ArtForum on HBO's Grey Gardens

This review perhaps best sums up the production: "This production is not about 'interpretation' but about immaculate reflection."

From ArtForum, by Kyle Bentley, on April 16, 2009

This Old House

New York is about nothing if not the gamble of promise, the stakes that can put people in the jackpot or in bankruptcy. Stories unfolding here, however many their convolutions and fine points, are mainly pulled along by that idea of possibility on which the city was founded. What the characters Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edith Bouvier Beale, play out is the fear, constantly bracing New York, that to move away is to cut oneself off from possibility, to leave the dream stunted. But that is only partially the truth. There is a greater fear the story taps: that the dream is only a fantasy, that promise is only an intoxicant, and that one is driving inebriated to an end in which, to be perverse, shards of the dream get lodged in the head like windshield glass.

The story clearly resonates. It has, after all, been told many times and in many ways, facilitating something of an industry. Most famously, the Bouvier Beales themselves told it, in 1974, for the documentary Grey Gardens by Albert and David Maysles, earning them permanent places as “Big Edie" and “Little Edie" in whichever realm spawns Halloween costumes and drag personae. It has since been told in a second film by the Maysles brothers, in a memoir written by a Bouvier Beale acquaintance, in several picture books, in countless fashion collections, and in the requisite Broadway musical. Now there is Grey Gardens, the HBO drama. Starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. A prequel, of sorts.

This, again, is a story of withdrawal, and the new movie tracks the forty years that the original imparts only in pieces. Phelan Beale gets a Mexican divorce from Big Edie, a would-be singer, leaving her to live with her accompanist in the house in East Hampton, Grey Gardens. Her inheritance from her father dwindles (the sum had been reduced after she attended her son's wedding in opera costume) along with the affections of her accompanist, who eventually leaves, too. Big Edie calls Little Edie, a would-be star of stage or screen, back from New York, where she has been living at the Barbizon, planning “to audition,” and seeing a married man who happens to be secretary of the interior. Here the clock stops, in 1952. The house falls past the point of quaint disrepair, into condemnation. After a public to-do, Big Edie’s niece, who happens to be Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, donates several thousand dollars to the cause of renovation.

Which is around where the Maysleses’ cameras enter, and around where the thrust of the HBO narrative ends (though scenes reenacting the documentary’s filming are intercut throughout). The two Edies, wound tight around each other, are at this point passing their days feeding their menagerie of cats and raccoons “luncheon,” bickering and listening to old recordings of Big Edie, holding up one memory against the other, trying to make an attractive picture. In a light harder than that which fades Long Island shingles gray, the two might be Blanche and Baby Jane Hudson. Having lacked the objective view for decades, they are now an assortment of idiosyncrasies, best illustrated by Little Edie’s “costumes”: towels or scarves wrapped around her head to cover her thinned hair; shorts under fishnets under skirts that can, she reveals, double as capes.

The path that Grey Gardens, in its many incarnations, has followed is that ironic tract that is our cultural digestive system, the same cycle that recently put Frank and April Wheeler up on screen as Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. In this instance, two women find their spirits cracked enough that they can become not only the stars they wanted to be, at least versions of them, but also characters eagerly pursued (if we trust the interviews) by two much more popular stars. And it is unnerving the extent to which, in the HBO movie, these characters have been inhabited, particularly Big Edie by Jessica Lange. The way she carries the mannerisms through scenes that have no parallel in the original (which is where her counterpart is best, in studied mimicry) is shocking. This production is not about “interpretation” but about immaculate reflection.

It is actually quite a production, for all the prosthetics, vocal coaches (to teach that New York-by-way-of-Farmington dialect), and set dressers. There are the brass coffee tables and the floral wallpapers, the chipped dressers and the oriental rugs. The piano duets and the parties and the highballs in mason jars. The lit lamps, the set tables. All the familiar things that would give way to the animals infesting, the walls and ceilings crumbling, the sixty-year-old English ivy growing over the windows, thriving dry. This new movie insists on that dramatic trajectory, seeming meant to satisfy our need to know, as with any sad scenario, what went wrong where, and how does the story diverge from our own.

But part, a major part, of what drives the original Grey Gardens is all that is missing. What can the facts of this history tell us, anyway? What could possibly lead a mother and a daughter to retreat into a house for decades, away from everybody? What could lead a young woman to dance all day to the Virginia Military Institute march? “Divorce” wouldn’t justify that. Neither would a mother’s loneliness. The flaws of the Edies that are tragic are not really literary, however much they recall, say, Miss Havisham, because the characters are elliptical to the core; they are repositories of broken images, broken memories, misidentifications. The refrain of “Tea for Two.” The soft-shoeing in the parlor. The hyperbole, and apoplexy. (“The most disgusting, atrocious thing ever to happen in America.”) When in the dramatization Little Edie returns to New York for the Grey Gardens premiere and throws her bouquet of white roses into the audience, we pass the scene off as typical Hollywood closure, which it is. But there the incident is found, in the newspaper archives. Little Edie’s cabaret act at Reno Sweeney seems the too-obvious finale to this vaudevillian performance. But that happened, too. When Big Edie declines comment to a newspaper reporter, saying, “It’s all in the movie,” we can only roll our eyes. But that one, I think, was written up somewhere as well. We come away knowing that these are people born of screen, and that is where their tragedy lies.

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Grey Gardens the Musical comes to Indianapolis tonight

As reported back in March, the Indianapolis premiere of Grey Gardens the musical is tonight!

From Buck Creek Players

Grey Gardens

May 29, 30; June 5, 6, 12 & 13 at 8:00 p.m.
May 31; June 7 & 14 at 2:30 p.m.

Directed by D. Scott Robinson

Rub elbows with Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter “Little Edie,”—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ most scandalous relatives! Once the highest of high society, the two have become East Hampton’s most notorious recluses, living in a dilapidated 28-room mansion with 51 cats for company. Set in two eras—1941 when the celebrated estate was the picture of wealth and sophistication, and 1973 after it had been reduced to squalor—Grey Gardens is a hilarious and heartbreaking look at two indomitable women. Don’t miss one of the great hits of the 2007 Broadway season, winner of the 2007 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical and hailed by Time Magazine as the #1 production of 2006 after transferring to the Broadway stage.

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Get your Edie Beale Reno Sweeney costume here!

It's cute, and I like how it's not a direct copy, but obviously inspired by Edie's garb.

Thanks to the anonymous contributor who sent this in!

From Etsy, by BoudoirQueen

EDITH BEALE RENO SWEENEY TURBAN Cloche BY BOUDOIR QUEEN

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Portland Oregon production of Grey Gardens the musical already underway

I was a little late in posting this, but if that wonderful illustration is any indication of the quality of the production, do check it out!

From Portland Mercury

Grey Gardens: The Musical

When: Tuesdays-Saturdays, 7:30 p.m., Every other Saturday, 2 p.m., Every other Sunday, 7:30 p.m. and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Continues through June 21
Phone: 503-445-3700
Price: $33.50-$68.50
pcs.org/greygardens

If Norma Desmond's home on Sunset Boulevard were in East Hampton, overrun with stray cats, and maintained by The Addams Family, it would look something like the crumbling estate of Jackie O's equally withered relatives "Little Edie" and "Big Edie." When the health department nearly condemned their home, the tabloids jumped on the contrast between their delusional dreaming and the glamour of Jackie O. But the media spotlight was no substitute for natural sunlight. When documentarians The Maylse Brothers filmed the pair of shut-in eccentrics in 1973 they captured "Big Edie" propped up in bed and "Little Edie" still entertaining ambitions of stardom from under a variety of flamboyant headwraps. The movie spawned Grey Gardens: The Musical, adored on Broadway and by gay men all over for whom the story of high-society exclusion resonated loudly. This is the final production in the Portland Center Stage 2008-2009 Season.

Portland Center Stage Main Stage
128 NW 11th Ave, Portland, OR 97209

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Betsey Johnson's Grey Gardens-like connection to her East Hampton home

Betsey's always so cute!

From Hamptons.com, by Diane Roncone, on May 21, 2009

Betsey Johnson's Own Personal 'Style For The Ages'

BJ: Anyway, Lulu [Betsey's daughter] got me to rent out here for one summer. I asked her, 'What do you want to do for the summer?' I sent her out with a video camera. I said, 'We're gonna go definitely $30,000 for the summer, max. 30, 30, 30! Let's aim for 15.' She took pictures and for $15,000 to $30,000—I had no idea what the money was, what the real estate was. So, of course, the real estate lady always shows you the one a little over your budget, which was $60,000. It was like a red old barn-Swiss chalet, you know, like open ceilings and loft areas, lots of windows. We just loved it. And sure enough, by the fall, Lulu's like, 'Oh, can't we buy something out here?'

