Grey Gardens

Book by Doug Wright;

Music by Scott Frankel; Lyrics by Michael Korie

A Study Guide
Prepared by vicki cheatwood
Sponsored in part by

STUDY GUIDE 2009 WATERTOWER THEATRE

WELCOME TO THE GARDEN CLUB

Its a very big club, established October 22, 1971, when the private lives of Edith and
Edie Bouvier Beale of Grey Gardens were made public by authorities from the Village of
East Hampton and the national media. After the landmark documentary Grey Gardens
premiered in 1976, the tale of two Edies belonged to the whole world.
What turned two New York socialites into recluses? Were the Edies mentally ill or
free spirits rebelling against social mores? Why didnt their family help them? After all
the films, the books, journals, magazine articles and websites (more than 64,000 Google
hits on Little Edie alone), there are still more speculations than concrete truths.
The Beales themselves were unreliable sources. Edith once said her brother William died
in World War I. He drank himself to death in 1929. From one interview to the next,
Edies recollections about the help (or lack thereof) received from Bouvier cousins Jackie
Onassis and Lee Radziwill changed drastically. This gift for selective recall was likely
inherited. Ediths father, J.V. Major Bouvier, concocted a genealogy linking the
Bouviers to French royalty, knowing his ancestors were shopkeepers and tradesmen.
Family pride manufactured or deserved drove a wedge between the Beale women and
their relatives during the bad years at Grey Gardens. When asked if shed worried that the
documentary would embarrass members of the family, Edie said, After youre starving
and cold and you see your mother suffering year after year, you dont think of
embarrassment. Youre down to rock bottom.
It was half-past rock bottom when Albert and David Maysles showed up with a camera
at Grey Gardens leading to the big-big question: did the Maysles and co-directors
Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer (who also edited the film) exploit the Beales?
No. Yes. Maybe. No. Definitely. Never. Yes. No. Maybe. Yes. No.
Another twisting garden path which direction to go depends on whom you ask. The
short answer is that the family hated the documentary, and Edith and Edie loved it.
Truth is relatives.
Its a relief to come into this Grey Gardens, where the focus is on the relationship
between the women. Author Doug Wright, composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael
Korie love the Beales but dont lionize them, and the mysteries of Grey Gardens are
left intact revered, even as were asked to consider: What if this?
So, welcome to Grey Gardens. Enjoy your look around, and be prepared to talk about it
all the way home.

GREY GARDENS
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Edith Bouvier Beale
Little Edie Beale
George Gould Strong
Brooks, Sr.
Jacqueline Jackie Bouvier
Lee Bouvier
Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr.
J.V. Major Bouvier
Brooks, Jr.
Jerry
Norman Vincent Peale
Sister Marla
SYNOPSIS
Based on the landmark documentary, Grey Gardens is the story of eccentric socialites
Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Big Edie) and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (Little
Edie), the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The women became
notorious recluses, living in squalor in wealthy and conservative East Hampton, New
York.
Prologue
The play opens in 1973, with Grey Gardens in ruin and the news on the radio: the health
department of East Hampton has declared the Beales home unfit for human habitation.
Former First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis - Edith Beales niece - has
released a statement: this is a private, family matter. As the radio fades, Edith (79), a
trained mezzo soprano, heads out to sunbathe, singing along with one of her old records
(THE GIRL WHO HAS EVERYTHING). Her 56-year-old daughter Edie follows her,
fearful of the neighbors and curiosity-seekers. Former debutante Edie truly once was
The Girl Who Had Everything, and yet, she says I never lived.
Act One
The song takes us back to 1941, when Grey Gardens was in its heyday. Looming over the
parlor is a portrait of Wall Street tycoon Phelan Beale, husband and father. Theres a
party today: Edie is engaged to Joe Kennedy, Jr. (eldest brother of John F. Kennedy). As
Edith sings, accompanied by her soulmate George Gould Strong on piano, Edie listens
dutifully, vexed that her mother will hijack the party with an uncommanded command
performance. Edies counting on her stern father to keep her mother in line; Ediths
counting on Phelan to arrive in time for the big announcement (THE FIVE-FIFTEEN).
When Edie exits, its revealed that Edith has an entire concert planned - much to the
delight of nieces Jackie Bouvier (age 12) and Lee Bouvier (age 8).

