Entering “Grey Gardens”, Part One: “Come On In, We’re Not Ready”

Tony Maietta:
Hello. I'm film historian, Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Bradstreet, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve:
And, of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood.

Brad Shreve:
So, Tony, today, we're gonna talk about Grey Gardens, which

Tony Maietta:
What's that?

Brad Shreve:
Well, you know what it is. You wrote the book on it. But it's a documentary. It came out in 1975.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
And I never thought we would be doing documentaries when we started the show, but it was a it's a cult sensation.

Tony Maietta:
It is. Yes. It is. It's, well, it's yeah. You know, we, yeah, we and you and I talked about that too because then you're like, well, what's that to do with Hollywood? And I'm like, oh, it has everything to do with Hollywood because it's, I mean, not only is it a cult documentary, but I mean, it's been, you know, there was a Drew Barrymore, Jessica Lang version of it, film version of it. There have been there's a Broadway musical. There are countless people. Little Edie is a cult figure, you know, just as much as Margo Channing is or just as much as Norma Desmond is.

Tony Maietta:
So I always put them up there Shreve though she was a real person. She's become, like, mythic, iconic. They both have. So I think it's definitely something that to discuss in Hollywood type podcast.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. I was skeptical because I'm like, these are 2 socialites living in the Hamptons. I I don't get it. But once I looked into it, it's spot on. Spot on.

Tony Maietta:
And you had never seen it, right, before?

Brad Shreve:
No. I had not. I'd only slightly heard about it. I think I'd read articles about the story, but never Uh-huh. Never saw the documentary. So, I'll definitely give you my impressions of that. Which is unusual

Tony Maietta:
as a gay man.

Brad Shreve:
I was closet till I was 35. So come on.

Tony Maietta:
Well, there you go. Well, there you go. They're just such gay iconoclast. That's all.

Brad Shreve:
I didn't have a TV in my closet to watch these old documentaries. So

Tony Maietta:
No. Well, no, it's true. And I wasn't, you know, I didn't it wasn't until the early 2000 that I saw it because that's when the DVDs came out. So Grey Gardens was kind of hard to come by before then. Before the DVDs, before Criterion put out the DVD of Grey Gardens, it was kind of hard to come by, and then it had this huge, huge resurgence or insurgence, with the DVDs, and that's what led to the Broadway musical, the sequels, the the the Jessica Lange, Drew Barrymore film because of the because it just was like, wow, this incredible resurgence, that happened because of the DVDs.

Brad Shreve:
So tell the listener, if you think of documentaries, you're thinking PBS, Boring, whatever, That is not Grey Gardens. No. It is a cult sensation, has a 95% rate in on rotten tomatoes. I think that's better than Star Wars. I don't know.

Tony Maietta:
I'm sure

Brad Shreve:
we will. Which which I think is overrated anyway.

Tony Maietta:
But Well

Brad Shreve:
And the International Documentary Association ranks at number 9 of the top documentaries all the time. And aside from all that, it's just damn entertaining.

Tony Maietta:
It is. And fascinating.

Brad Shreve:
Right? Fascinating. It's disturbing. In fact, we're yeah. It's disturbing and fascinating. Before we go any further

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
For those who haven't seen it, what is this documentary about?

Tony Maietta:
Well, the film itself, Grey Gardens, is about Edith Bouvier Biele and her daughter who's also named Edith. So we have big Edith, and we have little Edie.

Brad Shreve:
And can I can can I come in? Mhmm. I'm gonna get confused if we keep saying big Edie and little Edie.

Tony Maietta:
Really?

Brad Shreve:
So are you okay if we do Edith and Edie?

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I hope I mess I'll I'll probably mess up, though. I'll I'll probably say little Edie, but we can give it a shot.

Brad Shreve:
Okay. We'll probably confuse people even more. Hopefully, we won't confuse you too much. I'm trying to figure it in my frame of mind.

Tony Maietta:
Edith and Edie. I will do my best to say Edith and Edie. Or as Jerry Jerry says, missus Beale and Edie.

Brad Shreve:
Ah. That that might be better.

Tony Maietta:
Should we also mention too that Jerry, the marble fawn of Grey Gardens, is gonna be joining us Yes. To discuss his experiences coming up? So we should just probably put that out there too. But why don't we do missus Beale and Edie? I find that I find that probably easier. Do you think?

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Missus Beale and Edie. And Tony is the right person to hear about this because Tony and Jerry, who live with the Beales or or worked with them, wrote the book.

Tony Maietta:
Right. We wrote a book on Jerry's, experiences called the Marble Fawn of Grey Gardens. So it's yeah. And, basically, just so the background of the film is it's about missus Edith Beale and her daughter Edie, who are the aunt and cousin respectively of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. So they are from an aristocratic family. They're American aristocrats who live in absolute squalor in a rundown mansion in East Hampton, New York. And if the documentary was shot in 1970 it premiered in 75, but it was shot in 73 and 74.

Tony Maietta:
And it's fun because you can you can see there's a one point in the documentary where she where missus Beale's writing a check, and you can see her put the date. That's why it's always like, oh, okay. It's September, and it's summertime. It's summertime. They talk about how it's summertime. So, anyway, it's what it is basically too is and it's important to point out, it's made by, David and Albert Maisel, who are very famous now, documentarians. Both of them are deceased, unfortunately, lost Albert in 2016, but he wrote the foreword to our book, which was wonderful. They what they did was they they pioneered a form of documentary called direct cinema.

Tony Maietta:
They basically, what it means it's, they just take a camera and shoot you. I mean, it's there's no narration. There's no backstory. It's totally fly in the wall. And this was revolutionary in the early and when the Maisel started doing it in the late sixties, early seventies. Because there's also because of that, there's no explanations and no judgments. It's just what is. It's just life.

Tony Maietta:
And because there's no judgments or no explanations, it raises a lot of questions. So when people watch Grey Gardens, they have all these questions about how did this happen to these women.