You should have seen it when I bought it. It was shutter-less and all white, contemporary, modern. It was a completely different house. It was like an art gallery kind of space.

Then Lulu met Arthur [her husband] on a blind date at Scoops, the ice cream store, in East Hampton. They're out riding around in their wedding present from Arthur's brother, which is a beautiful little silver Porsche. (Laughs). Nice wedding present! He's a young lawyer, he's terrific. They're crazy-great together. They cannot wait for the day when they can rip this wallpaper off, paint it white, modernize it. And I said, 'You know, when I'm in heaven, then you can do whatever you want.'

Yes, when they take you out, feet-first, like in 'Grey Gardens.'

BJ: (Laughing) Yes! You're not changing this! But I find that if they don't come out, I don't want to come out. I'd rather stay in New York and see the kids on the weekend than be out here alone.

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Philadelphia Theatre Company's unusual Grey Gardens musical

This sounds like a very interesting production!

From The Bulletin, by Jonathan L. Fischer, on May 22, 2009

For Edies, With Love and Squalor

‘Grey Gardens’ at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre

How do we account for this, the long, strange cultural half-life of "Grey Gardens?"

Both a foreshadowing of today’s fascination with celebrity and a compelling human drama, the 1976 film by the Maysles brothers has managed to endure far beyond the shelf-life of most documentaries. It is set almost entirely within the 28-room East Hamptons, N.Y., estate known as Grey Gardens, where for 50 years lived the reclusive Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Once at the center of great society and privilege, the mother and daughter were living in squalor and near-poverty by the early 1970s. When the Maysles finally gave the women the spotlight they both sought in their youths, they repulsed audiences and seduced them just as quickly.

"Grey Gardens" has inspired cult followers, who recite its lines as though it were "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"; countless books and articles; a Twitter page that churns out weird aphorisms from the documentary’s outtakes; and most recently, an HBO movie starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange.

And then there’s Grey Gardens the musical, which premiered off-Broadway in 2006, won three Tonys for its Broadway iteration in 2007, inspired revivals across the country, and now comes to Philadelphia, in a production by the Philadelphia Theatre Company that opens next week at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre.

"I think Grey Gardens is a great American story at heart," said Sara Garoznik, the company’s artistic director. "What holds our fascination is these two women and their fall from grace.... and the almost unanswerable question: Why? Were they mentally ill, were they eccentric aristocracy, which is more in a British tradition, or were they just fragile? Or did they live in a hostile society?"

To watch the original documentary is to be pulled in by the destitution it records. But it’s the Beales who keep our attention.

"I think it’s sort of a horror story at first," said Lisa Peterson, the musical’s director. "To try to understand these women who grew up rich and cultured and almost famous—how could they fall so far?

She continued: "But the women themselves are such interesting, complicated people, so the more you watch them the more you fall in love with them."

Albert and David Maysles helped pioneer a verité style of documentary filmmaking involving highly portable cameras and an observational style (while still acknowledging their own presence). At several points in "Grey Gardens," the Maysles converse with the Edies, but mostly they allow the women to tell their own story. Both dreamed of entertaining: Big Edie, or Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, was an aspiring singer and a well-known eccentric, whose husband, Phelan Beale, left her around the time she attended their son’s wedding dressed as an opera singer. Little Edie modeled, acted and danced as an amateur, and throughout the film claims she was on the verge of being "discovered" when, at age 35 in 1952, she returned to Grey Gardens to care for her ailing mother. In some of the film’s most memorable scenes, the Edies sing along to old 45s while bickering, reminiscing and sorting through their  harried belongings. Big Edie died in 1977; Little Edie died in 2002.

"I think in another age, they would’ve moved to SoHo or some other place," Ms. Garoznik said. Instead, she suggested, they were constrained by the mores of time—eras audiences will recognize from the stories of Salinger, Fitzgerald, Cheever and Yates.

The Edies were almost certainly mentally unbalanced, indicated as much by their dysfunctional yet codependent relationship as the filth they lived in. They shared Grey Gardens with at least a dozen cats, not to mention legions of rats, raccoons and fleas. Suffolk County officials nearly evicted the women in 1971; the "raid," as Little Edie refers to it, became a national cause célèbre that ended with a financial rescue by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Each iteration of "Grey Gardens" has treated the Edies differently. The documentary was just that; while it horrifies, it neither judges the Edies nor seeks to explain them. The recent HBO film takes almost the opposite approach, using biography as an exploratory instrument.

Ms. Garoznik suggested that while the musical raises many questions about the Beales’ lifestyle, its concerns are really twofold: flushing out the dueling worlds of entertainment and privilege whence the Edies came; and hoping to understand their pathology.

While the musical mostly observes in a before-and-after fashion (Act 1 takes place in 1941, Act 2 in 1973), Ms. Garoznik said, "it makes a conjecture about the codependent relationship between mother and daughter. Edie’s dependency on her mother maybe crippled her and prevented her from moving on." It’s no shock that, in one of the film’s sequences, Little Edie ponders a birdcage she keeps meaning to hang up.

As for its production, the Philadelphia Theatre Company thought hard about appropriate aesthetic and psychological strategies.

"We’re taking a totally different approach to this production," Ms. Garoznik said. "We have a new physical take on it, and I think that liberates it from what people might’ve seen on Broadway or off-Broadway"

Ms. Peterson explained that "the set is basically a giant three-sided projection screen"—a reflection of both the physical setting and the psyche of Little Edie. Hollis Resnik plays the younger Edie, and Joy Franz plays the older.

"I would say it’s a big show," said Ms. Peterson, even though it has only eight actors and six musicians. She said the small orchestra actually performs on stage, and is occasionally visible through one of the screens. "In Little Edie’s mind, she’s always accompanied," she concluded with a laugh.

Perhaps that’s the central ingredient to Grey Gardens: that despite its unsavory setting and themes, it’s strangely joyous and individualistic. Along with the decay, squalor and faded dreams, there is glamour, wealth and showmanship.

All of which, of course, proves to be ephemeral.

"There’s that perverse part of us that loves to see the wealthy and the privileged brought down," suggested Ms. Garoznik. "We worship them, we love their beauty and then we love to bring them down. It’s an American pastime. Only the British love it more than us."

"It’s almost like a tragedy in a way, she said. "Like, a great way."

Jonathan L. Fischer can be reached at jfischer@thebulletin.us

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Glowing review of Houston production of Grey Gardens the Musical

It runs through June 14. Texans, catch this while you can!

From Houston Chroncile, by Everett Evans, on May 17, 2009

Review: Cast, script and score make Grey Gardens a must

There is life after Christine Ebersole for Grey Gardens. Stages’ excellent Houston premiere proves it.

While some Broadway critics fully acknowledged the show’s quality, in other quarters the deserved raves for Ebersole may have given the impression that she was the main reason to attend—when in fact Doug Wright’s book, Scott Frankel’s music and Michael Korie’s lyrics were every bit as brilliant as Ebersole’s breathlessly praised tour de force.

Stages’ solid production confirms the wit, poignancy and originality that anchor the show. And the pivotal star turn? Not to worry. Nancy Johnston rises magnificently to the enormous vocal and dramatic challenges of playing manipulative socialite Edith Bouvier Beale in Act 1 and her derailed debutante daughter “Little” Edie in Act 2.

Inspired by the 1975 documentary of the same title, Grey Gardens’ stroke of genius is to split the show’s time frame. Set in 1941, Act 1 shows the Beales in their glory, mother Edith preparing for the party announcing Edie’s engagement to Joe Kennedy Jr. Alas, by the act’s close, Edie’s engagement is broken (at least partly through Edith’s interference) and a cable informs the family that Edith’s husband (whose arrival has been awaited throughout the act) is in Mexico obtaining a divorce.

After seeing their hopes shattered, how can we help but sympathize when Act 2 revisits Grey Gardens in 1973 and finds the Edies now monumentally eccentric recluses, living amid heaps of garbage and 52 cats in their dilapidated mansion? The elderly Edith, often bedridden but still feisty, maintains her hold on Edie. Mother and daughter fight over many things—chiefly Jerry, the teen slacker who befriends them and helps with odd jobs—prompting Edie to make one last effort to escape her mother.

