Edith Bouvier Beale - Legacy

Legacy

Interest in the Beales' story has produced a variety of publishing and media projects. These include:

• The original 1975 Maysles brothers' documentary, Grey Gardens.
• Little Edie Live! A Visit To Grey Gardens, a 78-minute interview with Edie Beale at Grey Gardens on April 22, 1976.
• Two spreads in Vogue and one in Bust have been dedicated to Beale's unique lifestyle.
• Ghosts of Grey Gardens, a 2005 documentary directed by Liliana Greenfield-Sanders, about Grey Gardens' continuing legacy.
• An off-Broadway musical Grey Gardens — A New Musical debuted in March 2006, starring Christine Ebersole, and played on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre November 2, 2006–July 28, 2007 for 300+ performances. Little Edie was portrayed in the first Act by actresses Sara Gettelfinger (off-Broadway) and Erin Davie (on Broadway). Ebersole played Little Edie in the second Act. Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson won Tony Awards.
• Designer Marc Jacobs created the "Little Edie" bag for his Fall 2007 collection.
• Grey Gardens, the 2009 Emmy Award-winning made-for-television movie for HBO, starred Jessica Lange as "Big Edie" and Drew Barrymore as "Little Edie," with Jeanne Tripplehorn portraying Jacqueline Kennedy. Directed and co-written (with Patricia Rozema) by filmmaker Michael Sucsy, it began filming on October 22, 2007, in Toronto. It first aired on HBO on April 18, 2009. Jessica Lange won an Emmy for her performance, and the film won Emmy awards for art direction, hairstyling, screenplay, make-up, and supporting actor (Ken Howard). Drew Barrymore won the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for her performance.
• Musician Rufus Wainwright wrote a song titled "Grey Gardens," which appears on his 2001 album Poses. The song's narrative is partly composed of references to the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens and to Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice (or to Luchino Visconti's film of the same title).
• The spring 2010 issue of the online literary journal BigCityLit features a pantoum by American poet Joel Allegretti called "The Belles of Grey Gardens," which is made up entirely of dialogue from the Maysles' documentary.