Brad Shreve:
This documentary is what reality TV shows pretend they are.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes. You hit the nail on the head there.

Brad Shreve:
They're they're scripted, but they try to pretend that it's real.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. And this is they're this is we always said that direct cinema the the the the Greg Gardens is such a precursor for reality, quote, unquote, reality TV, except Grey Gardens really wasn't scripted. I mean, these women speak this way because that's the way they are. Their command of the language is beyond anything. You know? I mean, they're they're I always say they speak like Tennessee Williams' heroines because their command of the language is so facile and but meanwhile, you know, they're they're having the eloquent soliloquies, and there's cats going to the bathroom behind their paintings, and there's raccoons running all over the place. And so it's really mind blowing. It's really kind of you just it's the juxtaposition of this, I think, is what fascinates people about Grey Gardens. And that was what fascinated me about Grey Gardens.

Tony Maietta:
You know, I said the I didn't know about Grey Gardens until the early 2000, and, you know, I love documentaries. I think it's because I'm because I'm a historian, because I I always love biographies. I always love the truth. I always like it even more than narrative film sometimes. And I was looking for this, a new documentary, and I was in the video store. And the video I asked the video clerk if he could recommend a documentary because I think I'd seen them all. And he said, have you ever seen Grey Gardens? And I said, no. What's that? And he immediately went to the shelf and pulled out the DVD and handed it to me and said, once you meet little Edie, your life will never be the same.

Tony Maietta:
And, I mean, that was so precious. And for me, specifically, literally, it was because my life after that, I became obsessed with Grey Gardens, obviously, so much for so that I you know, Jerry and I wrote the book. So it's just fascinating. But you having never seen it, I can't imagine. But hearing me talk about it and then watching it, I can't imagine what your reaction must have been to the first time you saw this.

Brad Shreve:
Well, I I found it disturbing. My husband we watched the the movie, the with Drew Barrymore. And I'm sorry. Who else?

Tony Maietta:
Jessica Lange.

Brad Shreve:
Jessica Lange, which they, Drew was beautiful. They both did great, but but Drew was amazing. She was easy. After watching when I watched the documentary, I'm like, Drew nailed this. But after watching that movie, he refused to watch the documentary because it was too disturbing for him. No. So it's disturbing, but it's not painful. And it and it's my god.

Brad Shreve:
It's fascinating. It is. And I fascinating.

Tony Maietta:
The the reason that I don't get I find it so many things, but the reason I don't find it disturbing is that these women didn't find it disturbing. You know, you take your cues from people, and that's the way they were with.

Brad Shreve:
That's what I was gonna ask because one of the big debates people have is, were these women exploited? What's your opinion?

Tony Maietta:
Not at all. They loved every minute of it, particularly Edie. Missus Beale went along with it because she thought why not. What else is she doing? She's not going anywhere. She's not leaving her bed. This was Edie's big chance at stardom. A little bit you have to have a little backstory about Edie. Okay? So Edie is as we said, they are the the aunts and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Tony Maietta:
So Edie was actually older than Jackie and Lee, her sister, Jackie's sister. Edie was the golden child of her generation. She was the first. She was, the one who was going to have the incredible life. I mean, she was a debutante. She was a beautiful girl. She was a model, and she got side sidetracked along the way, due to a lot of reasons, which we don't have to go into right now. But, ended up living with her mother at this, you know, on this house on Long Island while Jackie became Jackie Kennedy, I mean, she became the star.

Tony Maietta:
So Edie felt very slighted. Edie felt very much looked over, and she carried that with her her entire life. So Edie viewed Grey Gardens as her opportunity to be in the spotlight, to be to have the light finally shine on her where it always deserved to be. So they did not feel exploited. He did not feel exploited at all. She never understood that when people said that. Because that's what she wanted her whole life was to be a star, to be in the spotlight. You know? So it's pretty fascinating when people have that exploited thing because I guess you can look at it that way, but they didn't.

Tony Maietta:
So I take my cue from them.

Brad Shreve:
I debated it back and forth, and my final analysis is they were exploited, but by choice. Mhmm.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. But we're all exploited by choice. I mean,

Brad Shreve:
we were talking about this. This is not like reality TV where reality TV is scripted. And you can tell missus Beales and Edie were very real.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
But you could also tell wasn't there there were moments where it wasn't scripted, but Edie was definitely playing to the camera. She was a star in her eyes. She was so campy. It was delicious.

Tony Maietta:
That was no. Totally. Well, can you imagine living for 20 plus years basically reclusive? I mean, Edie would go into town and get supplies when they get supplies. I mean exactly. Exactly. So you're living she's living in isolation with her mother all these years. You know, never married. The men are becoming fewer and fewer.

Tony Maietta:
So to suddenly have the attention of not only the movie camera, but these 2 handsome young filmmakers, filmmakers, focused solely on her. I mean, it was like it was her opportunity. She and she ran with it. You know, as we all know, she not only past great gardens. I mean, she had a cabaret show, which was just pretty much her walking back and forth across the stage in crazy outfits and telling stories, and she would occasionally throw a song in here or there, but as we see in Grey Gardens. But, I mean, she ran with it the end her the rest of her life because to her, this was her destiny that had been robbed that had been robbed from her unjustly by her cousin, Jacqueline, you know, her much more famous cousin.

Brad Shreve:
Another thing I wanna make, an analogy regarding the exploitation, and some people may think this is off base, but I think it's very similar. PT Barnum has been criticized for exploiting midgets and people that have deformities and this sort of thing. Those people at that time probably would have died starving in the streets. Mhmm. So as icky as it is for me to watch, you know, see the things that he didn't, they did it willingly. And it's different, but these 2 women needed the money. They each got $5,000.