GREY GARDENS synopsis, continued

The girls beg for a song, and Edith launches into ITTY BITTY GEISHA. Edie returns
with Joe. Gould plays/sings a sappy flourish for Edie (ITS HER), then flirts with her
fianc. The joke angers the conservative Joe. Edie finds the program for her mothers
recital and a war of words ensues (MOTHER DARLING). Edith wins, and Joe takes Edie
out for some air. When Edie reveals that she dreams of being a famous actress, Joe says
hes got bigger plans for her: First Lady of the United States (GOIN PLACES). Edies
swept up in Joes dream, game for anything as long as I can escape my mother.
Out on the lawn, Ediths father J.V. Major Bouvier tees up, delaying going inside. Hes
excited about the engagement but he detests Edith and her bohemian friends. The Major
instructs Jackie and Lee to follow Edies example and MARRY WELL. The song ends
just as Edith and Gould launch into HOMINY GRITS, an appalling minstrel tune. The
Major stops the rehearsal, and berates Edith: no singing, no recital. She will obey, or lose
her trust fund. Edith demands to know why her own father hates her so. The Major calls
her the most pitiable of creatures an actress without a stage and rips up the program.
He leaves, and a guilt-ridden Edie comes to her mothers rescue. Gradually, she draws
the heartbroken Edith into a soft-shoe duet (TWO PEAS IN A POD.) Edie goes upstairs,
happy. Ediths anxiety about being alone is amplified when Gould, her Gibraltar, says
hes leaving too (DRIFT AWAY).
Gould goes upstairs to change, just as Brooks brings in a bad-news telegram from Phelan
(THE FIVE FIFTEEN REPRISE). Joe Kennedy enters and, fearful of being left alone,
Edith brags on Edies wild adolescence until Joes ready to call off the engagement.
Edie returns and frantically convinces Joe that shes DADDYS GIRL, nothing like her
flamboyant mother, and Joe agrees to speak to Phelan before deciding. Another argument
between mother and daughter leads to the news (THE TELEGRAM) that Phelans
divorcing Edith and headed to Mexico with his mistress. Joe leaves, and Edie is bereft.
She leaves home as her party guests arrive. Edith is left to make excuses, and worry if her
daughter will ever come home again (WILL YOU?).
Act Two
Were thrust forward in time to 1973 again, and the structure of the play changes,
following events in the Grey Gardens documentary. Little Edie has been living in
seclusion and squalor with her mother for over twenty years.
EDIE! brays Edith (79) sitting in her filthy bed piled high with debris. Outside, Edie
(56) reads us newspaper clippings from the raid on Grey Gardens. Edies gone from flirty
debutante to a staunch character in bizarre fashion: a sweater for a skirt and a snood
covering her bald head (THE REVOLUTIONARY COSTUME). Edie returns inside for a
bickering match with her mother about the past. Edith proclaims her own life was perfect
(THE CAKE I HAD). When Edie leaves to go prepare the pt - or is it cat food? - that
her mother demands, the ghosts of the past creep in (ENTERING GREY GARDENS).

GREY GARDENS synopsis, continued

Edies on the porch reading her horoscope by magnifying glass when Jerry, the Beales
errand boy, arrives wearing flea collars around his ankles. Edies jealous of the affection
her mother lavishes on Jerry. She wants to escape Grey Gardens and finally start her
career in show business. Jerry asks if she can sing or dance, and Little Edie throws her all
into a World War II tribute THE HOUSE WE LIVE IN. Ediths bellowing for Jerry
interrupts the show and they go upstairs. Ediths still in her bed, cooking a pot of corn on
an electric hot plate. Edith is as surly with Little Edie as she is flirty/giddy with Jerry
(JERRY LIKES MY CORN). Piqued, Edie retreats to the attic and her mementos
(AROUND THE WORLD).
In the bedroom, Jerry and Edith listen to one of her old records. She is caught up in
reminiscing, unaware when Jerry makes his escape. Little Edie walks in and listens
appreciatively, caught up her mothers lovely voice. Edie begins to sing along, and Edith
ridicules her. Anger between mother and daughter boils into a raging argument. Edith is
left alone, clutching the radio to her chest, listening to Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
(CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY) as Edie goes to the attic to pack. Shes finally leaving Grey
Gardens. Her resolve lasts all the way to the garden gate. When handyman Brooks, Jr.
asks if she needs him to call her a cab, Edie declines. He leaves, and Edie mourns
ANOTHER WINTER in a summer town. Edie realizes that her season ended a long
time ago, and so when her mother cries out from the bedroom upstairs, Edie goes back
into the house. After a simple, lovely exchange between mother and daughter (THE
GIRL WHO HAS EVERYTHING), the play ends.

WRITER TO WRITER: Author Doug Wright talks about Grey

Gardens and more with dramaturg Vicki Cheatwood
VC: There are wonderful parallels between Little Edie and Blanche in Streetcar Named
Desire: the fragile mental state, rumors about promiscuity that sabotage love and
escape plans, the unmarried daughter left behind to deal with aged/sick parent. Were
these parallels intentional? Being a good Southern boy, were you predisposed to
Tennessee Williams work - or did you rebel with Harold and Edward?
DW: Im not the first to say it, but if Tennessee Williams and Samuel Beckett had ever
collaborated to invent an indelible character, it would be Little Edie.
No one who writes for the American Theater can claim they havent been profoundly
influenced by Tennessee Williams. I remember going to the Preston Forest branch of the
Dallas Public Library, hiding on the floor at the rear of the stacks, and devouring plays
like Small Craft Warnings and Clothes for a Summer Hotel. They were red-hot,
incendiary texts; almost too dangerous to check out and take home; I had to read them
then and there. He mesmerized and terrified me. In a culturally conservative climate,
Williams was my tutor in the unruly affairs of the heart, the nature of desire, the
eccentricity of the poets life, and the poignant ache of desire.
VC: The first act of Grey Gardens unfolds like a Douglas Sirk melodrama. Then in Act
II, we break the fourth wall for a stage version of cinma vrit . Since you were creating
a structure that was very (to use a Little Edie word) revolutionary, were you concerned
about how it would be received?
DW: When we began to work on GREY GARDENS, we decided the acts should be
markedly different, and shouldnt offer facile, armchair explanations for the womens
wild ride from privilege to squalor. Again and again, we said, In the first act, lets
delicately plant a few, subtle seeds of whats to comethe codependence between
mother and daughter, the retraction of family funds, a love affair gone disastrously
wrong, and the ladies shared penchant for performing. Then during intermission, while
the audience is sipping cocktails, thirty years pass. Those tiny seeds we planted have
time to grow. And they are nourished by a host of seismic historical events: the end of
World War II, the Eisenhower 50s, the Kennedy assassination, the tumultuous sixties,
and the crisis of national conscience that was Watergate. So when the audience enters
Act Two, the curtain rises and those same seeds havent merely sprouted; theyve grown
into a dense, towering forest. Some of the more boulevard critics were confused by our
refusal to simply explain the women away with more obvious dramaturgy, but the
smarter ones, I think, appreciated our effort.
Sometimes in peoples lives, dramatic change is the result of one catastrophic event. But
more often than that, our tiny pathologies marinate over time, and bloom so slowly we
hardly notice themuntil one day we wake up to find were living in a dilapidated, 28
room mansion with, say, fifty-two cats.
5