Wright’s script conveys the affection and animosity of a dysfunctional parent-child bond. The lines are funny and telling, reminding us that demented people can be pretty sharp, as when the elderly Edith laments: “It’s very difficult to raise a child 56 years of age.”

The score is both adventurous and memorably tuneful, with such gorgeous ballads as Will You?, Drift Away, Around the World and Another Winter in a Summer Town. Frankel and Korie excel at unique character turns such as Edith’s Jerry Likes My Corn and Edie’s explanation of her oddball couture in the show-stopping The Revolutionary Costume for Today: “You mix, you match and presto: A fashion manifesto!” The team has created superb pastiche songs for the “old favorites” with which Edith and Edie entertain company and themselves, as in the vaudeville-style friendship duet Peas in a Pod and the patriotic march The House We Live In. Their pastiche turns are authentic and catchy as the real thing yet subtly packed with relevance to the surrounding drama.

Overall what the show’s creators have achieved is to ennoble Edith and Edie, distilling what is most movingly human and fascinatingly special about them. That’s how they’ve made a terrific musical out of what may have seemed an unlikely topic.

Johnston as Edith exudes style and egocentric drive, desperately seeking an outlet for her thwarted musical ambitions. She brings vocal grandeur to the operetta-ish Will You? and comic exuberance to her well-meaning yet preposterous “ethnic” specialties. Act 2 lets Johnston top herself as the outrageous Edie, exploding with biting sarcasm and self-deprecating awareness. She brings a distinctive squawk to her comic numbers, yet in the tender ballads, summons a sweet soprano to reveal the sensitive soul within.

Stages regulars won’t recognize Susan O. Koozin, who submerges herself in her role as the elder Edith of Act 2. Wry, cranky and at last poignantly helpless, she persuasively conveys the mannerisms of advanced age and delivers her solos expertly. Rachel Logue is likewise fine as the young Edie of Act 1. She’s full of hope and yearning, frustrated at her inability to escape her mother’s meddling and her own reputation, and her voice is lovely.

David Matranga gives Joe the right dash and self-concern, then plays Jerry with scruffy charm. As Edith’s gay accompanist and platonic soulmate, Jonathan McVay may overdo the coyness at the start, but he relaxes into a more comfortable, gently soulful portrayal and sings beautifully. David Grant is all stuffy disapproval as Edith’s proper father, “Major” Bouvier.

Kenn McLaughlin’s direction is uncluttered and well-paced, maneuvering neatly between the casual sardonic needling that is the household’s norm and the sporadic explosions of mother-daughter rage. Kevin Holden’s set design makes resourceful use of the playing space, and Andrew Cloud has created inventive costumes, especially for Edie’s Act 2 “do your own thing” mode.

This is not a perfect nor ideally polished production. There were a few careless touches at Friday’s opening and some details that required attention (a distractingly unreal hairpiece on a character at one point, for instance). The first few scenes and songs were hampered by a poor sound mix and too-aggressive amplification. Yet the sound improved greatly and the miking grew more subtle as the performance advanced.

Still, those are minor reservations since this show’s effect comes chiefly from its material and performances. On those grounds, Grey Gardens rates as one of the year’s must-see theater events.

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Canadian take on Drew Barrymore's preparation for her role

There is such a wealth of press about Drew's preparations for her role as little Edie Beale... and, clearly, it all paid off!

From The Globe and Mail, by Simon Houpt, on April 17, 2009

A Hollywood princess brings new life to squalid Grey Gardens

Drew Barrymore shed all her pampered trappings (even her cell) to play the famously destitute recluse of the Hamptons, already immortalized in a legendary documentary

Drew Barrymore's heavy drinking days are behind her, but there was good reason that, when she was shooting the telefilm Grey Gardens in Toronto, she spent her weekends on the sozzled side of life.

"I would go to a bar every Saturday night and just pound drinks as a release," she recalled the other day, "and then recover Sunday and then go back to work on Monday."

Work was the reason she needed the release in the first place. Because while Barrymore, a native of Los Angeles and a descendant of Hollywood royalty, has lately gained a comfortable perch as a bankable leading lady of middlebrow romantic comedies, she belongs more to the species of celebrity known as Star than the one known as Actor. And yet for Grey Gardens, the period film that premieres tonight on HBO Canada, Barrymore pulled a Daniel Day-Lewis: not just staying in character on-set through the course of the 7-week shoot, but also cutting herself off from the usual barrage of communications she typically endures every day ("no cellphones, no television, no music, no driving, no newspapers, no magazines, anything") in order to get in touch with her character's isolation.

Barrymore's challenge was formidable: to play not just a dramatic character but also one about whom many people feel terribly proprietary.

This new Grey Gardens is a faintly fictionalized retelling of one of the most famous stories in American documentary history: how, beginning in the 1930s, Jacqueline Kennedy's aunt Edith Bouvier Beale and cousin known as "Little Edie" slid from New York high society to destitution over the course of four decades. By the time Albert and David Maysles, the noted U.S. documentary filmmakers, turned their cameras on Big and Little Edie to make the 1975 cult hit Grey Gardens, the Beales' sprawling home in the Hamptons was a neglected, profoundly unsanitary mess. The Little Edie in the Maysles' Grey Gardens is an icon in the gay community, revered for her quirky fashion sense, sly and sometimes ironic humor, persistent aspiration to glamour despite her pathetic circumstances, and the oppression she suffered for much of her life under her mother's manipulations.

Barrymore, on the other hand, is a self-described valley girl, a former (brief) wife of Canadian shock comic Tom Green, a staunch creature of contemporary pop culture. Today, in a roomy hotel suite on a high floor overlooking the southern swath of Central Park, she looks like a sloppily dressed PR assistant, in jeans, a grey T-shirt and a dark-blue cardigan that dwarfs her small frame. Her hair is bobby-pinned back and off to the side in random thatches, dark roots calling out for the bottle. She pulls her booted feet up onto the couch and tucks her legs off to one side.

Which is as good a reminder as any as to why Barrymore was not at the top of the casting list when the first-time writer-director Michael Sucsy started kicking around names for his Little Edie. Whoever it was had to be able to hold her own opposite Jessica Lange as Big Edie. No matter: Barrymore, who began producing films a few years ago ( Charlie's Angels, Fever Pitch), is used to making things happen. "When I read Michael's script, I just flipped out and was, like, 'I will do anything that I can to get this part.' " She finagled a meeting with Sucsy and made her pitch, putting aside her tomboyish tendencies and glamming up for the encounter (Little Edie had once been a model). She brought along a thick binder of research material, throughout which she had scrawled notes on the character and the film.

She knew there was nothing on her CV to prove she could pull off the acting challenge; indeed, she didn't even know herself whether she could do it. Still, she said this to Sucsy: "I look to you as that person who might take a chance on me, because that's how people know people can do it, because there's someone out there who takes a risk on somebody, so will you please be the person who takes a risk on me?"

Speaking this week in New York, where he'd come for the film's red-carpet premiere, Sucsy laughed ruefully at his recollection of that first meeting. "Yeah, she said, 'I want to do this with my career, and I need someone to take a chance on me,' and I said in my head, 'But why does it have to be me?' I did say those words, of course smiling through my teeth."

In the end, of course, Sucsy was won over by Barrymore's commitment and ability to make herself open to his direction. "In retrospect, it makes perfect sense to have somebody with Drew's great comedic timing in a role like that."

Still, Barrymore admits it took until the final weeks before she felt in the zone. "There was a point towards the end of filming when we were doing one of the documentary scenes, and I realized that I wasn't, like, on the verge of vomiting before we did it, and I thought, 'Oh, this is good, maybe I'm getting more comfortable in her,' you know? Like, I was looking forward to it, versus the fear of, like, 'Am I gonna pull this off?' kinda thing."

Barrymore was able to draw in part on her own history to fill out the character of Edie. After a promising start as a child actor in films that included E.T. and the Stephen King thriller Firestarter, she began losing out on roles as she became known for her wild behavior. After a stint in rehab, she clawed her way back to prominence in Hollywood. "There was a time in my life where I was definitely held back and wasn't able to get work, and my whole life fell apart, so I sort of retreated back to those days. I definitely related to that, just being an outcast, and being sort of put away, or put aside."