Tony Maietta:
Well, they didn't get they didn't get they didn't get much money

Brad Shreve:
for this money. Tony needed anything pretty much.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. Yes. Yeah. I don't money was never but I don't think money was ever the motivating factor. They thought for a while, could we make any money off of it? And, you know, Tony naively thought they could make.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
But that was never the motivation. And Edie got very upset actually when and we talk about this in the book, when there was no money forthcoming. And she's like, where's the money? Where's the money? Mhmm. And, she actually barred the Maisel's from her mother's funeral because she was pissed because she didn't get the money that she thought she should have gotten. But money was never really the motivating factor for them. I mean, for them, it was Edie. It was absolutely to be in the spotlight. You know?

Brad Shreve:
And I would guess just having seen it and feeling like I know Edie, I would say that money has more to do with wanting to be in the spotlight as part of the Hollywood elite than it does actually needing the funds. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. The big package.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I mean, by now, they've gotten used to the fact that they they had no money. You know? And I've been living they've been living this way for so for so long, and, you know, it's it's just another reason why I don't find it I don't find it disturbingly exploitive is because, of their attitude, they found such joy in living. You know, they fought, they argued, they squabbled, but these women entertained themselves and and they made their life what life gave them. And we say in the book, you know, they did not only took lemons and made lemonade, they made champagne. You know, this was a fabulous life for them. Would they have liked to live differently? Yeah. Of course, they would have.

Tony Maietta:
But this is what life gave them, and they had a real attitude about looking on the brighter side of things. They were big proponents of Norman Vincent Peale, you know, and the power of positive thinking. And you it's kinda crazy in the movie when you're sitting there, there there's a scene where they're watching they're listening to Norman Vincent Peale's sermon.

Brad Shreve:
Mhmm.

Tony Maietta:
You know, and they're just sitting in this absolute squalor in these filthy beds, and there's cats all over the place, and Eddy's fiddling with a shoe, and it's just like but they're oblivious to the situation. They're focused on the message. So I think that's kind of inspiring. I don't know. I find it kind of inspiring.

Brad Shreve:
Tony, I'm stopping our conversation real quick.

Tony Maietta:
Why? Why, Brett? We're we're in the middle of a podcast.

Brad Shreve:
But this is about the podcast, and it's very important. Okay. Listener, whatever app you're listening on, whether it's on the computer or on the phone, reach your finger or your mouse over. It usually says follow, some still say subscribe, and click that. And what's gonna happen when they do that, Tony?

Tony Maietta:
They're gonna get notified when a new episode is available, and they can listen to us again. You know, you don't wanna miss that. No. Can we get back to the episode that we were recording?

Brad Shreve:
Of course. Please? Of course.

Tony Maietta:
Alright. Thank you. Don't forget to subscribe and follow.

Brad Shreve:
There you go. So for those that haven't seen the film, I wanna take us back in time to their life to give an understanding of why why this movie was so important, who they were, and they still were, but what had become of their lives?

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
So Right. You know, when the movie was made, they had been recluses for over 20 years. They lived in 1 bedroom in this mansion. They even lived in that bedroom, with twin beds. The whole mansion crumbled around them. The garbage piled everywhere, the raccoons. They had over 50 cats. In fact, when the house was sold, the people that bought it said that they were finding cat carcasses.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. So sad. That's that's the one disturbing thing is Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And they were loaded with fleas. I think that's a lot in your book, if I remember correctly.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, yeah. Jerry used to have to wear the Maisel's would strap flea collars. Jerry told them to do this. They would strap flea collars to their ankles because if they didn't, if they had any exposed flesh at all, you know, it was a feeding frenzy for the fleas because there were so many fleas.

Brad Shreve:
So let me go back in time Mhmm. And just start giving a little history of missus Beales, Edith and the Edie. And you know more about it than I do, so jump in anytime.

Tony Maietta:
Okay. I wanna hear I wanna hear what you have to say. Yeah. That'd be great.

Brad Shreve:
Edith came from a family, wealthy, high society family, obviously, cousin of Jackie, Kenny, and oh, no. No. I'm not I'm sorry.

Tony Maietta:
Missus Beale was the was her aunt.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
She was the sister of Jack Black Bouvier, Jackie's and Lee's father.

Brad Shreve:
Not the actor Jack Black.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Jack Black Bouvier.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. But he her father was a wealthy judge. They were part of society. When she was 22 years old, she married a wealthy man, Phelanbill. Is that how you pronounce the name, Phelan?

Tony Maietta:
Phelan. And it's Blackjack Bouvier, not Jack Black Bouvier. Black Jack was his nickname because of his tan. He always had a tan. Oh. So, yeah, Black Jack Bouvier was missus Beale's brother, Jackie Kennedy's father.

Brad Shreve:
What they used to call a healthy tan till we learned it.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. Exactly.

Brad Shreve:
So he became he was wealthy. He became a partner eventually in her father's law firm, and they lived in an apartment in New York's upper east side. They had a full staff. They had chauffeurs. They were living the good life. Yep. And then in 1923, after all Shreve children were born, I think Edie was the oldest. Is that right?

Tony Maietta:
Edie was. Edie was born in 1917. She was the oldest. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
They bought Grey Gardens, which was about 20 years old 20 years old ish.

Tony Maietta:
Summer Cottage from the shores of East Hampton.

Brad Shreve:
Cottage. A 66,100 Square Foot East Hampton Cottage.

Tony Maietta:
Mhmm.

Brad Shreve:
Now it's important to note Edith was a professionally trained singer and pianist. But pursuing that being society, it was discouraged by her family. Yeah. Wanna be

Tony Maietta:
Well, her mother encouraged it. Her father was horrified by it. Yes. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And then after she was married, Hubby agreed with her father.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. Yes.

Brad Shreve:
She was not. He was not happy about her

Tony Maietta:
Ambitions to be a performer. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Hanging out with artists.

Tony Maietta:
No. Yeah. Did not like that at all.