Doug Wright, continued

Your analogy is apt and one which Michael, Scott and I often cited when we were
planning the piece: the first act would be reminiscent of Douglas Sirk or slightly curdled
Philip Barry, and the second-act would be hand-held documentary style. Its amusing to
note that many famous quotes from the Maysles documentary are folded into Act One.
And Act Two, while it bears a greater superficial resemblance to the film, is actually
structured quite differently.
VC: One reviewer said (tongue-in-cheek) that the Edies story only created a stir
because they were Yankees, because in the South you cant swing a dead cat without
hitting a somebodys eccentric relative. Is this true, do you think?
DW: I think thats what gives the piece its surprisingly universal appeal. No matter
where you live in the world, chances are you have that quirky, uncommunicative relation
who keeps the family baffled and anxious, especially at the holidays. Every
neighborhood has that odd house at the end of the block, with an overgrown yard and
suspicious trash. In November, our GREY GARDENS musical will open in a major
commercial production in Tokyo. I suspect the Japanese have their share of oddball
aunts and uncles, just like we do!
VC: Can you talk a little bit about the relationship between Big Edie and Little Edie?
DW: Their relationship is chronicled so gorgeously in the Maysles film. I think its the
relationship every parent has with his or her child. Parents do wonderful, selfless things
for us; they also unwittingly wound us. In one moment, a mother can unknowingly
devastate her child, and in the next, shes kissing it to make it better. They cut us, and
then apply the bandage. They render us both victim and beneficiary. Thats why they
have such boundless power in our lives.
I was extravagantly lucky; my own folks are loving and supportive. But it took me
almost ten years of therapy to fully see that!
VC: Whats your favorite moment that you created for your Edies one for Big, one for
Little?
DW: I feel guilty answering this question, because its a moment we invented. Its not in
the film. Little Edie offers her mother a choice of soup; tomato or lobster bisque. And
Big Edie replies, You choose. Its the first magnanimous gesture shes made toward
her daughter over the course of the entire evening. As such, its her only profession of
genuine love.
VC: Regarding the Brooks, the servants - what made you include them? Are the men
there mostly to facilitate the action (answering doors, bringing news, etc.) or was there
more you wanted to say by including them in the story?

Doug Wright, continued

DW: The Brooks of Act Two appears in the original Maysles Brothers film; he was the
gardener and handyman at GREY GARDENS. We invented his father, Brooks Senior, in
Act One. We wanted to suggest the kind of continuity that existed in privileged
households of the era. Andin a quiet waywe wanted to suggest something about the
changing political landscape in the country. Brooks Senior is practically an indentured
servant, while his son is clearly a free agent. In a somewhat inevitable way, as outsiders,
both of the Brooks comment on some of the more frivolous aspects of life among
Americas entitled class.
VC: What limitations do you place on altering the facts when using true events as source
material for a play or movie? How much do you feel an obligation to accurately depict a
real-life person or event, or do you freely change the details in order to tell the story you
want to tell?
DW: Great question. Since Shakespeare's time, writers have been "playing with the
facts" to serve the drama. As playwrights, our primary obligation is to write compelling
theater. We're not biographers or historians. And audiences who come to see
historically-inspired work are naive if they think certain liberties haven't been taken;
going to see a play or movie is no substitute for sitting down with a great biography, if
verisimilitude is what you're after. Most audiences, I think, are pretty sophisticated. After
all, no one goes to see a movie like "A Bug's Life" and leaves the theater crowing, "Hey,
I'm an entomologist!"
Usually, when a playwright chooses to write about a particular historical character, he's
appropriating it to talk about some aspect of his OWN experience. The historical figure
is just "good cover!" THAT SAID....my personal standard does differ, depending on the
person I'm writing about. When I was writing about the Marquis de Sade, I felt free to
alter the facts of his life to serve the thematic concerns of my story. First of all, I was
working within a precedent: plays like MARAT SADE and MADAME DE SADE do the
same thing. Secondly, Sade's own life is extremely well-documented. There are
countless great biographies on the shelves, and he pops up in plenty of history books. So
there are more than enough available sources to "set the record straight." But when I was
writing about Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf in I AM MY OWN WIFE, I held myself to a
different standard. While she's a real person, her life story isn't well-known. I knew most
theater-goers would be learning about her for the first time via my play. And she had
never been the subject of a theater piece before. So in adapting her life for the stage, I
didn't change any of the basic facts.
Finally, it's important to realize that all history is subjective. "Absolute truth" is the
ultimate fiction. It's usually people in power who write, publish and disseminate the
chronicles of their times. So we should always read history that purports to be "the truth"
with a critical eye.

