"For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not, none is possible."

"Grey Gardens" is the name of a once-magnificent home located in the elite seaside town of East Hampton, Long Island. Of course, Grey Gardens is also a landmark documentary, a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, and a new HBO Hollywood movie.

But most importantly this is the alluring portrait of Edith Bouvier Beale (Jackie Kennedy Onassis' first cousin) and her daughter Edie, who lived in Grey Gardens through its glory days....



as well as through the times when it was decaying and infested with fleas, raccoons, and cats.



Their story first emerged in 1975 in a documentary by Albert and David Maysles, who originally were hired by Jackie Onassis and Lee Radziwill to document their youth as Bouviers. After they began telling the story of their eccentric cousins, the Maysles quickly decided the cousins, Edith Beale and her daughter Edie, who were known throughout their lives as Big Edie and Little Edie, would make a much more interesting documentary. (It is available on DVD and CD). This supposedly incensed Lee Radziwill.



The International Documentary Association (IDA) ranks Grey Gardens as number nine among the top documentaries of all time. It has been honored at the Edinburgh, Cannes, and New York film festivals.

The Maysles spent close to $50,000 on film and equipment before they went back to visit the Beales with their new proposal a year later. The women were ecstatic with the prospect of being filmed; it not only might offer them the fame that Jackie and Lee were accustomed to but would also give them the chance to make some much-needed money.

The Maysles' offer included an advance of $10,000 ($5,000 for Big Edie and $5,000 for Little Edie) and 20 percent of the future profits. With the green light, the Maysles, along with co-directors Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer, filmed the Beales for approximately six weeks in the fall of 1973. They practically lived at the mansion and resorted to wearing flea collars around their ankles to keep the bugs at bay.

The story the filmmakers recorded was like nothing ever seen before: the Beale-to-Beale mother-to-daughter dynamic was utterly incredible. It was both heartwarming and tragic, both bizarre and poignant all at the same time.

An elderly mother, crippled with arthritis, and her 58-year-old unmarried daughter, live by the sea in a crumbling house filled with cats, faded pictures, filth and the cluttered memories of their privileged past. The mother sings hits from the 1940's like an opera star. The daughter marches and dances like a majorette.

They bicker incessantly about missed opportunities and lost loves. They mainly survive on a diet of boiled corn (cooked on a bedside sterno), canned liver pate with crackers, and ice cream. They drink wine from a Dixie cup and enjoy the occasional Bacardi and Coke or can of light beer.

They feed loaves of Wonder Bread and boxes of Cat Chow to the demanding raccoons that inhabit the attic. They peer from the cracked windows suspiciously at curious passersby. Their witty dialogue, combined with an unusual dialect, was like something straight out of Tennessee Williams.

And, the fashion, oh the fashion: swimsuits worn with high-heel pumps, a turban made from a sweater, a skirt worn upside down with fishnet stockings and a cape, and a sparkling brooch as the finishing touch added to every "costume."

The film debuted on September 21, 1975, in the upstairs hall of Grey Gardens; David, Al, Lois, Brooks, Little Edie, and Big Edie were there. They loved the film.

Little Edie apparently remarked that she would be moving to Paris after the profits came rolling in. It was later showcased at the 1975 New York Film Festival. The movie made its public premier at the Paris Theater (located across from the Plaza Hotel) in Manhattan on February 20, 1976. It played there for just one week to mixed reviews from the New York Times and Village Voice.

Audiences were both captivated and appalled at what they saw; many people viewed the Maysles as voyeurs and exploitive of the Beales. Little Edie even famously wrote a rebuttal letter to one critic that called the Beales a "circus sideshow."

It enjoyed limited box office success at the various art house theaters it played across the country. Even with the later release of VHS and DVD versions of the film (both stateside and abroad), Maysles Films says that Grey Gardens still has yet to make a profit (the Maysles financed the film completely themselves and it is estimated that it cost close to half a million dollars to make).

Both Criterion and Masters of Cinema (current distributors of the DVD versions of the film) do not release current sales figures to the public but admit that Grey Gardens is one of their most popular titles.

According to Albert Maysles, when Edith Beale was dying, her daughter asked her if there was something more she wanted to say. "It's all in the film," Edith said.

For those who would like to know what happened to the mansion after Edith died, go to my Southwesterngrad website on Blogster and read Grey Gardens. It's another story all in itself.

Source: https://greygardensonline.com/DOCUMENTARY.html