Brad Shreve:
Well, Edith loved Grey Gardens, and she spent almost every weekend and summers at Grey Gardens, and she would entertain artists and artist types singing

Tony Maietta:
for Bohemians. Bohemians. She would give she would give concerts. She'd give mini concerts in the solarium at Grey Gardens for her artistic friends, and she'd had parties with her artistic friends.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. And sounds like she had a great time.

Tony Maietta:
She did. She did, but her husband did not like it. So they really you know, there was a time when it was kind of like his and hers. Like, he would stay in the city, and she would go out to Grey Gardens and stay at Grey Gardens for a long time. So they were really kind of even though they weren't separated, they became separated physically because he couldn't put up with her friends and her manners and her air. She was more like an beautiful voice.

Tony Maietta:
Anybody who watches Grey Gardens andhears her old recordings, the woman had Anybody who watches Grey Gardens and hears her old recordings, the woman had chops. She really could have been a great singer, but in at that time, in her in her level of society, that was definitely frowned upon.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, yeah. And he was embarrassed by her. Yeah. Actually, embarrassed by her. And they kinda became officially separated. I don't know if there was a legal separation back in those days in the thirties. Mhmm. He lived in New York, and she stayed at Grey Gardens.

Tony Maietta:
Correct. Correct.

Brad Shreve:
Now we've told you all about this mansion. The census during the thirties showed at that time at Grey Gardens, they had a full household staff, which included a live in cook, a chauffeur, 2 housekeepers, and a governess. Amazing. Edith wasn't living in just one bedroom at that

Tony Maietta:
time. No. No. Definitely not.

Brad Shreve:
And do you wanna say what you do? You kinda touched on what Edie was doing during this time period. Did you

Tony Maietta:
Well, Edie was, you know, Edie was a chip off her mother's block. I mean, Edie was she was the golden child of the generation because I believe she was the first the firstborn of that generation, but, of the Jackie Kennedy generation. But Edie was her very much her mother's daughter. She also had an an interest and a talent in performing. She Edie was the dancer. You know, missus Beale was the singer, Edie was the dancer, and Edie wanted to be a dancer. She wanted to be an actress. And just as missus Beale's father, sergeant Bouvier, the sergeant they used to call him, recoiled at his daughter's ambitions.

Tony Maietta:
Phelan Beale, Edie's father, missus Beale's husband, absolutely the same thing and terrorized Edie about things. I mean, you know, and the worst the worst and worst things became between missus Beale and her husband, the worst things were with between Edie and her father, you know, because, like, for she did a a modeling. She was in the the window of a store in Manhattan as a model, because she was a beautiful girl. She was a beautiful girl. She used to do fashion shows, but you can do charity fashion shows if you're of high society. That's fine, but you can't be a model professionally. That's terrible. That's akin to street walking.

Brad Shreve:
And that's something that made me laugh because she was a model for Macy's. Mhmm. And I can only imagine how pedestrian That must have killed my father.

Tony Maietta:
It was unseemly. It was alright it was alright to walk up and down a runway for a charity. Yeah. At a tea party in East Hampton, that's fine. That's for charity. That's fine. That's not what you're doing with your life. But, you know, her photo was in the window of this store.

Tony Maietta:
I think it was Bacharach on, Madison Avenue, and he actually went there and smashed the glass

Brad Shreve:
of Oh my goodness.

Tony Maietta:
The window and took her photo out. So she pretty much she was terrified by her father, and he really did a number on her for the rest of his life. She and she won she had ambitions to be an actress. She really did. But, unfortunately, World War 2 came along and kind of put the kibosh on a lot of this stuff. You wanna pick up the narrative with

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Well, during I'll I'll see what was going on with the feeling I needed during this time. During the forties, I believe it was, Edith got a telegram from hubby that he was now her ex hubby. Did he go to Mexico, I think? I

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. He

Brad Shreve:
got his divorce.

Tony Maietta:
Quick Mexican divorce. Yeah. Mexican says in the movie.

Brad Shreve:
It's like so it's very sounds like an old film.

Tony Maietta:
It's not recognized by the Catholic church.

Brad Shreve:
And he gave her a $300 a month stipend, and that pretty much meant goodbye staff.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Pretty much. And this Goodbye heat. Goodbye electricity. Yes.

Brad Shreve:
This is where we start to see things going downhill because Yeah. On top of that, her family also lost they ended some financial troubles as well. Right. So she had nothing. I I think her sister's got some money, but she didn't really get anything from her family either. It was it was gone for the most part. So She had

Tony Maietta:
a very, very small allowance from her father, from from the sergeant Bouvier. A small family allowance. Actually, she lived more there was no money anywhere. Let's just put it that way. You know, there just was no money, and she's not about to go out. What's she gonna do? She can't get a job. I mean, come on. She's not been trained for anything but being a society lady and an an opera singer.

Tony Maietta:
And at this point, she's in her fifties, so it's kind of a it's can you imagine what a frightening thing to find out you're not Tony divorced, but you're practically destitute, but you're living in this fabulous house that you can't afford?

Brad Shreve:
My mom in the seventies, she my mom was a housewife. She did a couple of wait and seen jobs here and there when when money was tight, but she was a housewife. Mhmm. And she and my dad discussed divorce in the seventies. And my mom would have had nothing because she had no history of working or and Terrifying. And that was in the seventies. We're talking about the forties here.

Tony Maietta:
Terrifying. She wasn't trained for anything.

Brad Shreve:
She'd never done anything career wise. I mean, there was nowhere for her to go, and she

Tony Maietta:
I mean, what was she gonna do? Clean houses? She couldn't even clean her own house.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. But she didn't

Tony Maietta:
know what a broom was clearly. No. You know? Even though they had no money, they still had that in their mind that they did. You know? They were trained to be a certain type of people, and it takes a lot, especially when you're midlife, to change your entire way of thinking and and say, okay. Now I have to do this. Yeah. Can you imagine? In their minds, they were still aristocrats and socialites. So, basically, what happened was was that Edie and missus Beale ended up at Grey Gardens, while the brothers, Phelan Junior, Buddy, ended up with their father in Manhattan, and then they all went their separate ways.