Doug Wright, continued

VC: What are you working on currently?
DW: Ive recently adapted August Strindbergs little known work Creditors for the La
Jolla Playhouse, and will direct it there this fall. And Im finishing a screenplay for the
Walt Disney Company. From Strindberg to Disney! I like a varied diet.
VC: At what point in the process do you realize you have a viable piece and continue
working, versus scrapping it and moving on?
DW: That's easy; if I stay interested. No matter how hard the writing gets, if I'm still
passionately fired up about the subject, I keep going. If I lose interest in the subject itself,
I abandon the piece. If I can't stay genuinely engaged in the topic I've chosen to
dramatize for the length of time it takes me to write the play (from two to five years,
sometimes) than I can't expect an audience to stay interested for two and a half hours.
VC: Ive read that youre a disciple of Pinter, Albee and Charles Ludlum. Any up-andcoming playwrights who are thrilling your soul?
DW: Lynn Nottage received the Pulitzer this year for her devastating, profoundly
humane play Ruined about violence in the Congo, and it meets every expectation; its a
heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat play. Itamar Moses is a savagely smart new writer
with titles like Bach at Leipzig and The Four of Us. And longtime actor Geoffrey
Naufts scored big this year with his wise and devastating look at a gay relationship in
crisis called Next Fall. As theater becomes an increasingly rarified art form, available
only it seems to the privileged few, its heartening to see so many astonishing writers
who are still willing to give it their creative attention.
VC: What was the best part about growing up in Highland Park? Biggest drawback?
DW: Unquestionably, the greatest aspect of life in University Park was the remarkable
school district. My teachers were uniformly astonishing: always well versed in their
chosen subjects, wildly inspirational, and appropriately challenging. My drama teachers
(both from Junior High and High school) are still among my most cherished friends.
[They] instilled in me a respect for working artists. I think that fed my hunch that one
day I could actually become one.
Growing up in the Bubble ...well, if I'd truly felt like I "fit in," I don't suppose I ever
would've become a writer. But as an anxious gay kid in a family that wasn't as materially
ostentatious, politically conservative, or religiously zealous as many of the neighbors, I
always felt like an outsider. And I think most artists write from that perspective; as
observers, poised outside the mainstream.

Doug Wright, continued

DW: It was tough to grow up gay in the Park Cities, certainly in the 1970s. But that
wasnt true of my old neighborhood in particular; that was true in most of the country.
And happily, things are changing. Last Spring, I had the remarkable privilege of being
honored by my old school district as one of their distinguished alumni. I was the first
openly gay person theyve ever recognized with that award. At the annual dinner in their
formal presentation, they included photos of my California wedding to my husband
David Clement, and even acknowledged him in the ceremony. I was incredibly touched.
A few old codgers sat on their hands, terrified by the winds of change, but others
applauded enthusiastically. All in all, my alma mater was admirably twenty-first century
about the whole event.
VC: Whats the very first restaurant you hit when you come home to Dallas?
DW: Thats so easy. Jacks Burger House on Hillcrest, without question. The seasoning
on those fries? Sometimes, on hot summer New York nights, I find myself dreaming
about it.

DOUG WRIGHT was born and raised in Dallas. He received the Pulitzer Prize, a Tony
Award, the Drama Desk Award, a GLAAD Media Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award,
a Drama League Award and a Lucille Lortel Award for I Am My Own Wife, which
premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 2003. For Grey Gardens, he was nominated for
Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for Best Book of a Musical. In 1995, Doug
won an Obie Award for his play Quills. His screen adaptation was named Best Picture by
the National Board of Review and nominated for three Academy Awards. Plays include
The Stonewater Rapture, Interrogating the Nude, Watbanaland, Unwrap Your Candy,
and the book for the Disney musical The Little Mermaid. For career achievement, Doug
was cited by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and awarded the Tolerance Prize
from the Kulturforum Europa. Currently, he serves on the board of the New York Theatre
Workshop and the Dramatists Guild Council. He lives with singer/songwriter David
Clement.

The Music-Makers & The Production History

MICHAEL KORIE, lyricist of Grey Gardens, wrote book and lyrics to Scott Frankel's
music for Doll (Sundance Institute, Chicago's Ravinia Festival; Richard Rodgers Award)
and Meet Mister Future (Cardiff Festival, 2005). His librettos for operas composed by
Stewart Wallace include Harvey Milk (San Francisco Opera), Hopper's Wife (Long Beach
Opera; NYFA Award) both directed by Christopher Alden; Kabbalah (Next Wave
Festival) directed by Ann Carlson; and Where's Dick? directed by Richard Foreman
(Houston Grand Opera). His libretto to composer Ricky Ian Gordon's The Grapes of
Wrath premiered at Minnesota Opera, Utah Opera and Houston Grand Opera in 2007-8
with direction by Eric Simonson, conducted by Grant Gershon. He co-wrote lyrics with
Amy Powers to composer Lucy Simon's Zhivago, book by Michael Weller, directed by
Des McAnuff (La Jolla Playhouse, 2006). Korie's lyrics were awarded the Edward
Kleban Award and Jonathan Larson Foundation Award. He lives in New York City with
Ivan Sygoda.
SCOTT FRANKEL was nominated for Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for
his work as composer of Grey Gardens. He's written music for Doll (Ravinia Festival;
Richard Rodgers Award) and Meet Mister Future (winner, Global Search for New
Musicals), both with lyricist/librettist Michael Korie. As a musical director, conductor
and pianist, he has been associated with the original Broadway productions of Les
Miserables, Into the Woods, Jerome Robbins' Broadway, Rags and Falsettos as well as
Off-Broadway's Putting It Together starring Julie Andrews. Motion picture credits
include Mike Nichols' Postcards From the Edge, where he can be seen (and heard)
playing for Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine. His many recordings include Barbra
Streisand's Back to Broadway and a slew of original cast albums. Mr. Frankel is a twotime fellow of the MacDowell Colony and a graduate of Yale University.

