
but it's one that keeps finding people, and to me,
(39:02):
that's the sign. Those are my favorite pop cultural time capsules,
are things that you are constantly finding something new in.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah, and it almost exists out of place and time
in its own way, like it really is just the
two of them. Because the house is so, you know,
kind of funky. There's nothing tying into a specific time period.
It's not like the furniture is specifically seventies or their
fashion is specifically seventies. Like it is almost like they
are already fictional characters living in a fairy tale, which
(39:31):
is in fact why the scene of the guests coming
for dinner is so shocking, because they suddenly have this
brief interaction with the outside world I'm wondering, do you
have any moments that you keep coming back to. Do
you have like a favorite quote or something that when
you first watched it you responded to.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
There's so much, and I think you alluded to a
couple of these moments, Lyra. I did have to take
note of the moment about freedom, where little ladies like
I like freedom and her mom's like, well, you can't
get it, darling, you're being supported. Get any freedom when
you're being supported, And they go back and forth about this,
and little Edie winds up going, you know, I think
you're not free when you're not being supported. It's awful
both ways, like these truthful little gems. You know, there
(40:11):
is the moment with little Ye reading astrology book with
a magnifying glass and talking about if I could just
find that librin husband like that.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I just need a little order in my life. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
I think that it's the ways in which they're both
so aware of that camera and yet un self consciously
just rattling off these what did you call them, tiktoks?
I'm not really on TikTok oh.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Vocal stems as well stems.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Yeah, they are queens of vocal stems before that was
even a thing.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, the magnifying glass. I'm glad you brought up because
the use of the magnifying glass and the binoculars pretty binocularly,
because she refuses to get glasses, but she still needs
to see, so she literally uses binoculars for seeing far
and a magnifying glass for seeing close. It is one
of the most incredible. It also is, in its own way,
almost a fashion statement. It is her version of glasses.
(41:00):
Something fabulous about her being on a scale and using
binoculars to look at the number on the scale and
then being like, oh my god, it's up to one
forty five. The naming of that number too.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
I think the number on scale is akin to the
moment in Materialists where she reveals she's making eighty thousand
dollars and people lost their minds.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Speaking of lines about freedom, because I would say, like
freedom is one of the main themes of the film,
and also sort of free will and choices is another one.
Like there's so much reminiscing about potential futures that were
forwarded because someone didn't or did make a choice, and
their current existence is almost like a metaphor for all
these things. And one moment that I truly could not
(41:42):
believe was in'tscripted, which I wrote down, is you know,
famously a cat peece behind a portrait in the house
and Big d says, you know, cat's going to the
bathroom right behind my portrait, and Little Edie says, God,
isn't that awful? And then Big Edie says, no, I'm
glad he is. I'm glad somebody's doing something he wanted
to do, which is like, that's I mean, that is
(42:03):
like so poetic. How do you even come up with
that on the spot?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
I know, I know, well it's a dig at Little Leady.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Well, of course I know.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
I feel like that must be sitting on top of
her head at all times. Every time Little Lady starts complaining,
she's like, these were all your choices?
Speaker 3 (42:21):
Well, it is embodying that kind of codependent love that
goes so far as to spoil and turn into a
sort of it's never hate, but it is like they
know each other so well, it's hard to know where
Big Eadie begins and Little Edie ends. Sometimes and you
hear this in like I set up top, it is
a film in which it's almost like one long monologue
(42:42):
where it's voices talking over each other, interrupting each other, disagreeing, agreeing,
suddenly being on the same page, suddenly having two wildly
different narratives, Like there's this unstoppable force of ideas and
voices colliding, and you can only really have that with
someone that you deeply know well on such an intimate
at level.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Were there other moments at the fiftieth anniversary screening that
stuck out?
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that people watching was great.
Usually I'm sort of against audience Q and a's, but
with this one, I would love for everyone to go
around the room and say what their relationship to the
movie was. Was there anything else sort of memorable that
you want to share?
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Absolutely well, So it needs to be said that Jerry
Tory was in the crowd the Marble Fawn himself, Jerry
Tory being kind of a runaway who somehow ended up
at their home taking care of it. And as far
as little Leadie was concerned, like falling in love with
her and he was going to be the ex proposal
coming and she was scared about that. But yeah, he's
(43:39):
a sculptor, he's an artist. He's still with us. And
he was in that crowd, which is truly remarkable. And
there were also so many people I want to say,
at least fifty hands raised seeing it for the first
time ever, which how special to see it on the
big screen with you know, mister Julia Fox there too.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
But these two.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Younger women behind me as we were leaving, were just like, God,
I'm so glad that I am alive in this era,
because if I had been living the life I'm living
then they would have been calling me a spinster. They
just could not believe how far in at least that regard,
how much more acceptable it seems to be to be
unmarried in your thirties, for example.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Well, and it's being unmarried, but it's also not having
the ability presented to you at any point, not having
the opportunity to support yourself financially, And this is like
they're butting up against the very end of that. Really,
I think that starting at that time, no one in
(44:38):
the general population was raising their daughters to never work
and just marry, you know, to support them to live,
to be able to live in a home and eat food.
But this is really the tail end of you know,
I think of sense and sensibility as those girls are stuck.