Tony Maietta:
But so it was basically Edie and missus Beale alone at Grey Gardens through much of the war. And then when the war was over, Edie badgered her mother to the point where missus Beale allowed her to go to New York and pursue this dream of being an actress. And this happened, like, in the early late forties, early fifties.

Brad Shreve:
Mhmm.

Tony Maietta:
We have the specific dates in the book. I can't think of what it is right now, but it was after World War 2. But the problem is is that, you know, after World War 2, Edie was born in 1917. You know? So if she went around 48, 49, she's already into her early thirties. And come even I mean, then, especially Ancient. Yeah. I mean, there's just no way. So she the so Edie had a real axe to grind about the fact that life kind of passed her by, You know? Because her golden era was stolen from her by World War 2.

Tony Maietta:
Also were all of her suitors. I mean, all of her suitors were killed or maimed in World War 2, so, you know, she wakes up after the war, and she's not only really too old to pursue her dream, but all of the men who Brad been pursuing her were gone, dead or married or have disappeared. So she was only

Brad Shreve:
certainly men of her station. She was Oh, yeah. Absolutely. She's not catch any longer.

Tony Maietta:
And she didn't want you know, she says in one of the I think it's a sequel. She talks about how much you know, she doesn't wanna go out with a stock broker. What's interesting about a stock broker? What's interesting about a banker? She's like her mother. She loves artists. She's an artist. She wants these artists. So so Edie goes to New York and has a fitful few years. She lives at the Barbizon, the, you know, the famous hotel in New York for ladies, Barbizon.

Tony Maietta:
So she does it all. She does it all correctly. But she's you know, her mother, the entire time, she's struggling and trying to get a foot into the acting profession, which her father, again, was not supporting her. Her father would not support her in her dream. Her mother, what little money her mother had, she would send to Edie to help support her. So can you imagine the stress and the struggle? Plus her mother's badging her the entire time she's in New York to come back to Grey Gardens. Yeah. So, you know, a few things happened.

Tony Maietta:
Edie had a bad situation, a bad relationship with a a married man, which is well documented. And, eventually, she left New York and went back to Grey Gardens and stayed.

Brad Shreve:
That was in 1952 that she moved in with her mother. So when when the documentary was made, it was almost 25 years. And then in fact, it was exactly 25 years when Big Edie died.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I think it was July July of 50 Shebaan says, July 1952. I thought the bar was on. I checked out the bar was on and never went back. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Boy, you have her voice down. So she moved in, and things were a hardship. And let's fast forward to the 19 seventies.

Tony Maietta:
Ah, yes. So so here's how this all comes about, because people always wanna know how this comes about, or at least I think it's fascinating how this came about. This all comes about because of Lee Radswell. Now as we said before, Jackie Kennedy, her sister, Lee Radswell. So I always think of Jackie and Lee kind of like queen Elizabeth and princess Margaret. And, ironically, Lee was a princess as well. You know, her husband, Roswell, was a prince, a Polish prince. He was no longer obviously, there's not a monarchy in Poland anymore, but he's from that that line.

Tony Maietta:
So Lee was actually a princess. So you have a sister who is the most famous woman in the world. Who are you? You know? So we think Edie went through a crisis. Can you imagine Lee had Lee's entire life was an identity crisis of who she was. So Lee tried all kinds of things. Lee tried to be an interior designer. That didn't work out. She had very famously had a little stint at acting, which was really bad.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. And for a time, she considered being a documentary producer. And at this time, she had 2 very good friends named David and Albert Maisel who were documentary filmmakers. And Lee, with this idea of perhaps being becoming active in documentary films, hired them to do a home movie, she called it, of her childhood, primarily in East Hampton. Well, who was living in East Hampton? Her aunt Edith and her cousin Edie.

Brad Shreve:
She and, her sister played there.

Tony Maietta:
They played yeah. They played at Great Gardens, but they also had a house in Hamptons. They all had houses in Hamptons. So yeah. So so this is what always fascinates me again. Now Lee knew when she told when she had David and Albert go, she arranged for them to go to Grey Gardens. She went with them. She knew what state Grey Gardens was in her.

Tony Maietta:
She had a good idea because they've been there for a long time. So she obviously knew maybe she didn't know how bad it was, but she had an idea it wasn't great.

Brad Shreve:
I have a question then because we're Sure. We'll talk about what the town rating the house. Mhmm. So and Lee and Jackie and Aristotle helped to clean up. So that was I thought that all happened before the documentary started. You're talking

Tony Maietta:
about the documentary Grey Gardens.

Brad Shreve:
Okay. But it was be while they were doing Lee's.

Tony Maietta:
Before Lee there were first of all, there was more than one Brad, And Jerry Jerry told me that there were there were a lot of raids Okay. From Grey Gardens because the count the county was always bitching about the, you know, the residents were always bitching about the mess at Grey Gardens.

Brad Shreve:
Watch the documentary and you'll see why. You'll see why.

Tony Maietta:
So the main raid that we talk about in our book is the raid that happened after Lee's initial visit with the Maisels

Brad Shreve:
Okay.

Tony Maietta:
Before the filming of the film Grey Gardens. So if you see one summer or that summer I can't use that summer or one. It's called that summer. You see Grey Gardens Shreve in an even worse state than it is in the film Grey Gardens because, I mean, it's just overrun with garbage and junk and furniture.

Brad Shreve:
And it's really hard to imagine.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. No. I know. Right? Because in in in Great Gardens, that's actually the cleaned up version of the mansion. So it's holes in

Brad Shreve:
the ceiling with raccoons and trash piled in the corners, tall Right. Taller than a person, and that's the cleaned up state.