GREY GARDENS the musical opened off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on

February 10, 2006 and ran through April 30, 2006. Directed by Michael Greif with
choreography by Jeff Calhoun, it starred Christine Ebersole, Mary Louise Wilson, and
John McMartin. It earned five Lucille Lortel Award nominations and twelve Drama
Desk Award nominations. Christine Ebersole received the Obie Award, Drama Desk
Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, a Special Citation from the New York Drama Critics'
Circle, and the Drama League Award for Performance of the Year for her dual roles of
Edith and Edie Beale in the Off-Broadway production. The show opened on Broadway
on November 2, 2006 at the Walter Kerr Theatre. The production was nominated for 10
Tony Awards in 2007, and won three - including awards for both Ebersole and Wilson in
leading and featured actresses categories, respectively. The Original Broadway Cast
album was released on PS Classics and was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for
Best Musical Show Album. Grey Gardens closed on Broadway on July 29, 2007, after
307 performances and 33 previews.

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STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Almost every family has an eccentric. Whos the eccentric in your family? How is
he/she treated by others in the family? What do people say about him/her? Do you know
what (if anything) caused this person to be eccentric?

2. Edith and Edie Beale experienced both great wealth and great poverty in their
lifetimes. What did you think about rich people before you saw this play? What did
you think about poor people? Did the story of the Beales change your thinking about
people from either economic class? How?

3. Since the early 1990s, Americas been obsessed with reality television shows. What
do you think about reality shows? Do they serve a purpose other than entertainment?
What elements make Grey Gardens different from reality television? What elements
are the same?

4. Imagine youre part of the Bouvier-Beale family. What do you do about Big Edie and
Little Edie? How do you feel about your relatives becoming the subject of a documentary
- and a Broadway musical?

5. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was relentlessly followed by the media from the time she
became engaged to John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s until her death in the late 1990s.
How much attention do you think Big Edie and Little Edie would have gotten if they
hadnt been related to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis? How often/how much time do you
spend reading about celebrities or watching entertainment news shows?

6. The Grey Gardens documentary, the HBO film, and this play exploration or
exploitation?

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From The Advocate, April 2009

The Cult of Grey Gardens

By David Colman
Like most of the best things in life -- opera, wine, meditation -- the weird world of Grey Gardens is an
acquired taste. And as with many acquired tastes, the first sip makes quite an impression. When I first saw
the film in college, my reactions were shock and dismay at what felt like exploitative invasion of privacy, a
mockery of two sadly deranged women.
"I tell people, 'You may not like it the first time,'" explains Michael Sucsy about the 1975 Maysles Brothers
documentary. Over the past few years, Sucsy has researched, written, and directed a new dramatic film,
also titled Grey Garden , starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as the mother and daughter who
shared an East Hampton, N.Y., house (Grey Gardens) and a name (Edith Bouvier Beale) for about 25 years
too long. In the process of creating the film, which premieres April 18 on HBO, he got used to people
reading his script (or seeing a rough cut of the film) and saying they now wanted to see the Maysles
version. In each of these instances, Sucsy, who had the same reaction I did when he first saw the '75
documentary, warned everyone that they might be disappointed -- at first.
It takes repeated viewings of the film to truly understand why it's become, as University of Sussex film
professor John David Rhodes describes it, a "rite of passage for gay men." (Rhodes remembers how in
1992, on his first night in New York, his gay uncle took him to Kim's Video on Bleecker Street to get the
tape.) Spotting the camp beneath the train wreck is crucial to honing the camp sensibility that's as much a
part of the urban gay man's development as big biceps-augmenting the movie-queen Grand Guignol
curriculum of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Mommie Dearest.
"It was one of the films that all of us quoted to each other," Rhodes says. "It served as a kind of recondite,
East Village version of camp, classical Hollywood."
Still, you don't need a degree in queer theory to see the attractions: Little Edie's famous, madcap approach
to wardrobe; her equally hilarious flair for conversation, in which, like her clothing, she melds the utterly
practical and sublimely absurd; and the fact that she was Jackie Kennedy's first cousin. What gay man
wouldn't identify with someone who wore outlandish outfits, starred in her own movie, and was related to
(and prettier than) Jackie? "The Revolutionary Costume for Today" -- Edie's highly hummable fashion
manifesto from the 2006 Grey Gardens Broadway musical -- packed all three of these, Little Edie's biggest
charms, into one big bring-down-the-house number that leapt into the camp hall of fame right next to
"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" and "I'm the Greatest Star."
The musical's success also underscored just how mainstream camp has become. Since the Criterion
Collection DVD release of the documentary in 2001, Grey Gardens and Little Edie are anything but
recondite. In 2003 the movie was number 33 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the top 50 cult films. If the
list were published today, Gardens would easily make the top 10. The Grey Gardens musical defied cynics
to make it to Broadway, where it was a hot ticket and has spawned other major productions around the
world. There are now Grey Gardens books, fan sites, Facebook pages, fashion lines, and homemade
YouTube videos. In 2005 the original inspired what may have been the first documentary about a
documentary, Ghosts of Grey Garden , and in 2006, Albert Maysles released a sequel cobbled from outtake
reels, The Beales of Grey Gardens. Kent Bartram, a Chicago writer and researcher, is writing an exhaustive
biography of Little Edie, uncovering more of the story's strange complications and secrets, expected out in
2011. And Sucsy's film reveals more explicitly the dramatic narrative that lurks beneath the surface of the
Maysles Brothers' films.