Also, though Little Edie was desperate to be in the spotlight—she apparently permitted the Maysles to make Grey Gardens because she hoped it would make her a movie star—she hated how she was regarded by her Hamptons neighbours. "She'd walk into town and people would stare at her like she was a freak, and I know what that feels like!" says Barrymore. "So, you know, I identify with someone who's like, 'Screw this, I'm staying home!' " For the most part, Barrymore is getting beyond her days of being regarded as a freak. (She says that, while she's usually in touch with most of her "ex-boyfriends," she hasn't seen Tom Green lately. "He's on, like, Celebrity Apprentice," she noted. "I watched it the other night just to see how he's doing.") And she's doing more work behind the camera, including her forthcoming directorial debut, Whip It! in which she co-stars with Halifax's Ellen Page.

In fact, the older she gets, the more interested she becomes in artistically complex endeavors. Sure, she starred in a pair of slick Charlie's Angels movies that made hundreds of millions of dollars, but listen to her now: She'd love to run a studio that makes films, not movies. "I'd be like Bob Evans [the legendary former Paramount chief], doing my reel about how our studio's going to be different, and how we're really going to be about making movies, as opposed to business.

"I would want to go back to another time. I'd be out there, trying to make films with the new Hal Ashbys rather than the tent poles."

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Slate's review of HBO's Grey Gardens

You can always count on Slate.com for an intelligent, insightful review. Here's their take on HBO's Grey Gardens.

From Slate, by Troy Patterson, on April 17, 2009

Decaying Preppies

Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange in Grey Gardens.

I submit that there's something wrong with you (either too much status envy or not enough) if you do not respond with a thrill to tales of preppies in distress: the Cheever characters drowning in debt and gin, the endearing Whit Stillman nitwits puzzling out the protocols of the larger world, Serena and Blair engaging in their existential battle on Gossip Girl. At their best, such narratives examine the soiling of whale-print trousers by way of speaking to disappointed expectations. Among the tastiest is Grey Gardens, the 1975 Maysles Bros.' documentary shot at a decrepit East Hampton, N.Y., mansion. Its residents—a mother-daughter act, faded beauties and disinherited socialites each called Edith Bouvier Beale—were the greatest crazy cat ladies of this, the Cenozoic Era.

Harrowing and hilarious, the documentary gently exploited the home lives of two unbalanced women by shedding light on the structure of codependency and the self-deluding means by which we all adapt ourselves to our misfortunes. It served as the basis for an off-Broadway musical and, owing to the younger Beale's gaily demented dress sense—"You can always take off the skirt and use it as a cape"—an inspiration to any number of fashion folk. Now comes Grey Gardens (HBO, Saturday at 8 p.m. ET), largely enjoyable in spite of being almost entirely superfluous. It stars Jessica Lange as Big Edie and Drew Barrymore as Little Edie and, in a piece of casting tantamount to an act of cruelty against the actor and audience alike, Jeanne Tripplehorn in the impossible role of their most famous relation, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

We watch the Beales through the Maysles' gaze, and from some vantage points adjacent to it, and in flashbacks set in the stylish past. All but bookending the docudrama are two scenes at the opulent corner of Central Park South and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In the beginning, it is 1936, and the ladies are preparing for Little Edie's coming-out party at the Pierre Hotel. As a thwarted singer, Big Edie delights in any opportunity to perform in any sense, even socially, and she pets herself in the mirror. As a twisted kind of stage mom, she has, as her ex-husband's says, "infected" her neurotic daughter with dreams of showbiz while ordering her to prepare herself for life as a society wife. "You can have your cake and eat it, too," Big Edie says. "No, you can't, mother darling," is the reply.

Thus, Little Edie, at the moment of her social debut, wants to flit away like a skylark. Ultimately failing in the endeavor, she spends decades living with her mother at Grey Gardens, escaping only at the end of a TV movie, where she braves her way to the premiere of the Maysles' film and gets tipsy at the sight of herself on-screen at the Paris Theater. Here and throughout, Barrymore out-Edies Little Edie, carrying out not an impersonation but a gleeful expansion on the affectations of a great eccentric. She deserves her inevitable Emmy nomination simply for lending a musical quality to the woman's accent, which was a stagy elaboration of her Miss Porter's elocution—a sound so high-class it comes out the other side.

Meanwhile, Lange's best moments illustrate the fine distinction between a Mother Darling and a Mommie Dearest. Years after the debutante ball, Mr. Beale is underwriting Little Edie's life in Manhattan, where she secretly pursues dreams of Broadway and Hollywood. Big Edie, underminer that she is, tips off her ex-husband that his daughter had taken a man back to her room at the Barbizon Hotel for Women. He collects the girl and escorts her back to Long Island. There, deposited into her mother's clutches, Little Edie snubs him on the platform, failing to say goodbye as he stands there pleading as much as his granitelike propriety will allow. Deliciously, Lange's Big Edie bids him farewell with a triumphant smirk, gratified to have him feel the sting of renunciation. Then we cut to a scene of the two ladies entering the house: Big Edie mounts the stairs with a smug skip, elated at the prospect of forever squeezing her baby in her enabling arms.

A different kind of film would signal Big Edie's irretrievable descent into battiness with a scene of her drinking before cocktail hour. Here, the pivotal moment comes when she switches from a highball glass to a pickling jar. Soon enough, the money runs out and the madness gets thicker. Big Edie rejects the idea of moving someplace cheaper. This is her warren and her bunker. "It's the only place where I feel completely myself," she says at one point, necessarily oblivious to the fact that feeling completely herself was her problem. Soon enough, it is her sty, with the house falling into a spectacular squalor. The New York Times' 2002 obit for Little Edie claims that, when inspectors from the Suffolk County Health Department raided the house in 1971, they "discovered that it violated every known building regulation." But this cannot be exactly true. After all, the house was for the most part still standing.

If there is a meaning to this adaptation, it lies in the filmmaker's gentle suggestion of the Beales' martyrdom—though for what cause the ladies suffered remains unclear. There is certainly a feminist angle, with Mr. Beale suggesting secretarial work as the only suitable profession for his daughter to take up while waiting to marry well. Then there is the matter of thwarted dreams: Each Edie was a showgirl trapped in the station of a lady who exists to lunch. But really the great bad luck of the Edith Bouvier Beales was to arrive before their time, to antecede reality television.

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WhoWhatWear's tips to become Grey Gardens chic

Great ideas... and Grey Gardens fashion is everywhere these days!

From WhoWhatWear

Currently Channeling: Grey Gardens

In the pantheon of influential fashion movies, you'll find iconic films like Bonnie and Clyde (berets and maxi skirts), Cabaret (sexed-up sequins), and Annie Hall (menswear chic). While we adore these glamorous and trailblazing cinematic treats—and yes, there are countless others—in our hearts, one documentary trumps them all: Grey Gardens. Unlike the aforementioned silver screen gems, this morsel of cinema vérité didn't have a wardrobe department or a costume designer, yet the real-life looks are spectacular and unparalleled. Instructive too: apparently truth is not only stranger than fiction, it's also dressed in a more inspirational way!

If you haven't seen the original 1975 Grey Gardens, we must urge you to rent it immediately. Directed by Albert and David Maysles (the brothers also shot Monterey Pop and The Rolling Stones' Gimmie Shelter), the film takes an insider's look at the life of Edith "Big Edie" Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale. The duo came from a blue-blood background—they were Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' aunt and first cousin, respectively—but by the time the Maysles turned up, they were living in squalor. Eccentric and notorious, the Beales resided in a decrepit East Hampton mansion and were essentially penniless. Dressed in Jackie's cast-off clothing, they co-habitated with 25 mangy cats, turned the attic into a cafeteria for raccoons (the menu: stale bread), and fought with each other vociferously. Yet despite this True Hollywood Story-style situation, the outrageous pair are charming, intriguingly attired, and absolutely fabulous.

The Grey Gardens story is so shamelessly rich, so ripe with theatrical possibilities, it's really shocking that it existed for 30-plus years without being fictionalized in film. Now, finally, Hollywood's taking a crack at the legendary mother-daughter duo with HBO's original movie, Grey Gardens, which makes its small screen debut on Saturday, April 18th, at 8 p.m., starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. We've heard the costumes are incredible; it's definitely worth checking out!

