Grey Gardens Page #4

I have astigmatism,

one eye pulled against the other

and I should've worn glasses

and I didn't

- Oh, I told you to wear glasses

- Is there anything else you want to know?

- You got with the glasses about four years ago

- I'll tell you about my teeth

Four years ago, Edie You got

the glasses, and you didn't wear them

- My teeth are still all right

- You have to wear the glasses

You have to

[Laughs]

And my hair will grow

I hope Here

[David]

You're dressed for battle, Edie

Mother's telling Marjorie how

spoiled I am, how terrible I am

And Marjorie knew my father

and my uncle and everybody

Mother's giving her

all this S-H-l-

so I went and told her

some things about the family

But, you see, in dealing with me

the relatives didn't know

that they were dealing

with a staunch character

And I tell you, if there's anything

worse than a staunch woman...

S-T-A-U-N-C-H

There's nothing worse,

I'm telling you

[Sighs]

They don't weaken no matter what

But they didn't know that

Well, how were they to know?

You know, my father had made up his mind

about what Farmington produced

and what the

Sacred Heart Convent produced

I don't think he was so down

on the Spence School

but he certainly was down

on Farmington

I don't know why

Farmington was a junior college

You could choose

what you wanted to study

Perhaps that was what made

my father dislike it so...

that I could choose

But I chose what I thought

he'd want me to choose...

you know, English literature and

Oriental philosophies and, uh

well, I always took French,

but nothing ever happened there

I can read and write in French,

but I can't speak it

I had years and years

and years of French

Terrible

[Laughs]

This was taken by Amy Dupont

my last year in Farmington

I was 17

- [David] Edie, that's so beautiful

- Mr. Wainwright did that

He was an artist from a very good

family He was in the social register

He did it in the solarium

of Grey Gardens

David, look at this

I was in a fashion show

- [Laughs]

- [Mrs. Beale] Let me see that

[Albert]

Oh, beautiful Look at that, David

- [Mrs. Beale] May I see that?

- Wow! Look at that

[Edie] I thought I was

the cat's pajamas in that!

[Mrs. Beale] You did, Edie See how

pretty Edie was when she was young?

It's perfectly foolish of her

not to look that way now

She could, you know, if she

didn't worry about everything

Didn't she look like a girl

that had everything? Huh?

[Edie]

This has inspired me

I'll have to get another

brown tailored suit and grow my hair

My God, I have no hair

[Mrs. Beale] You never put any

lipstick on for this picture, did you?

- I have another kind on

- You look horrible

Why didn't you put

lipstick and makeup on?

[Edie] Mr. Beale smashed

the window of Burt Bacharach

when he put this in the window

on upper Madison Avenue

- [Mrs. Beale] For God's sakes

- He offered me a job

He didn't say to get out

of that family situation

but he said,

"You need a job, Miss Beale"

[David] Didn't you expect that Edie

might get married someday?

[Mrs. Beale]

Oh, I did I wanted her to

Oh, I picked out some nice men

She didn't like the men I picked out

[Edie]

They were horrible

[Mrs. Beale] She could have married

this Gerald Getty

He was a millionaire, :

He gave her a gorgeous ring

She decided not to marry that guy

She had to give the ring back

She has a proposal of marriage

from Paul Getty

Remember Paul,

the richest man in the world?

[Edie]

He married Teddy Lynch

[Mrs. Beale] Then you could

have married Jordan McClanahan

He was another millionaire,

and he wanted to marry you

She just didn't want to get married

That's all blamed on me

[Edie]

No, I never fell in love until I was 31

[Mrs. Beale] Well, how old

are you in these pictures?

- Twenty-four

- Twenty-four That old?

- 1940

- Very young looking for twenty-four

France had just fallen

to Hitler

- But you never fell for a man

- Paris, Paris, excuse me

France fell, but Edie didn't fall

That was the thing

See, l...

They didn't tell us that

when we studied World War I

that everything was so awful

with the Versailles Treaty

that we were soon going to get into

something four years after I got out

If I'd only known it,

I would have just...

just enjoyed every single minute,

just done everything

[David] It must've been tough

on people I remember as a kid

so many loved ones being killed

But you were the dating age

A lot of my friends went

overseas and got married

They went in the Red Cross

They went to India, Australia

They all got married

One of my best friends

went to Australia

If I'd have been able to go, she

might have persuaded me to go with her

And she met somebody

in the hospital

She was working for the Red Cross,

and she never came back to New York

But I never had a chance

to do anything like that

'cause Mother wasn't well

during the war

She had her eye operation

I missed out on everything

I missed out on the reunion

of my graduating class in Farmington

because that was the fall that

Jack Kennedy campaigned to get in

and I was stuck here with Mother,

the cats, the house and T Logan

and I couldn't go

- No, you said you didn't want them

to know how old you were

- No, I think...

- "Well, I didn't want them

No, I would have enjoyed that, Mother,

because Jack Kennedy campaigned to get in and won

Get in the Farmington School?

That'd be a good place for him

I don't know I think

it would have been a lot of fun

Yeah, everything's good

that you didn't do

At the time, you didn't want it

- I couldn't get away

- Well, that's the choice

- You can't go back and say...

feel gorgeous right now

- and say, "Oh, why didn't I do this?"

- I couldn't leave

Because you didn't feel then

the way you do now

Everybody thinks and feels differently

as the years go by, don't they?

- Yeah

- Yes

- What time is it, chickens?

- [David] What time is it?

- I want to go in now

- It's, uh, 1:
30

- I may need David's hand to get up

- You have it

Where is it?

Can you come around this way?

- Sure

- Are you taking pictures?

Always Here

[Edie]

"Two roads diverged in yellow wood

"and pondering, pondering both

or pondering each...

"pondering one I took the other

and that made all the difference"

- [Mrs. Beale] Robert Frost

- Isn't that wonderful?

- Did he say that?

- That's all you need... just three lines like that

- Come on, Edie, is that Robert Frost?

- Who else?

I thought it was you

I think your poetry is better

- "Two road diverged in yellow wood

- Come on, you said that

- We want something else

- "and pondering one, I took the other

- Edie, you're not teaching us

- and that made all the difference"

- We don't want to learn it It's very pretty

- Isn't that amazing?

No, I don't think it's

half as good as your poems

They looked the same, and he probably

couldn't tell and yet he...

I wish I could remember

the correct lines

I'm absolutely exhausted

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