12

But the camp is also something of a red herring. As divine as a kooky cross between Diana Vreeland and
Lee Radziwill sounds, Drew Barrymore herself will tell you that Little Edie is far more complex. "She has
this brilliant fashion sense and these great lines -- I don't know a movie I quote more," Barrymore says.
"But when you go deeper than that, what's there is a truly remarkable injured bird with the most amazing
feathers."
Without the trappings of a single coherent narrative -- Little Edie would never be tied down to just one -Grey Gardens is, in its mangled, tangled way, one of the clearest and most sophisticated expressions of
gayness the world has created.
"Gay men think they're latching on to Grey Gardens because they think it's camp, but it's really because it's
about a parent-child relationship," explains John Epperson, whose performance-art persona, Lypsinka, has
turned the mimicry of movie-queen line readings into an art form of its own. "The best movies are always
about identity, and that movie certainly is."
He draws a parallel to Imitation of Life, another gay favorite. The film is famous for Lana Turner's overthe-top acting and costumes, but it's the supporting story of the black maid and her daughter, Sarah Jane -who can pass for white and tragically tries to -- that really resonates with gay viewers, Epperson says.
Sarah Jane is like a gay man in that she's trying to find a place in the world where she fits.
Sucsy says he wasn't trying to place his Grey Gardens film within the context of the old-school Hollywood
women's pictures; it just turned out that way.
"I remember, it wasn't that long ago, I was just catching up on my classics, and I rented Now, Voyage ," he
says. "It didn't have anything to do with [my work on Grey Gardens]. I started watching it, and I just
thought, Oh, my God, the way the two overlap is eerie."
And the similarities don't end with Bette Davis's Now, Voyager. What's surprising is how many other
haunting mother-daughter stories there are in the gay cult canon: Stella Dallas, Mildred Pierce, Gypsy,
Carrie, Female Trouble, Postcards From the Edge. Throw in the house mothers of Paris Is Burning too.
Even films like Baby Jane and All About Eve (not to mention Showgirls) are power struggles between two
women trapped in a world somewhat of their own making, echoing the mother-daughter push-pull.
"There's a certain kind of identification with this mother and daughter who are locked together," says
Charles Busch, the playwright and performer whose play Die, Mommie, Die! -- later made into a film -was a send-up of 1960s gay cult hits like Dead Ringer and Strait-Jacket. "Until recently, gay people, since
they didn't get married and didn't have kids, often had unusually intense relationships with their parents. I
was raised by my aunt, who during her last years was an invalid. I'd be making her lunch and she'd start in
with the bell. I felt just like Baby Jane."
The Edie resonance goes even deeper than that, Sucsy says. While researching, he was struck by how
closely Edie's status during her time in New York -- young, single, and "bohemian" -- corresponded to that
of gay men at the time. In his film, which alternates between re-created scenes of the filming of the '75
documentary and flashbacks of the Edies' lives through the '30s, '40s, '50s, and '60s, Little Edie is always
longing to get away. First she evades her father's desire for her to settle down and marry a nice rich WASP,
and later she escapes Grey Gardens altogether.
Flamboyant, witty, and childlike -- traits that for years were ascribed, accurately or not, to gay men -- she
tries and tries but, despite her enthusiasm, can't make her way in New York City. She runs out on her social
debut in the 1930s, has trouble holding a job in the 1940s, and embarks on an affair with a married man in
the early 1950s.

13

"Part of [our attraction] is generational," says Doug Wright, who wrote I Am My Own Wife and the book for
the Grey Gardens musical. "In a closeted culture, there were no public figures who identified as gay. So
many gay men came to see themselves in these high-functioning, artistically expressive, heartbreakingly
single, and deeply neurotic women. That world undervalued [Edie's] extravagant expressiveness, and she
couldn't find love in any successful way. If that doesn't describe your average gay man, circa 1950, I don't
know what does. Our stories were closer to Stella Dallas than John Wayne."
Even so, if you think it's strange that gays should gravitate toward two women whom most people would
call insane, remember this: It was only in 1973 -- around when David and Albert Maysles were first
knocking on the Edies' front door -- that the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality
as mental illness. Little more than a decade earlier, films like Suddenly, Last Summe ; The Manchurian
Candidate; and, most famously, Psycho were all painting portraits of weak but dangerous young men with
troubling attachments to a forceful mother. Gay men and women today may identify with racial minorities,
but for most of the past century, gays were lumped in with crazies, alkies, spinsters, and eccentrics -- they
all ate at the same unmentionable table, preferably hidden.
Barrymore, who comes from a famous family herself and whose own wild-child behavior has resulted in a
headline or two, can relate -- but mostly to the Edies' love-hate filial relationship.
"In my experience the term apron strings doesn't even begin to cut it," she says. "There's an insane amount
of pain and guilt with mother-daughter relationships, and some people are eaten alive by it. It's a really
interesting dynamic."
Barrymore was also drawn to Little Edie's freewheeling way of saying one thing and then coming back
with the completely opposite point of view. This fast-twirling yin-yang of contradictions is something most
people might attempt to hide behind a cool and composed facade. Not Edie.
"I remember meeting with a studio executive once who said, 'Look, I read your script, and frankly, this is
full of contradictions,'" Sucsy says. "That's one of the things that was so amazing about Drew -- how she
was excited by that. She really understood."
The most frequent (and poignant) of the contradictions is Little Edie's wish to be married versus her desire
to remain single and free. While superficially opposite, both betray the loneliness Edie felt as well as her
sad suspicion that she was inherently too flawed to be loved.
The theme of contradiction is echoed in the house itself. Although broken-down and decrepit, Grey
Gardens is right there in glamorous East Hampton, the cream of America's summer resorts, less than 200
yards from one of the nation's most desirable beaches. In many ways, gay people live that close to the
country's culture and may even go to that beach; but we are, in other ways, still as far away as Little Edie
was.
For all the heartbreak, though, the growing cult around Grey Gardens seldom dwells on the down spots,
and the new film ends on a sweetly high note. Young gay men today are less likely to sing along to the
bittersweet strains of "I Will Survive." Today's camp icons are characters like Cher Horowitz from
Clueless, Elle Woods of Legally Blonde, and the gals from Sex and the City. So while there may not be
much for them in the mother-daughter melodramas of yesterday, there's plenty for fashion-besotted 20somethings to be had in Little Edie and her take on style.
And that style, Barrymore explains, has a mystery all its own. "Cat and I would have to freeze-frame [the
documentary] to figure out how [Little Edie] pinned things," she says, referring to the film's costume
designer, Catherine Marie Thomas. "One time, it took us forever to figure what she'd done. It was two

