Edith Bouvier Beale’s Biography, Net Worth, Fact, Career, Awards and Life Story
On July 29, 1952, Beale returned to live with her mother in the East Hampton estate Grey Gardens.
In October 1971, police raided Grey Gardens and found the 28-room house “full of litter, rife with the odor of cats and in violation of various local ordinances”. The Suffolk County, New York, Board of Health prepared to evict Beale and “Big Edie” due to the unsafe condition of the property. Following the publicity, Beale’s family paid a reported $30,000 to refurbish the property, settle back taxes, and give Beale and “Big Edie” a stipend (the two women’s trust fund income had run out some years before). The eviction proceedings were dropped.
Beale’s cousin Lee Radziwill hired documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles in 1972 to work on a film about the Bouvier family. At the outset, the brothers filmed Beale and “Big Edie”. The original film project was not completed, and Radziwill kept the footage that had been shot of the Beales. However, the Maysles brothers were fascinated by the strange life the two women led. After raising funds for film and equipment on their own they returned and filmed 70 more hours of footage with Beale and Big Edie. The resulting film, entitled Grey Gardens (1976), is widely considered a masterpiece of the documentary genre. It was later adapted as a 2006 musical of the same name, in which the characters Lee and Jackie Bouvier appear as visiting children in retrospect. An HBO television movie based upon the documentary and surrounding story of the Beales’ lives, also called Grey Gardens, appeared in 2009.