Though we've yet to see HBO's version (or the Broadway musical, for that matter), we can only hope that it showcases the Beales' standout sartorial flair. There's much to spotlight: for example, in the documentary, Little Edie is never seen without some sort of scarf wrapped around her head, usually pinned in place with a twinkling brooch. Always ingenious in her wardrobe interpretations, she spends much of her time on-screen showing off new ways of wearing her clothes: a skirt becomes a cape, a sweater turns into a turban, diamond earrings are worn as shoe embellishments, and so on. Big Edie was festively dressed too, though she was primarily fond of oversized hats—big brimmed, brightly colored—and strapless muumuus for sunbathing on the deck.

We saw glimmers of the Beales' style on the spring runways, specifically at Dries Van Noten and Nicole Fahri, and found lots of wonderful products with the same transformative spirit. Read on for all the details and more suggestions on how to add a little Grey Gardens-esprit to your own wardrobe.

ABS Strands of Gold Necklace ($250)

Though the Beales were living in impoverished grime when the documentary was filmed, they once were part of society's upper crust. Accordingly, Big Edie had some gorgeously ornate heirloom jewelry, while Little Edie liked to rock a statement brooch. Of course, vintage diamond jewelry is rather pricey and pins aren't particularly popular, so rather than find exact replicas of their signature pieces, we chose a delightfully dramatic gold-and-crystal necklace instead. The multiple gold chains and chunky rhinestone accents would have undoubtedly appealed to the Beales and we approve of its luxe look too.

Milly Ruffle Blouse ($225)

We like to imagine Little Edie's formative years, when she was a debutant and living on her own in Manhattan, trying to make it big in show biz. That time in Edie's life took place in the late thirties through the mid-forties, so we found this sweetly retro blouse as an ode to that era. The lovely golden-chartreuse silk would help an aspiring actress stand out from the pack, while the ruffled shoulders lightly reference our current runway trends.

3.1 Phillip Lim Sarong Skirt ($342)

One of the hallmarks of Grey Gardens is a do-it-yourself style sensibility. Little Edie got creative with her clothes on a regular basis, transforming things like a too-small skirt into a serviceable item by wearing it upside down (the bottom hem is gathered and fastened to her waist with pins.) This sarong-style skirt from 3.1 Phillip Lim shares this casually creative sensibilities; just wear it with a body conscious top for a true Edie look.

Guerlain Terracotta Bronzing Brush ($46)

While the tattered fur coat is a Grey Gardens staple, we looked to another dependable reference for our next item: the sun. The Ladies Beale spent an inordinate amount of time on their deck, wearing swimsuits or muumuus, taking in the rays. We'd never advise you to court wrinkles (and more), so instead we'll recommend this technologically advanced product from Guerlain. The beauty brand updated their highly touted, beloved bronzer and created this foolproof tinted gel-to-powder formula with a built-in brush. All the glorious color, none of the skin damage—hooray!

Maje Idalia Aboriginal Print Scarf ($135)

Even if you have no intention of wearing one on your head à la Little Edie, we had to include a print scarf in today's product roundup. After much deliberation, we honed in on this pale gold and chocolate brown silk scarf from Maje (the label's our fixation du jour). The striking design will elevate a simple jeans-and-t-shirt or act as an excellent accompaniment to dressier fare.

Charlotte Ronson Helena Sling Back Platform Sandals ($180)

The footwear in the documentary's footage didn't wow us, so instead of giving you a stocky pair of white pumps, we decided to go a different route. These canvas-and-cork slingbacks have a moderately chunky heel and a slight platform, ensuring that they're just as practical as they are stylish. They will lend themselves to flag dances, certainly, and can be dressed up or down with ease.

Anika Tierney One-Piece Swimsuit ($178)

Our final item in today's Grey Gardens-inspired story comes from an unexpected place (Brazil!) but it definitely embodies our muses' spirit. In fact, the second we saw this striking rich-red maillot, it was obvious that we'd found a suit Little Edie would love just as much as we do. It seamlessly blends retro glamour (the bombshell color) with modern style (the flattering cut), plus the print-scarf halter offers a subtle riff on Ms. Beale's accessory of choice. All you need is a copy of Zolar's It's All in the Stars ($40) and a warm summer day and you're set!

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What Drew Barrymore went through to play Little Edie

As my contributor says, there are some interesting tidbits here!

From New York Post, by Cindy Adams, on April 13, 2009

It isn't Easy being Little Edie

Drew Barrymore stars Saturday in HBO's "Grey Gardens," the cult classic saga of Jackie O's now-gone eccentric relatives. You've already heard Drew fought for this role. You've already heard about these two Edie Beales, who lived in poverty, filth, cat feces and obscurity in a decayed 28-room Hamptons mansion. Here's what you don't know:

"Depending on the scenes we were shooting, I'd have to sit in that makeup chair four to six hours every single day," Drew told me. "Just aging the face and hands took four hours. Then, taking it off, was another hour and a half.

"After that, there's the drive home, grab some sleep, get up, drive back to work and do it all over again, all the same makeup, the very next day. A full 12- to 14-hour shoot. This is called a turnaround. Sometimes we missed that. We just couldn't make it.

"My face suffered as a result. We ended up with skin issues I'd never had before because I developed an allergy to chemicals in isopropyl, the alcohol used in removing cosmetics. A constancy of prosthetics also created a sensitivity to adhesives, and our makeup people had to find alternatives.

"The look also required me to wear thick colored contact lenses. I've never worn contacts before. We were working in a dusty set with dirt particles flying everywhere. My eyes were severely irritated. I just had so much on my plate.

"And there was getting the voice right, how my character said something, and the mannerisms. Documentaries and a few interviews showed her to us at age 18 so we could develop consistency. When she was older we had photos, but nothing that would tell how she spoke. I rehearsed five days a week with a voice coach for the scenes where she grew older and wore a cap over her bald head."

For accuracy and familiarity, did Drew actually meet any family members?

"No, except for Jackie's sister, Lee. I wanted to keep it all from Edie's perspective, and I read Edie's journals so I could get that.

"This presented so many challenges. You have to bring something to it. You don't want to just be imitating an icon. She transforms from childhood to adulthood, and you have to show emotional imbalance. The character was childlike, emotional—she'd be dancing like a whirling dervish, then ranting like a child. She was someone who lost her hair. She was a walking contradiction."

About co-star Jessica Lange: "We both tried to drink in the ambiance. We stayed in their house a couple of days and lived in their rooms. We walked out to their actual beach. This role took a lot of care, and I wanted to get her right."

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Edie or Drew?

I thought this was a great way to assess Drew's performance... damn good!

From YouTube, by jerrypwjr, on May 10, 2009

Edie? Drew?... Drew? Edie?

Just messing around with the two clips and put Little Edie's real voice to Drew Barrymore's clip and visa versa. I wasn't able to get all the dialog synced up perfectly. But it's still kinda fun.

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Want to live in Grey Gardens? Here's your chance!

What?! No pets?! I guess that means they won't even let this raccoon in!

From New York magazine, by S. Jhoanna Robledo, on May 15, 2009

Grey Gardens Available for Summer Rental

Attention all Grey Gardens fans: It's time to put down your seventeen cats and head for the East End, because this summer you can make like the Beales. A source says journalist Sally Quinn and her husband, Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, are renting out the storied six-bedroom East Hampton mansion—famously chronicled in the Maysles documentary—from August 28 to Labor Day for $30,000. The couple bought it from Little Edie for $220,000 in 1979, two years after her mother, Big Edie, passed away. Despite having undergone major sprucing when Health Department officials declared it uninhabitable and Little Edie’s cousin, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, came to the rescue by funding the repairs, the estate was in shambles when Quinn and Bradlee got it. The walls and ceiling were peeling off; the garden was beyond overgrown. It has all been restored now, of course, and there’s a new sunroom (per the listing). One caveat: Though the house was once a haven for strays of all kinds—raccoons and lots and lots of cats—pets aren’t allowed.

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''Why do the gays love Grey Gardens?'' Queerty ponders

I'm still wading though emails that flooded my inbox leading up to the premiere of HBO's Grey Gardens. Thanks to those who sent me this interesting article from gay blog Queerty!

From Queerty, on April 16, 2009

What Is It About the Gays and Grey Gardens?

To hear Drew Barrymore tell it, her biggest fear in portraying Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale, the manic first cousin to Jackie Onassis who spent the last years of her life with her mother in a ramshackle (that word doesn't quite describe it right, neither does "dilapidated", perhaps "ruined and destitute", works) mansion in the East Hamptons known as Grey Gardens, wasn't the acting challenge, so much as it was pleasing the gays.