14

shirts, one worn as a shirt and one worn as a skirt -- with the arms wrapped around for a belt. These were
extremely theatrical people. Life was a stage."
Robb Brawn, custodian of the fan site MyGreyGardens.com, agrees that Little Edie's fashion sense was
far from superficial. The two of them became friends in 1979, after Big Edie had died, Grey Gardens had
been sold, and Little Edie moved to New York City to launch her long-dreamed-of, short-lived cabaret
career. (She gave 16 performances at Reno Sweeney in the West Village.)
"To me, Edie's thing wasn't just that it's OK to be different -- and this was the 1970s, when it wasn't OK,"
Brawn says. "She was saying, 'I'm not just here to be accepted, I want to be celebrated.' They were happy in
their own skin, she and Big Edie, being who they were, and that's what a lot of gay people relate to. We
shouldn't have to explain why we're here or be tolerated or accepted. We're not all as philosophical as Edie,
but we feel that way."
So why settle for Gloria, Mae, Joan, Bette, Judy, Rita, Katharine, Marilyn, Lana, Barbra, Faye, Liza, Sissy,
Jessica, Meryl, or Madonna? Edie is all of them, stripped down to one sparkling, hilarious talent yearning
to be loved and applauded.
And brimming over, as she always is, with the fervent hope that tomorrow will be different and with the
nagging fear that it won't be, she is also, so clearly, all of us.

15

Keeping It Real
Legendary director Albert Maysles on the truth about documentary filmmaking
By Matthew Hays
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/maysles.html
May 13, 2005

Forty-five years ago, a young Albert Maysles scored one of his first film gigs as a cameraman. Using 16mm camera equipment, Maysles followed around John F. Kennedy as the charismatic young politician ran
successfully for the U.S. presidency. The film, Primary, directed by Robert Drew, would become a
landmark documentary, capturing what appeared to be unrehearsed moments in the campaign and allowing
the audience a unique sense of intimacy with JFK and his wife, Jacqueline.
Albert and his brother David would go on to become one of the most accomplished filmmaking teams in
history, true pioneers of direct cinema the 60s documentary movement that rejected authoritative
narrative voiceovers and interviewer questions.
The Maysles Brothers body of work is staggering; they profiled the famous actor in Meet Marlon Brando
(1966), chatted up the author in A Visit with Truman Capote (1966) and chronicled the Fab Fours taking of
America in Whats Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. (1964).
But their greatest achievements came in a triptych of films that offer a surreal glimpse into the lives of their
respective subjects. In 1969, they released Salesman, a bruising documentary about the desperate lives of a
group of salesmen who sell bibles door to door. In 1970, the Maysles delivered Gimme Shelter, their
unblinking look at the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont, at which a young man was stabbed to death by
Hells Angels bikers. And in 1975, the filmmakers found two relatives of Jacqueline Onassis, a mother and
daughter who lived in a dilapidated mansion called Grey Gardens in the East Hamptons. Grey Gardens
captured the tortured relationship this octogenarian mother shared with her schizophrenic daughter. The
film has since become a lightning rod for critics who charge it represents the very essence of documentary
exploitation.
David Maysles died in 1987, but Albert has continued to create documentaries, following the projects of
the artist Christo in a series of films (he just finished editing a feature on the Gates in Central Park), and is
now putting the final touches on The Jew on Trial, his film about the infamous trial of Mendel Beilis, a
man accused of blood libel in Kiev and acquitted in 1913. This weekend, Maysles will be venturing to
Montreal to hold a master class at the citys Jewish Film Festival. He spoke with me from his New York
office.

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Next to William Randolph Hearst my mother was the worlds

most famous collector. She collected everything. Everything. Down
to tiny little things shed buy at the five-and-ten cent store. Mother
never cleaned anything out, never threw anything away. The house
is a storage warehouse.
(Little Edie, 1978)