Tony Maietta:
That's the cleaned up state. But if you notice, there's also cavernous in Grey Gardens. There's not a lot of furniture around. I mean, Jerry describes in our book, you know, about going to great gardens and the cat food cans piled up to the ceiling and the cobwebs, just draping everything covered in thick thick dust, and Edie would make little paths in between the debris to get places to get to the front door, to get to the bathroom. There was a well worn path that she would follow because everything she was surrounded by garbage. So by the time they filmed Greg Gardens, that was all gone. But it's still a messy place. I mean, it's still a cavernous, empty, scary place.

Brad Shreve:
This sounds like a campy film from the fifties. A fictional film from

Tony Maietta:
It does. So Lee took the Maisles there. They filmed this footage for a couple days, and then there's a couple different theories. She either got horrified looking at it and said this can't go out, canceled the film, or she decided she wasn't gonna be a documentary film producer, and she decided not to do it anymore. She wanted to do something else. So she pulled the plug, but the Maisels couldn't get the Beales, missus Beale and Edie out of their heads. They found them so fascinating just, you know, as they are unique, iconoclastic mind you know, in this mind blowing situation, these 2 aristocrats are living. So they contacted missus Beale and Edie directly and said, would you be interested in doing a a movie just about you? And, I mean, that's music to Edie's ears.

Tony Maietta:
Edie's like, finally. Yes. When are you when are you getting here? You know, Edie really looked at it as her opportunity finally to be the star that she always knew she was. And she would we talk about in the book. She would get her outfit set up. You know, one of the most famous things about Grey Gardens is the revolutionary costume for the day, you know, what Edie wears for the maisel. She had those all set out. She would she when she would do fashion shows for her mother and Jerry, what do you think of this outfit? What do you think of this? And for anyone who hasn't seen Grey Gardens, we're not talking about just putting a dress on.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, we're talking about taking a drape and wrapping it around your head and using it as a scarf because Edie had alopecia, so her hair was has falling out. So she always wore something on her head. Sometimes it was a sweater. When Jerry first met her, it was a bath mat. She had a chef's apron tied backwards around her. She would just because it was easier for her to grab a drape off the wall and wrap it around her with a belt than it was for her to wash something. I mean, this is the one these women thought.

Brad Shreve:
Like the Carol Burnett in the Gone with the Wind skit.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. That's a very little Edie outfit. She probably would have worn the curtain rod in it too. I mean, that's just little Edie. So, you know, little Edie the crazy thing is little Edie became a fashion icon for this out for these outfits. You can still see fashion shows, which are Greg Gordon inspired, And the model will be wearing something that looks like a bath mat or looks like a drape. Edie would wear skirts backwards. She would wear pants, underskirts, pants, overskirts.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, mind blowing. Long scarves.

Brad Shreve:
In a kinda twisted way, she looked fabulous.

Tony Maietta:
She did. That's the thing. That's how she became an icon because she really made it work. To her, it was she was the queen of Sheba. You know what I mean? She wasn't wearing a ratty a ratty bath mat. It was fabulous. It was a it was a fur. So she they made again, when they said they they took lemons and not only made lemonade, they made don Perignon.

Tony Maietta:
You know? She Tony made it work. She didn't just survive. She sir Shreve, to borrow a line from Carrie Fisher. She made it.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, I love that.

Tony Maietta:
She made it art. Albert Maisel's wife said something very, very insightful to me. She said that the Beales were denied being the artists that in their soul they knew they were, so they made their lives their art. And anybody who watches Great Gardens, it's clear. You know? They're performing their lives are their performance. Their performance is their lives. It's incredible. And I think that says something about the to to me, what I find inspiring about that is it says so much about the human spirit.

Tony Maietta:
You know, you can't suppress this artistic bent that we if you're an artist and you have it inside you, it's gonna come out. So it's the same thing with them. They couldn't they couldn't keep it down. It has come out. So what did they do? They made their lives their art, and eventually, the world came around to it.

Brad Shreve:
They were dysfunctional, but they thrived in their dysfunction, And they actually embraced their dysfunction because that's who they were.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. They made took lemons, made made champagne. Yes. Absolutely.

Brad Shreve:
I'd like some clarification from you. In the HBO movie, which we'll touch on a little bit. We're mainly talking about the documentary. In the HBO movie, it shows Jackie coming to the house, and I think she sits in the garden and talks with Edie a little bit. Yeah. That's

Tony Maietta:
fiction. Book yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Because in your book, Jackie was told to get the hell out of here.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. And the book's much more interesting, don't you think? Oh, yes. Because we wrote it. Yes. No. Here's the thing about HBO took these stories from Jerry and then didn't bother to to make the character of Jerry in it. So it's kind of it's unfortunate. Welcome to Hollywood.

Brad Shreve:
I was his I think his name was mentioned though, wasn't it?

Tony Maietta:
No. He doesn't exist.

Brad Shreve:
That's why they said Jerry at one twenty.

Tony Maietta:
He does not exist in the HBO Okay. Film. So it's not great. It's unfortunate, but that's that's Hollywood. Jerry,

Brad Shreve:
he worked for one of the other, and and we'll go into details when Jerry's here. But he worked for one of the other wealthy families nearby and was going over and helping them out at Greek Gardens and basically became their friend. It's where he hung out.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. Jerry is the marble fawn, and that nickname comes because Geri resembles there's a there's a famous Greek statue of a young boy leaning against a log, and it's by a Greek artist, Praxiteles. So the the statue is is the fawn of Praxidilis, and it's mentioned in a book by Nathaniel Hawthorne called the Marble Fawn. So Gerri resembles this statue, and Edie being Edie, Edie is not gonna say, oh my god. He looks like Michelangelo's David. No. She's gonna pull way back to this Greek statue from 4 BC, in this Nathaniel Hawthorne book. In the book, the Nathaniel Hawthorne book, one of the characters resembles this same statue.