"I can't tell you the level of fear and sickness I would feel when they would imitate her. They know her and love her so well — what if I do something that doesn't feel right with them?", Barrymore told The L.A. Times, this week.

And her worry is well founded. In bringing the story of the Beales to life in HBO's Grey Gardens, which premieres this Saturday at 8pm EST, Barrymore is joining Madonna (Evita) and Judy Davis (Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows) in performing the tricky feat of being a gay icon playing another gay icon. But what about Little Edie makes her such an icon? Why do the gays love her so? Let's count the ways.

A real-life Tennessee Williams character

Edie and her mother, Edith "Big Edie" Ewing Bouvier Beale are the lock-jawed Mid-Atlantic accented lost cousins of Blanche DuBois.

Surrounded in faded, tarnished, rat-filled glory, the Beales are part of a rich tradition of faded femininity and co-dependency, though usually you only find eccentricity as outre as the Beales in the realm of fiction. Think Hepzibah Pyncheon in Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables or Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Not to get all lit crit on your asses, but there's a whiff of women's lib (or opression, depending on your point of view) to our obsession with women who, past their "prime" retreat to the realm of the domestic—and let it all go to hell.

In a society that says that a woman's role is to marry, have kids and take care of the home, flagrantly rejecting all those social imperatives and still remaining independent is a pretty fabulous 'fuck you' to the status quo.

The Kennedy connection

I'm from New England, where the Kennedy's remain royalty to this day, but in 1975, when Albert and David Maysles’s documentary of the Beale's first had its premiere, Kennedy obsession was still national. While Jackie Onasiss was busy making final preparations for I.M. Pei's library and museum to JFK when she wasn't sunning herself on Skorpios, her aunt and first cousin were living in a house that lacked plumbing and was literally collapsing in on itself. Jackie intervened, naturally and provided funds to repair the house—and though the Beale's got running water, they kept the house just the way they they'd grown accustomed to, as a sort of Addams Family dark mirror of Hyannisport.

The House

14 rooms, 52 cats and a collapsing roof, the mansion known as Grey Gardens is as much a character as either of the Beales. Named by former owner and prominent gardener Anna Gilman Hill, the house was named for the gray dunes located at the rear of the property and the building and gardens were designed to reflect the neutral tones of the windswept seashore.

Of course, in the Beales' hands, the house fell into disrepair, if not disuse and the overgrown gardens threatened to envelope the house. Little Edie sold the house in 1979 to author and journalist Sally Quinn and her husband, Ben Bradlee, former Washington Post executive editor, on the condition they didn't tear it down.

True to her word, Quinn restored the house, discovering garden walls long grown over and keeping many pieces of the original furniture, which Edie had left behind. Today, the house is quite livable, but just as decadent.

The Fashion

Marc Jacobs, Todd Oldham, Kylie Minogue and the Olsen Twins have all give credit to Little Edie as an inspiration for their looks. Presaging the rise of boho hipster chic by decades, Little Edie thought nothing of taking an old sweater, wrapping it around her head like a caftan and pinning it with a gold brooch. Throw on some fishnets over your shorts and your ready for the day. While the kids at Misshapes mostly wound up looking like they'd stolen the clothes off a homeless pirate before hitting the club, Edie managed to make her piecemeal costumes look stylish. There's something wonderfully glamorous about wearing a full-length fur coat while holding a box of cat chow to feed the raccoons, after all.

Watch Edie give some fashion advice:

But enough of why we think you love Grey Gardens. Why don't you tell us your own reasons in the comments?

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Grey Gardens the Musical comes to Houston, Texas

Lately in the world of Grey Gardens, all the attention has been going to the HBO film, but there are many productions across the country, including one in Houston, Texas, that begins performances tonight.

From Playbill, by Adam Hetrick, on May 13, 2009

Grey Gardens Begins Houston Run May 13

The Stages Repertory Theatre production of the Tony-nominated musical Grey Gardens, starring Susan O. Koozin and Nancy Johnston, begins performances in Houston, TX, May 13.

Stages' producing artistic director Kenn McLaughlin directs the Houston premiere of the musical, which features a score by composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie and a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Doug Wright.

Grey Gardens officially opens May 15 and will play through June 14 at Stages' Yeager Theatre.

Johnston portrays two generations of women in Grey Gardens, "Big Edith" Bouvier Beale for the first act and "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale in the musical's second act. The role of Young Edie is performed by Rachel Logue, and Koozin inhabits the elder "Big Edie" in the 1973-set second act.

The cast also features David Matranga (Joe Kennedy/Jerry), David Grant (Major Bouvier), Jonathon McVay (George Gould Strong), Kendrick Mitchell (Brooks), Morgan Starr (Jacqueline Bouvier), Janie Stewart (Lee Bouvier) and Michael Keeney.

Based on the Maysles brothers 1975 cult documentary, Grey Gardens traces the lives of East Hampton socialites "Big" and "Little" Edie Beale, whose mother-daughter tug of war ultimately finds the eccentric and resilient duo residing in a dilapidated mansion overrun with cats and raccoons.

Steven Jones serves as musical director on a creative team that also includes scenic designer Kevin Holden, lighting designer Jeremy Choate, sound designer Andrew Harper and costume designer Andrew Cloud.

Grey Gardens first premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in 2006 and subsequently transferred to Broadway where it ran for 307 performances at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Grey Gardens earned a Tony nomination for Best Musical and garnered Tony Awards for leads Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson, as well as for costume designer William Ivey Long.

For tickets phone (713) 527-0123 or visit StagesTheatre. Stages Repertory Theatre is located at 3201 Allen Parkway at Waugh Drive in Houston, TX.

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Interview with Grey Gardens producer Rachael Horovitz

Very interesting... and I had no idea that Horovitz knew Jackie Kennedy!

From wowOwow, by Melissa Silverstein, on April 17, 2009

'Grey Gardens' Executive Producer on 'Inspiring' Lange, 'Slam-Dunk' Barrymore

Executive Producer Rachael Horovitz discusses the cast, the Kennedys and the making of the HBO film with wowOwow’s correspondent Melissa Silverstein.

"Grey Gardens" premieres April 18 on HBO, and before you watch it, read what Executive Producer Rachael Horovitz says about stars Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, the Kennedy family and the enduring women behind the legacy. Horovitz, whose film-producing credits include the movies "About Schmidt," "State and Main" and "Next Stop Wonderland," opens up to Melissa Silverstein, wowOwow’s correspondent and founder of the website Women & Hollywood.

MELISSA SILVERSTEIN

You use the Maysles’s 1975 cult documentary "Grey Gardens" as the frame for this version. Can you explain why it was so important?

RACHAEL HOROVITZ

I feel like I was completely raised on that film. My mom had gotten me to see it when it came out and she had a great sense of irony. She passed away over 20 years ago and it was one of these things that we shared. It was completely her idiom, as far as the poetry of it and the humor, the zaniness. And my brothers and I really grew up knowing lines from the movie, and quoting them to one another. The documentary was just a beloved favorite film.