They're truly truly stuck until they get married and they
(44:59):
can't support them by law, and then this is really
the very very end bookend of that being a life
that would have been presented as the only option to
girls when they were born.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
I don't know if women watching it at the time
would have come away being like, that is a desirable life,
and I wish I was them, But I do think
it was resonating in ways that are much clearer to
us now, but at the time it was just a
feeling of they've got something that maybe I actually want
in my life. I will say one more quick anecdote
from Sunday, So Rebecca Masles, as I said, was there.
(45:33):
She is the daughter of one of the filmmakers, Albert,
and she read a note that he had written to
Little Edie in the nineties, and he said that he
had been at a dinner party with this woman who
was like, Greg Gardens is my favorite movie of all time.
I remember seeing you at the Paris And this woman
went on to describe that while she was in the screening,
there was someone sitting a few seats away from her
who was just so engrossed leaning forward, could not take
(45:56):
her eyes off of them, and this woman realized that
woman was Greta Garbo. So Greta Garba was sitting in
the Paris at some point in time watching gray Gardens
and going, they've got something. I can't stop looking, And
I just find that beautiful. I really do think that
in some ways, at least for a little Edie, a
version of her dreams came true. It is certainly not
the one that she thought she wanted, but she is
(46:18):
regarded as a fashion icon, as an independent spirit and thinker.
And her mother, well, I don't know. I I don't
know if I would apply the same. It's for mother
an independent thinker. No, but she's incredible at getting in
little one liners. They both got an incredible legacy, and
that makes me feel really happy.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
And you know, if anyone wants to see what the
house looks like now, it has been renovated head to
toe and there was just a New York mag piece
about it, and then there's a YouTube tour of it.
It looks completely unrecognizable, but it's still there.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
I was wondering if they had spoken at all about
Muffy Meyer or Ellen hove Dy.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
No, they didn't, and I am really glad that you mentioned,
because these were the two other films makers involved in
this production who really have not gotten their credit for it,
and I would love to learn more about them and
what they went on to make, so thank you for
bringing them into the room with us. Nope, they were
not mentioned one time on Sunday and that is a
huge oversight, where as far as I know, they were
not mentioned, but they were certainly a significant part of
(47:17):
making this happen.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Can you remind us what Andy Warhol's relationship with all
of this was, because he's in the other documentary, That Summer,
which I keep it's difficult in conversation to say that
Summer because it doesn't sound like a title, but the
documentary is called That Summer. So Andy Warhole is in
that and he was involved, So how did that work out?
Speaker 3 (47:37):
So I think that he was friends with Peter Beard,
the photographer who was dating Lee at that time, and
I'm sure Lee was friendly with them as well. They
were a part of this group of Studio fifty four
people who were coming to East Hampton in the summer,
spending time there and making art there. So I'll say
that Andy Warhol was also credited as shooting some of
the footage from that summer of nineteen seventy two, along
(47:59):
with the filmmaker Jonas Mechis. So, you know, there were
incredible artists who were spending time in Easthampton, and he
was one of them, and so he was kind of
a part of that crew.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
And I remember.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Reading something about him going to her cabaret show, being
in the front row every night.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
I need to look into this cabaret show. Is there
any footage.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Of those I know? The cabaret show?
Speaker 2 (48:19):
It?
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Unfortunately, it was widely panned. And even it's funny, like
Hilton Als wrote the essay for the Criterion release of
Great Gardens, and he's obviously being so incredibly effusive about
his love for the Beals and everything, and the one
negative thing he says is about the cabaret show. Even
someone who truly appreciates camp could not find something salvage
(48:41):
al about the gabaret show.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Listen, these were resilient women. As Little Edie calls herself.
She was a staunch character, and she says, sta U
n c h staunch. So one pan was not going
to get her down. I think if we're going to
take anything from this. It's not like, let the pans come,
let the pans fall where they may, and carrying on.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Yeah, that's a great place to end. Olivia, thank you
so much for chatting with us about Greg Gardens, both
of us. I think when we first started doing this podcast,
this was one of the episodes we couldn't wait for.
You know, so much of what we cover is so
truly tragic and includes literal murder and assassinations, and so
we just like couldn't wait to talk about genuinely one
(49:19):
of our favorite movies. And you know, maybe next time
we'll have you on with Julia Fox half We're on.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
Oh truly. I mean there could be a part two
to this. I think the amount of artists who have
been shaped by this film is countless, and the fact
that I got to talk about it, I feel mentally lucky.
I do think that they had something to do with
this as well, because your invitation came I am not exaggerating,
near hours after saying RSVP to this fiftieth anniversary screening.
So something's in the air, something's being behind the scenes. Yeah,
(49:47):
they wanted this conversation out, and I'm really glad. I
got to stock to you guys.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Thank you. So that's it for this week's episode.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
Next week, we're looking at the life of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
United States of Kennedy is listed by me Lyra Smith
and George.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Severes, Research by Dave Ruth and Austin Thompson.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Original music by Josh Witzapolski.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Edited by Graham Gibson, and mixed by Doug bain. Our
executive producer is Jenna Cagel. United States of Kennedy is
a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
So subscribe and follow United States of Kennedy for All
Beings Kennedy every week
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