MemoraBEALEia: A Private Scrapbook About Edie Beale of Grey Gardens, First Cousin to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Walter Newkirk. Report by Glenn Belverio

Dear Shaded Viewers,

The weather is positively monsoon-like here in New York today, so I'm shut in my East Village aerie, popping popcorn and enjoying "Little Edie Live! A Visit to Grey Gardens." It's a rare (and very Warholian) interview conducted by Walter Newkirk on April 22, 1976--shortly after the film "Grey Gardens" was released. ("Audiences are intrigued, entertained, shocked, and fascinated by the personalities and filthy living conditions of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie," Walter writes in his article about the interview in Rutgers Targum.) My favorite part so far is Edie greeting Walter as he arrives: "One of my mother's cats disappeared. I've had to comb the whole place for two hours and that's why I'm not ready . . . I'm wearing my Easter pants. Mother bought them for me. They're the new style--bell bottoms. I don't like them at all." Mother, by the way, refused to emerge from her room during the interview because she was too upset about her missing cat. Edie also mentioned it was because "the room hadn't been cleaned properly" so Big Edie didn't want anyone in there. "Not cleaned properly" was an understatement, judging from what we all saw in the film. But hey, at least they had a decor theme! I have to laugh when I see that Edie hung pictures all over the house with thumb tacks . . . my friends laugh when they see I've done the same thing in my apartment. (Which reminds me . . . I need to take down the thumb-tacked Hustler White poster featuring Tony Ward that is hanging in my bathroom. It is literally deteriorating.)

Grey Gardens came out two years after "An American Family", the first reality TV series. I'm often dismayed that reality-TV obsessed young-ish people today have never heard of the series and will insist that reality TV had its birth with MTV's tepid "The Real World" back in the early '90s. But thanks to the (already out-of-print?) recent book from Albert Maysles and now, this fabulous new book from Walter Newkirk, Grey Gardens is enjoying yet another revival. (I did not see the Broadway musical. I can be a bit of a cinema-verite purist at times and the show just seemed hokey. If it's not the real Little Edie singing it just seems like a waste of my time.)

Walter's book is wonderful. It is a collection of remembrances, photos (the back cover shot is by my pal Ron Galella), beautiful water-color illustrations by Bruce Lennon, written correspondences between Little Edie and Walter, and old newspaper clips. One of my favorites is from PAGE SIX, circa 1981:

"Let Cousin Jackie have her fancy limos and glittery nights on the town in Manhattan. Edie Beale parties to a different beat. The second cousin of Jackie Onassis travelled by bus to the Newark Museum the other night for the opening of 'Tibet: A Lost World,' an exhibition of 225 objects from everyday life. The sometime cabaret singer, not to be outdone by the women arriving in Tibetan costumes, wore an elaborate homemade hat. 'My brothers and I were brought up on Tibet,' Edie said. 'It was mother's influence really.' Edie used to live with their large family of cats at Grey Gardens, the dilapidated East Hampton manse recently bought by publisher Ben Bradlee."

And that's just the tip of the iceberg in MemoraBEALEia, a must for all Grey Gardens fans.

Love,
Glenn Belverio

P.S. - Speaking of Little Edie's "sometime cabaret singer" career--which took place at a West Village theater in the late '70s--I've been obsessed with seeing footage from her performance, which reportedly packed the house with Grey Gardens fans and campy fags every weekend. I prayed that Albert Maysles had documented it and I finally had the chance to ask him when I met him last week. Sadly, there is no documentation of the show as far as he knows, he told me. But he assured me that the show was wonderful.

P.P.S. - I also love the part in the CD interview where Little Edie flirts with Walter and tells him "you look like an athlete--you look like Joe Namath!" and you can just hear him blushing on the tape.