	The backstory on this film starts with Michael Sucsy (the film’s director) who had written a script that predated my knowing him. It was a chronological, very rich, very ambitious period piece that started with the ’30s and went in order through Big Edie’s death. It included the full debutante ball, and the Inauguration of JFK in Washington. It would have definitely cost a lot of money. Also [Michael] hadn’t gotten the rights to the documentary, and so his script skirted the documentary. Coincidentally, I was trying to get the rights to the documentary. I knew Albert Maysles and we were talking very seriously about making a deal together to do a film based on the documentary, when I learned about the other project.
MS	OK.
RH	So we decided—in the aftermath of the two Capote films and the terror of having that same experience—to "get married." I brought the documentary rights and they brought their script and we redesigned his script by patching the documentary into it.
MS	Did you have any intentions of having it be a theatrical release?
RH	Many. That was the plan, but we felt that either way we would be very, very lucky. Unfortunately, the theatrical arm (of HBO), Picturehouse, was shut, as was Warner Independent, which was the in-house Time Warner company. I actually started my studio-career working at Fine Line, which was the precursor to Picturehouse. I definitely brought to this production team almost too much knowledge of how easy it is to flame out in the specialized theatrical market. And I was really, really pushing for making the film with HBO, because I thought that if we did have to give up theatrical, that the trade-off would be fantastic.
MS	That’s very smart.
RH	And probably more people—and this has now become a cliché to say this—but more people would see it on HBO than would see it in five or six art-house cinemas around the country.
MS	What is it about these women that is so endearing?
RH	Well, I don’t know that I can answer it for everyone. But if I answer it for myself maybe it’ll be universal. They really feel like family. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a relative whom they dearly love, who also embarrasses them and who’s painfully at odds with the outside world. And if not a relative, then a friend or an in-law. I think a lot of people relate to this story directly. And while I don’t feel that I relate to it directly, it’s not an accident that my mother adored this movie. She had a lot of the Edies in her. She never had a job. She was a true artist in her soul.
RH	She was incredibly intuitive, verbal and clever, and she was actually a very talented painter. I think that what makes the documentary so irresistible and so memorable is that they’re just completely charming and unique characters. And the words that come out of their mouths are as sophisticated and entertaining as anything in theater—and I go all the way to Shakespeare now.
MS	Why did you cast Drew Barrymore?
RH	Drew initially wasn’t on the list. That’s something that she is wearing as a badge of success and brilliance and vision, because she saw herself as Little Edie before we did. But very quickly, after being given this fantastic idea of Drew Barrymore as Edie, it became a slam-dunk in the sense that she has her own family history and experience to bring to this. I had always known how bright Drew was. I have really, really close friends that are very close to Drew. It was never a question to me that she was bright and self-educated, which is a kind of an interesting route that some actors take. Information isn’t given to them and it felt like Drew was going to make a very serious commitment to the role, and without question we knew she had the talent, particularly the comic timing. If you look at the documentary it’s fucking hilarious. It really is. And Edie had, if nothing, comic timing. And what we didn’t want was a straight actor to take those slightly melodramatic bits in the movie and play them straight. It had to have irony.
MS	Were the Kennedys involved in this film in any way?
RH	No, not at all. John Kennedy was one of my oldest and dearest friends. I had had meals with his mother, and so, having met Jackie, I was the on-set Jackie authority. I thought about John, as I did my mother, constantly. And at one point the script had Ari Onassis in it. That was painful to lose.
MS	Do you think that people will relate to this story differently in this economy?
RH	Maybe.
MS	I got a sense that this path that they chose—but I always felt that because they were so resourceful that they could have figured out how to fix the house, but they just didn’t want to compromise themselves.
RH	I completely agree. I mean, I think that’s the X factor. I just read something that Drew said—which is exactly how I feel—which is that the X factor is the total filth and the stench and the squalor. That’s very hard to explain away. And so when you do face that—and you do have to face it—there were some screws loose.
MS	Yup.
RH	There clearly has to have been. But it’s something that I think is underlying the story, which is incredibly moving to me and, again, it’s sort of how I think about mother, is it would have been tragic to see Little Edie being a law-firm secretary. There are just some people who can’t have jobs in the real world, and it’s not like an alternative to be rich.
MS	Right.
RH	Maybe she could have cleaned houses. Again, there were so many social mores then. East Hampton was just as rife with mores as the Upper East Side or Fifth Avenue.
MS	But their isolation, also, maybe caused some of the screws to loosen more.
RH	I’m sure that’s true. And worrying about money, which I know from firsthand experience, can drive you mad. It really can. I would think it would be like having a fatal illness. It’s like you can’t go to sleep and forget about it.
MS	What was it like working with Jessica Lange?
RH	It was ecstatic. It was awe inspiring and it’s hard to come up with language that doesn’t sound phony, but we never—with both of them—wanted to miss a take. You wanted to see how they did it differently every time, and how they built on scenes that came before. And Jessica’s sense of irony, too, I think is kind of unknown. You get to see the ironic Jessica here, whereas you think of Jessica as fully dramatic. And then inversely you get to see the dramatic side of Drew, where you mainly think of her as doing romantic comedies.
MS	I also think what’s interesting is that these women were ultimate "insiders" and then they became total outsiders.
RH	Say that another way.
MS	When you see them at the beginning, they seem to have everything. Great life. Money. Beautiful. Everything. But over their lifetimes they became total outsiders. So the insiders become outsiders.
RH	I would agree. But isn’t that what happens to everyone as they get older?
MS	I guess it does. But it’s worse for women.
RH	If you’re lucky enough to stay alive, then you’re going to have a moment where you’re not in the mainstream. And there are people who cope with that better than others. But I think that everyone’s going to talk about this as a mother/daughter story. But I also do think that it has a lot to say about money and power. I’m in my head now because my next film is called "Moneyball," based on the Michael Lewis book. It’s a baseball story, but it’s really a story about putting a value on yourself.
MS	Right.
RH	Money is the other character in "Grey Gardens." It’s about the house but it’s also, really, about the money that pays for the house. And money is also the wild card in the relationship between Jackie (Onassis) and Little Edie. Little Edie was as pretty, if not prettier, and maybe more talented than Jackie. Who knows? It’s not as if Jackie got to realize any of her skills, did she?
MS	No.
RH	And that wasn’t very long ago.
MS	You talk about it as a mother/daughter love story. There was a lot of resentment, too, that Little Edie had for Big Edie, for making her stay with her—the thin line between love and hate.
RH	Their relationship became very much like a marriage. What I understand from older friends is that if you’re not careful, you can blame your spouse for the fact that you’ve gotten older. Who else are you going to blame except the person in the bed next to you, and the person at breakfast every day? Because the fact is you are going to get older and you are going to lose your spot in the mainstream.
MS	Right.
RH	I do think there was some of that anger on both their parts that they didn’t end up where they wanted to.
MS	You’ve worked on documentaries and features?
RH	I’ve only done one doc. I love them. My dream is to get rich in narrative films so I can give it all up and make docs.
MS	How’s that going for you?
RH	Laughter. Maybe next year.
MS	What’s it like to be back in the producer role versus the studio-exec role?
RH	I took my first studio job to find out what went on in the room (where decisions are made). I had been an independent producer in my 20s. I never planned on getting a job. I didn’t think anyone would give me one. But then a couple of things happened and I realized I had all the goods, except that I didn’t know how they decided to buy your project or not. So in other words, I had a major project that became a megahit. And somebody sold it better than I did, and I ended up losing it. And it was "Analyze This."
MS	Oh.
RH	So I said, "OK, Rachael, this is your fault, because you had a good script. What did you do wrong?" Coincidentally, there was a job opening in the New York office of Fine Line and I went after the job, with the goal of going inside, getting the information and coming back out. And, actually, the whole time I worked at the studios I always had a kind of side role advising all my friends in the independent world. I didn’t plan on staying in for as long as I did, but it was nice to earn money, it was nice to have health insurance and it was amazing to meet everybody, and it really was the best graduate school possible.
MS	What kind of advice would you give to a woman producer who has material that she wants to develop?
RH	I credit my former boss Andy Karsh, who gave me the best advice when I was going inside. He said—and I believe he was quoting Nabokov—"Don’t weaken your opinion because of who you’re talking to." And it definitely didn’t please everybody that I behaved that way. I did always feel that I spoke the truth to what I felt. And that’s basically the advice I’ve come back to when I’ve spoken with younger, more junior producers. You can say, "I was wrong." But you don’t want to say when you go home, "I didn’t really have a voice today."
MS	What do you want people to get out of "Grey Gardens"?
RH	Well, first you want them to enjoy the experience of watching the film. You want them not to hit the pause button. You want people to really enjoy it and to feel that the story is moving forward at all times. And I want them to feel that the questions that they might have had were adequately answered. And I would like them to be happy.

Source

The thatched hut at Grey Gardens

I was recently alerted that Chris Casson Madden's book A Room of Her Own: Women's Personal Spaces contains photos of the thatched hut within the walled garden of Grey Gardens. Sally Quinn uses the hut at her own little hideaway. It looks surprisingly comfortable!

Thanks to our anonymous contributor for sending these in!

A Room of Her Own: Women's Personal Spaces
by Chris Casson Madden

From A Room of Her Own: Women's Personal Spaces, by Chris Casson Madden

A Thatched Haven

Source

Grey Gardens Director of Photography Mike Eley profiled

Mike Eley, Director of Photography for HBO's Grey Gardens, and his excellent work, were profiled in the May 2009 issue of American Cinematographer. (The text in these scans is small, but still fairly legible!)

Update

We have a transcription of the article now! See below.