Tony Maietta:
So Jerry looks very much like the statue, and that's how he got the nickname the marble fawn. So, anyway, so Jerry was basically a runaway from Brooklyn who stumbled upon the mansion working, as you said, working for another family and became pretty much the caretaker of the Beales and also, you know, Edie's little brother, missus Beale's son. You know, missus Beale had little contact with her sons at this point. So Jerry became her surrogate son, and she became his surrogate mother. It's really a very touching very, very touching story. Yeah. Yeah. So no.

Tony Maietta:
So what really happened was that Jerry was the person who greeted Jackie. Edie wanted Jackie nowhere near her because Edie still had a very, very, very felt very ambivalent about Jackie. Still had a lot of anger to Jackie because she She

Brad Shreve:
felt she should've been Jackie.

Tony Maietta:
She should've been Jackie. She she felt Jackie stole the spotlight from her. So she was very she had a lot of anger towards Jackie still. So Edie wouldn't let Jackie in. Edie was screaming from from the 2nd floor window. Don't let her in. Don't let her in. Don't let her in.

Tony Maietta:
So Jackie actually conversed with Jerry down in the garden and said, would you please keep an eye on my aunt and, well, thank you for everything you're doing to help him out. So that's how that's where that came from, the Jackie the Jackie Kennedy story in the HBO movie. That's where that came out.

Brad Shreve:
Which I think chasing her off was a lot more is a lot more interesting than

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I I Jackie talk. Yeah. I I don't I don't know when you know? Again, that's Hollywood. Yeah. I don't know why they did it the way they did it. But I I find ours I find Jerry's story much more fascinating, which I'm sure he'll be happy to talk to us about.

Brad Shreve:
So I wanted to say one more thing about the exploitation, and then I wanna kinda talk about where when the film was launched and everything that happened afterwards.

Tony Maietta:
Okay.

Brad Shreve:
I I heard a great description re regarding the exploitation. Entertainment reporter Ethan Alter compared this to the reality TV show Hoarders. Yeah. He said

Tony Maietta:
Not far

Brad Shreve:
longer? Oh, he said Hoarders is exploitive, but this had compassion. Mhmm. And I like that.

Tony Maietta:
I do too. They do. The Maisels adored the Beales. David died in the eighties, and then Albert lived, you know, like I said, up until 20 16, and Albert was in touch with Edie up until the end. You know? Edie had a fascinating afterlife as we set up to Grey Garden. She eventually ended up in Florida, where she spent the rest of her her her remaining years. And there's actually a a taped phone conversation that Edie had with Albert and, where she just she was exactly the same. She sounded the same, and she was still flirting with them even though she was in her eighties.

Tony Maietta:
You know? And Albert was long married with kids. So they were very close, and they were very and they loved them, and they cared about them. You know, it was, it was it's very touching. Very touching.

Brad Shreve:
This documentary was fabulous. I I I really as I said, it was disturbing, but I absolutely was engrossed, and I loved it. Was it a hit when it was released?

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I mean, as much as a hit as documentary can be. Yeah. Documentaries aren't like narrative Hollywood films. They don't get rerun on television. They don't you know, you you see them once and they're gone. If you even see them on television, maybe you'll see it on PBS. You know, it had its premiere at the Paris Theatre in Manhattan, which is still there right across from the plaza.

Tony Maietta:
Edie was there. It was you know, she had her moment in the spotlight. She had a couple moments in the spotlight with it, and then it disappeared. It made its impact. There was a lot of stories about it in People Magazine and, you know, New York Magazine. So there was some notoriety briefly. And then as time went on, people moved on with their lives, and, and it was forgotten. You know? And we we talk about that in the book with Jerry too.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, Jerry, this is a celebrity Jerry never wanted. Jerry never signed up for this. He was just trying to help people out and people that he cared about, who he loved very much. And, unfortunately, Edie being Edie kind of gave some inaccurate impressions about Jerry as Jerry was trying to move in and, you know, he was gonna take over. I'm like, moving where? Take over what? I mean, have you looked at your house lady?

Brad Shreve:
He's trying to steal our estate.

Tony Maietta:
He's trying to steal the estate. I you know, not much to steal.

Brad Shreve:
You're can have it.

Tony Maietta:
So yeah. So Jerry ran away a lot Tony for many years, Jerry ran from his identity as the marble fawn because he didn't wanna be a joke. And then he realized and then as as this resurgence of Grey Gardens happened in the early 2000, he realized what this film meant to people, particularly gay men. Gay men are the people who kept Grey Gardens alive during these years. And Jerry's a gay man, and he truly began to he began to embrace his identity as the marble fawn. And, that's what I love about his story is I think his story yeah. His story is all about great gardens, but his story is universal and that it's about reclaiming your identity, reclaiming your true self. You know? We spend a lot of people spend a lot of time running away, especially gay men in the closet or running away from who they are.

Tony Maietta:
And then you get to a certain point in your life where, hopefully, you embrace who you are. We realize it makes you unique. It makes you the individual you are. So it's about embracing your identity. It's about the family you create versus the family you're born into. It's just a wonderful universal story, his story, and I it and it's and it's covered in this wonderful backdrop of gray gardens, which a lot of people know about.

Brad Shreve:
And what you're just talking about is beautiful segue into what I was just thinking about was the premiere of this film where Edie went. When this is a film that most people have sat there and been probably humiliated to watch them. So, I mean, because it's not just trashy. She and her mom, to me, they're like, they talk very eloquently, but they're like a 50 year old couple that have hated each other their whole life. They're bickering, you know, bickering and bickering and bickering back and forth. And I think most people would have been humiliated to see themselves on screen, and and she just loved it. It was Yeah. She embraced it.

