Early Life
Massey was raised in an orphanage until she was sent out to be a maid at the age of fifteen. She was placed in a reformatory for running away. In 1946 Massey married a soldier Silvio Gigante in Reno, leaving him about five years later because she got "restless". She worked in several odd jobs through the years, and she eventually relocated to Baltimore, Maryland where she worked as a barmaid at Pete's Hotel. John Waters met Massey while she was working at Pete's Hotel and offered her a role as herself in the film Multiple Maniacs. In the early 1970s, she quit her job at Pete's and opened a thrift store called Edith's Shopping Bag, which was originally located on Preston Street in the Mount Vernon neighborhood, but soon relocated to 726 S. Broadway in the Fells Point area of Baltimore.
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