From American Cinematographer, by Joan Oppenheimer, on May 2009

Production Slate: Ties that Bind

New York Eccentrics

Were it not for the Jackie Kennedy connection, few people outside of East Hampton, Long Island would have ever heard of Grey Gardens or the two women who lived there, Edith "Big Edie" Bouvier Beale and her daughter "Little Edie", the former First Lady's aunt and cousin, respectively, lived for 20 years, seemingly unperturbed, in total squalor, in what had once been an elegant mansion. When county health inspectors arrived in 1971, they had to literally wade through two decades' worth of garbage—mounds of discarded food cans, empty ice cream cartons, cat feces, old newspapers and other detritus of daily life that had never been cleaned up and all concealed the floor. The electricity had been turn off years earlier, and overgrown vines covered the windows, squeezing out the sunlight.

By the time Albert and David Maysles began shooting their documentary Grey Gardens in 1973, Jacqueline Kennedy had already paid to have the estate cleaned and repaired. The film elevated the Beales to cult status but made no attempt to offer insight into their odd personalities. The new telefilm Grey Gardens, which had its premiere on HBO last month, takes a different approach, going back to the 1930s, when mother (Jessica Lange) and daughter (Drew Barrymore) enjoyed a privileged and extravagant lifestyle. British cinematographer Mike Eley describes the film as "a kind of love story" between the two women.

In 1936, Little Edie was a carefree teenager who dreamed of becoming an actress. Her mother, an impulsive free spirit who fancied herself a singer, loved to throw parties. "That's when their life was at its peak," says Eley, speaking by phone from London. "They had money, a glamorous lifestyle and this tremendous sense of optimism. [Director] Michael Sucsy and I wanted to capture the feeling of the bright young Bohemians of the '30s."

That translated into rich, lustrous colors and textures, a sense of airiness and openness (achieved with wide lenses and deep focus) and a house awash with sunlight. The film was show in and around Toronto, where a facade of the house was built in a meadow, interiors were shot at Toronto Centre Stages. The two-story set was constructed as a self-contained unit and treated as a practical location. The first level comprised a central foyer, a living room, dining room, conservatory, a garden that led to the conservatory, and stairs leading from the foyer to the upstairs. The partial second floor consisted of the landing at the top of the stairs, a hallway and a bedroom, which had the set's only breakaway wall. A couple of brief scenes were filmed in a real house not far from where the facade was erected.

"The house is the third character in the film, and goes on its own journey of deterioration," says Eley, whose credits include the documentary feature Touching the Void (AC March '04) and the telefilm Jane Eyre, for which he earned an Emmy nomination. He ruefully recalls how cramped the production was. "We were begging, borrowing and stealing equipment and stage space because two much bigger projects, The Incredible Hulk and The Time Traveler's Wife were there at the same time. In terms of building and dressing the set, we were literally dealing in feet and inches, especially when it cam to the floor space outside the house walls, where [production designer] Kalina Ivanov had to fit bushes and other foliage."

Nor was there much room for lights. About 60 space lights, all on dimmers, and a smaller number of 10K and 20K Fresnel lamps were hung around the perimeter of the set from the overhead gantries. "We also affixed a 20K and a 10K to a scaffold bar outside the window at the top of the stairs to suggest sunlight coming through windows on that side of the house," recalls Eley. "The bar could be swung several feet in either direction to reflect the arc of the sun's movement across the southern sky. That was one of our most important lamps because not only did it illuminate the lading, but it also spilled light down the stairs and into the foyer."

The light hitting the front of the house was softer, reflecting its northern exposure. On the stage floor outside the downstairs windows, Eley mixed 5Ks, 10Ks and Nine-lights, all bouncing into silk. "Whatever bit of floor didn't have a lamp or frame had some kind of shrub or small tree to sell the idea of the garden," he says. Chicken coops fitted with tungsten bulbs were attached above and outside the windows, then angled back in. A cyclorama encircling a portion of the set was frontlit with pan cams overhead and clean 5Ks [wired to dimmers and Nine-lights on the floor.

Most of the only illumination inside the house during the 1930s scenes came from practicals, although for night scenes, Eley sometimes hid a few China balls behind the furniture. Also, sections of the living-room ceiling were occasionally removed to accommodate a Kino Flo or Cimera.

Eley shot Grey Gardens in 3-perf Super 35mm, framin for 1Ex9. Describing himself as "an Arri man from way back in my documentary days," he oped for the Arricam System, Cooke S4 primes, and an Angeniuex Optima 24 290 mm zoom lens, which was used sparingly. He favored 27mm and 32mm primes in the house in order to show as much of the set as possible.

He filmed the picture on three Fuji Etema negatives, 500T 8783, 250T 8553 and 400T 8583. Deluxe Toronto handled the processing and produced DVD dailies and a few 35mm dailies. The filmmakers were not certain of the post path when filming began—in the end, a digital intermediate was done—so Eley "did most things in-camera," he recalls. "I used a Varicon to lighten the shadows for almost all of the 1930s materials, and I used some Schneider Classic Soft filters on the two leads. I didn't want too many things in front of the lens, however, because of the Varicon."

Much of the 1930s portion of Grey Gardens plays out in long, fluid tracking shots. "We kept the camera moving, and I had a fantastic operator, Michael Carella," notes Eley. "My entire crew was from Toronto, and they were all great: gaffer Franco Tate, key grip Bob Harper, dolly grip Owen Smith and focus puller Vanessa Ireson."

Despite her mother's protestations, Little Edie leaves home and spends several years in Manhattan, working as a model and trying to launch her acting career. While there, she begins an affair with a married man (Daniel Baldwin). Eley notes that this section contains one of his favorite shots. "Drew and Daniel are in bed at the Barbizon Hotel [a set built onstage], and the camera is outside the window and dollies forward. There was no glass on the window, and the lens goes right into the room. We added some wind so the curtains wafted a bit in the early-morning breeze. There was a TransLite of Manhattan behind the camera that's reflected in the mirror [above the bed]."

When Little Edie's parents learn of her affair, they force her to return to Grey Gardens. It's 1952, and Big Edie has become even more eccentric and controlling. Little Edie feels like a prisoner, and the stress causes her hair to fall out in chunks. Late one night, in a moment of despair and hysteria, she runs downstairs, grabs a pair of scissors and starts hacking away at her hair. "That was a tricky scene," admits Eley. "It's the middle of the night, and all the lights are off. I needed to play against something so that when Little Edie rushes past the windows, she would be slightly silhouetted. We angled a 5K outside each window that just washed across the curtains, and we had two 2-boot Kinos inside the dining room, down by the table where she finds the scissors. It's an unmotivated source, but it brought the detail we needed to the wallpaper and table."

As time goes on and the rubbish starts piling up, the camera moves become more ragged, and by the 1970s, the camera is completely handheld. For these scenes, Eley pushed the 8573 one stop. (He pushed it 1 1/2 stops for the final sequence, which shows Little Edie performing in a cabaret.) The interior of the house darkens as vegetation covers the windows and the electricity is shut off. "We made sure there was always a bit of broken clapboard or window where a shaft of light could come through," says Eley. "We moved our exterior sources closer and upped the intensity to compensate, and we put dust into the air so the shafts of light could catch the mustiness of the rooms. I particularly like the scenes where the front door is open, revealing more of the dark interior. That sold it well, I thought."

By the time the Maysleses enter the picture, in 1973, Big Edie is spending most of her time in her bedroom, and a good portion of the brothers' documentary is filmed there. "The brothers shot 16mm, and I pushed to shoot those scenes on 16mm, but that didn't pan out, so we shot on 35mm and degraded it in the DI, says Eley, who worked on the digital grade at Modern VideoFilm with colorist Gregg Garvin.

The emotional turning point in the film comes during an argument between mother and daughter that flares up after they see the Maysleses' documentary. "Little Edie realizes her mother is once again manipulating her emotionally, and decides to fight back. Drew comes in close to the camera, in focus, and we experience her epiphany with her before racking focus back to Jessica," says Eley. "In the 10 minutes they are arguing, it goes from dusk to night. We dimmed our space lights down incrementally until it was dark. One of the women is always in front of a window, so the audience can feel and see the light going." In frustration and pain, Little Edie runs to the nearby beach. Hours later, she returns home and reconciles with her mother. "It's a real moment of discovery for Little Edie," says Eley. "That's when the love story between mother and daughter comes good."