Tony Maietta:
She was a star finally. I mean, she finally was the star. You know, it's funny. We talk in the book about how, people, you know, they didn't live in total isolation in Grey Gardens, and there were visitors at Grey Gardens. And, occasionally, some Hollywood types would come to visit Grey Gardens and want to, according to Edie, you know, wanna do a movie about them, and they offered up Julie Christie to play Edith Beale. And Edie was horrified because Edie Edie said, if anybody's gonna play Edith Beale, it's gonna be Edith Beale. So Edie always saw herself as a star, and this film made her the star that she always knew she was. It's very true.

Tony Maietta:
And Jerry, is, you know, such a part of that. And the wonderful thing about Jerry is is Jerry's absorbed their positive outlook. Jerry's had a lot of things thrown at him in his life. It hasn't been easy. Whose life is easy? But Jerry's had some, you know, more trials and tribulations than most, and Jerry has absorbed that idea from them of positive thinking of taking lemons and and making lemonade. And as you'll see, he's just the sweetest, kindest, most open person, and he feels very protective of the Beales. He feel you know, because people obviously can make tasteless jokes about them. They always have, and they can be objects of ridicule, and Jerry is very protective of them.

Tony Maietta:
He's very loving towards them, which is which I think is just so beautiful. And, it just it comes through in any conversation you have with the guy. He's just a sweet, loving, caring guy.

Brad Shreve:
Well and and I said it's disturbing, but watching them, they're incredibly charming.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Well, they were raised to be charming. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
That's their job. And and they they kept that. They kept that in their squalor. They kept that.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. They did.

Brad Shreve:
They lived it.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. They were they were built for public display. You know? That's that's what their that's what their purpose was, and, it's just it's it's and with the film, you know, that came to fruition.

Brad Shreve:
So 2 years after the film, Edith died, Big Eddy. She was 80, I believe. And little Edith, she put up the house for sale, and she Yeah. She she only sold it on the basis that they did not tear it down.

Tony Maietta:
Well, she actually said that they weren't supposed to she she said she stipulated they could buy it, but they couldn't change anything.

Brad Shreve:
Couldn't change anything?

Tony Maietta:
Oh my lord. Kind of it couldn't change anything. They had to leave exactly as it was, and I it was bought it was purchased by, Ben Bradley, the from The Washington Post, very famous. All the president's men, that Ben Bradley and his wife, Sally Quinn, who had it for years years years years years.

Brad Shreve:
And it would have been a whole lot cheaper to level this thing and build a new house.

Tony Maietta:
But they didn't. They they refurbished it and and made it beautiful again.

Brad Shreve:
If you see pictures today, it's gorgeous.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. But it's funny because they did this incredible rehab of it and cost them I can't imagine how much it cost 1,000,000. And then just recently, I'd say within the past 8 years, it was sold, and the new owners totally took it down to the studs and rehabbed it again so it was closer to its original appearance. More like the house it was originally originally was than it than it did when the Bradleys had it. That took me a long time to say. It's closer to its original form.

Brad Shreve:
And so it became a Broadway play. I don't know how well that did.

Tony Maietta:
It was amazing. Fantastic. Christine Ebersaw and Mary Louise Wilson both won Tony Awards. Anybody who plays a Beale gets an award. I'm telling you right now. They got awards. Jessica Lange got an Emmy.

Brad Shreve:
If you play their characters and you nail it, you deserve every award you can get.

Tony Maietta:
Absolutely. Yeah. And the the Broadway musical was a big, big hit. There's a wonderful song in the Broadway musical called Jerry likes my corn, which is a very fun song, but it but it absolutely encapsulizes missus Beale's feelings for Jerry and vice versa. And I Jerry feels very tender about that song because he feels This

Brad Shreve:
is Beale Jerry like the corn that missus Beale would cook on the hot plate in the bedroom.

Tony Maietta:
On the bedroom and not hopefully, not cause a fire, which happened once or twice. She'd actually cook on a sterno on her bed.

Brad Shreve:
To give a trying to give a frame of reference there.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, became Broadway musical. The, the Maisel brothers put out a documentary sequel of unused footage from it called The Beales of Grey Gardens. There was the film that Peter Beard the original original footage called That Summer that came out a few years ago, the HBO movie, our book. So it just keeps going. It just keeps Grey Gardens keeps going. It's never gonna stop.

Brad Shreve:
So any final words?

Tony Maietta:
No. I think I'll leave those for Jerry because I mean, this is the we're gonna talk to the man himself. And, I mean, for everything I know is secondhand through Jerry. So Jerry was there, and Jerry is the last person alive to experience that. Everybody else is gone. So I feel like, you know, Jerry Jerry should have the final word because Jerry was there. Jerry lived it. I just feel like I did.

Tony Maietta:
But Jerry was there, and he lived it.

Brad Shreve:
So before Jerry's on, you'll enjoy Jerry regardless. But I suggest watching the the documentary and even reading the book. I think you'll you'll get more out of what he has to say. You'll be you'll be fascinated by his story no matter what. His story is just incredible.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Read our book.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Read the book.

Tony Maietta:
It's also available on Audible done by yours truly,

Brad Shreve:
which is actually what I listen to. So Yeah. And you did a good job, by the way.

Tony Maietta:
So you hear more of my loo, effluous voice. And all of my all my not just Edie, I not just my Edie impersonation, but my Jackie Kennedy impression.

Brad Shreve:
You did a good Edie. Well, we will see you all next week. Thank you so much.

Tony Maietta:
Thank you guys for listening. Stay tuned for Jerry.

Brad Shreve:
Do you enjoy going to Hollywood? Well, of course, you do. And Tony and I would like you to do something for us and more important for other podcast listeners out there. Go to Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast and rate and review the show. A 5 star would be especially nice. That way, when others are looking for a new show, they'll see ours and see those reviews, and they will stop and listen. And, boy, that will make their day. It will be much appreciated. Thank you for being with us.