from The Psychology of Animal Collectors

by Randall Lockwood, Ph.D.
(animalsheltering.org/adapted & condensed from Trends Magazine, Dec 1993/Jan 1994, Volume 9, Number 6)
Although the problem is widespread, psychologists and other scientists have devoted little attention to cases
where multiple-animal ownership has resulted in animal cruelty. The earliest formal study was a 1981
review by Dooley Worth and Alan Beck of 31 such cases handled by the American Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and the Bureau of Animal Affairs in New York City. That
study gave some support to the traditional characterization of collectors as older "cat ladies" living in
isolation, but there was considerable variation in the demographics of collectors. In that study, more than
two-thirds of the people involved were women and 70 percent of them were unmarried.
Most, however, had started their collections early, often in their twenties. In general, these people
specialized in either dogs or cats, owning many of one species and a few of the other. Although all of the
collectors in this study were somewhat removed from mainstream society, very few had been
institutionalized or diagnosed as suffering from acute mental disorders.
Recently, courts have begun to recognize that behavior that can result in such extensive suffering for
animals is not a harmless eccentricity. A growing number of collectors have been referred for psychiatric
evaluation as part of the court-ordered assessment of the situation. What has emerged is a rather
complicated picture of the processes that can lead someone to allow animal neglect to reach such a severe
level.
Very few collector cases simply involve good intentions gone awry, despite the insistence of the collector
that he or she loves the animals and wants to save their lives. This is clear to anyone who has witnessed the
conditions of filth and decay in which many of these animals are kept and their often advanced state of
malnutrition, parasite infestation, and infection. For most collectors, it is likely that their actions are the
result of a true pathology, even though they are still usually able to function quite well in society.
Collectors differ in their attitudes, behavior, and symptoms. Several different models have been suggested
to account for their actions:

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Model. The impulse to amass a large collection of some item or
items...simply for the sake of collecting it, can be symptomatic of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
What differentiates these people from other collectors is that the collection is often associated with
a significant neglect of personal and environmental conditions. Such disorders are more common
in women and often have their onset when the person is in her late 20s or 30s. Many animal
collectors have been reported to have huge piles of newspapers, bottles, junked cars, and other
refuse in addition to their animal collections. In many cases, the onset of the disorder coincides
with early or sudden loss of a loved one, usually a parent, spouse, or sibling. This may contribute
to the individual's universal resistance to any consideration for euthanasia for their animals and
their overriding ability to deny the deteriorating conditions of their animals' health and
environment. Such disorders can be quite resistant to treatment. This is certainly true of animal
collectors, who almost invariably renew their collections if given the opportunity.

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from The Psychology of Animal Collectors - continued

Addiction Model. Several professionals, including Houston veterinarian Dr. Karen Kemper, have
pointed out many of the parallels between animal collectors and substance abusers, thus they apply
the term "animal addicts" to the collectors. Traits common to collectors and substance abusers
include a preoccupation with the addiction (animals); denial that the addiction exists; alibis for
behavior; isolation from society except those who also deal in the addiction, i.e., enablers; claims
of persecution; neglect of personal and environmental conditions; and repetition...of the addictive
behavior.
Zoophilia Model. A small number of collectors may fit into the category of zoophilia, a
psychosexual disorder in which animals play a major role in the individual's sexual fantasies or
practices.
Need for Power or Control. Most cases of outright animal abuse (e.g., torture, burning) seem to
be motivated by a need to exert power over something on the part of an individual who is often
otherwise lacking in skills or abilities that might allow him or her to exert power through more
normal channels.

These models are not mutually exclusive; several may apply to a single individual. Regardless of which
model best characterizes a particular animal collector, the important point is that keeping a large number of
animals in ill-health and unsanitary conditions is both a crime and symptomatic of an illness.
It is ironic that some of the most severe suffering encountered in animal welfare work is perpetrated by
collectors who profess to love animals. These tragic situations point out the continuing need to educate our
society that animals are not objects to be collected, but living creatures whose physical and emotional needs
must be recognized and met.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY & RESEARCH NOTES

The following books, articles and websites were used in creating this study guide:
The Bouviers: Portrait of An American Family by John H. Davis. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York,
1969.
The Bouviers: From Waterloo to The Kennedys and Beyond by John H. Davis. National Press Books,
Washington, D.C. 1993.
Edith Bouvier Beale of Grey Gardens: A Life in Pictures by Eva Marie Beale. Verlac Editions, 2008.
Jackie After Jack: A Portrait of the Lady by Christopher Anderson. William Morrow, New York, 1998.
Americas Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Sarah Bradford. Viking, New York, 2000.
The Cult of Grey Gardens, by David Colman, The Advocate, April 2009.
The Psychology of Animal Collectors, by Randall Lockwood, Ph.D., www.animalsheltering.org.
(reprint)
The Secret of Grey Gardens by Gail Sheehy, New York Magazine, January 10, 1972.
A Return to Grey Gardens by Gail Sheehy, New York Magazine, October 29, 2006.
Grey Gardens: Exploration or Exploitation? by Harry Karlinsky, M.D., Canadian Psychiatry. February
2008.
Concentrated Ground: Grey Gardens and the Cinema of the Domestic, by John David Rhodes,
Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, 2006.
Interview with Rachel Horovitz, Executive Producer of Grey Gardens by Melissa Silverstein,
www.womenandhollywood.com, April 17, 2009.
The Crumbling Beauty of Grey Gardens, by Joy Press, www.salon.com, April 16, 2009.
Jackie Os Cousin Edie, Once a Famous Recluse, Now Finds That Life is a Cabaret, by Cheryl McCall,
People Magazine, January 16, 1978.
Edie Beale: From Grey Gardens to Reno Sweeney, by Judy Klemesrud, The New York Times, January
10, 1978.
Notes on Grey Gardens by Hilton Als, The Criterion Collection, September 3, 2001.
Sally Quinn on Life in Grey Gardens W Magazine, April 8, 2009.
Your Family Decorator: Recalling a Chat with Little Edie of Grey Gardens by Carleton Varney, Palm
Beach Daily News, June 4, 2009.
An Eye for the Ghosts of Grey Gardens by Virginia Garrison, The East Hampton Star, June 12, 2006.
www.nytimes.com
www.guardian.co.uk
www.greygardensonline.com
www.wikipedia.com

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