My name is Walter Newkirk. On April 22, 1976, I traveled by car from New Brunswick, New Jersey to East Hampton, New York to interview Edie Beale for the Rutgers Daily Targum, my college newspaper. Edie and her mother, Edith Bouvier Beale, were the subjects of Grey Gardens, a new documentary by filmmakers Albert and David Maysles. I made this journey with Jeff Holtzman, a photographer for the Rutgers newspaper and Bob Sennett, the music writer. It was a cold, gloomy, overcast day and the trip to East Hampton seemed endless. When we arrived at Grey Gardens, the woman who answered the door was Lois Wright. I immediately recognized her as one of the guests at the birthday party in the film. Within minutes, Edie Beale greeted us and we entered Grey Gardens. There was very little furniture and an overwhelming  odor of cats. I had typed all my questions in advance and my interview was conducted with a portable, handheld cassette tape recorder.

 

W…         Walter Newkirk

J…..          Jeff Holtzman

B…..         Bob Sennett

L…..          Lois Wright

E / LE……Little Edie

BE….         Big Edie

 

 

W:  That's it?

 

W:  I think that's it.

 

W:  Is this it?

 

J:  No, that's not it.

 

J:  Try, again, go down further.

 

W:  Oh is that it, all the way back there?

 

J:  Wait, isn't there another street? Like this is Lilly Pond Lane and something?  It's gotta be down further.

 

W:  Is this it?

 

J:  This has gotta be the same house.



B:  Yes, this is definitely Grey Gardens.



J:  Absolutely.  There's no mistake about it.

 

W:  Oh she's all dressed up.

 

L:       Oh, hello.  I was going to say, uh, Edie is uh, going to be late.

         She's not ready.

 

W:      Oh, OK.

 

L:       So if uh, you want to wait in the car? Or on the porch? Or.

 

W:      OK, alright, sure.

 

L:        If you want anything,  just knock on the door. Knock on this glass, then I can hear you.

 

W:      OK, thank you.   

 

E:      I'm terribly sorry to keep you waiting.



W:      Oh how are you doing?



E:      I had to search for two hours for one of my mother's cats.



W:      Hi I'm Walter.



E:      You know, she, she's, How do you do?


        
W:      It's nice to meet you.



E:      Oh my goodness. For goodness sakes, Hello, I can't see a thing

          without my glasses. You're the photographer, I can see that.

          Listen, it's cold, I thought it was going to be a good day.  Well

          anyway, uh, one of our cats disappeared, kitten.



W:      You found him?



E:      No, and I had to comb the whole place for two hours. That's

          why I'm not ready.. wasn't ready.


J:       Now we can start.


E:      You know who did this to me? The authorities. They squirted

          chemicals in my eyes.

 

W:      Oh really? Oh.

 

E:      I had to go have the lens taken out of my right eye.



W:      You should wear contact lenses?



E:      I could. You know, but the reason uh, I didn't say anything

         about it was uh, that we have so  many cases in the family of

         cataracts.



W:      Oh really?



E:      Every Bouvier had cataracts because they were uh, they had a

          light blue  eye, a violet eye. But I didn't think I had it. But

          any way, I got it and they  all said oh well, it's inherited.



J:      That's the answer they give you, oh well.



E:       That's right, so listen how is Rutgers?



W:       Pretty good, pretty good. We're all finishing up, we're on our

           last year.



E:      What are you going to be?



W:       Whatever’s out there for us to be!



E:       They say it's very difficult, you know.



W:     Oh it's really, really tough.



E:       You know, they say. My brother wrote my mother a letter and said

Uh, he's got an extreme case of the shorts, you know, no money    he called it the shorts.  I never heard that, well I think I did once. So I guess uh, I guess it's uh, going to be everywhere you know, because we think he's very successful and he admitted that he didn't have a dime or something.



W:     Wasn't he a lawyer or something?



E:       Yes. So did you boys see the movie?



W:      Yeah, I saw it. Twice

 

B:       Yes, I saw it.



E:      You know, I get The (New York) Times every day. It's delivered and I  opened it Up today. It said 3 days, the last 3 days it said. I think the ad for Grey Gardens. So I called up, you know, the studio to find out if it was true. And they said yes. Thursday, Friday and Saturday are the last three days.



W:      Are they going to release it to anywhere else, any of the other theaters?



E:      It’s going to Boston.



W:      Is it?



E:      Yeah, They want me to go with them. Do you know why I have to  go with them?



W:      Why? You don't want to? Do you want to?


 
E:       Well see, in the movie, you know, well I seem to be, you know. It

          was absolutely real life, they came in and took it just the way we

          were and everything. But in the movie, I seem to be sort of

          mother's dependent child. They wrote me up as that some of the

          news. Well see, I don't consider myself mother's dependent child at

          all, but that's the conventional view, you know not that I have any

          money, you know.  But that's the conventional view. I never got

          married so I'm sort of an old maid  and spinster.



W:      But now you're a star. How does it feel to be a star?  Now you’re a movie star.



E:      Oh I was kind of depressed when they made the movie. I didn't look too hot.



W:      Oh, I think you looked great.



E:      Oh, we'd been raided by the health authorities. My brother did it.

          To get my mother, to get my mother to sell the house. You know,

          that wasn't in  the movie because  mother's never gonna want to

          sell this house. She wants to die here. So anyway, uh, that is why

          I think the Maysles brothers  always want me when the movie

          opens or something.  Because a lot of people say uh, They either

          don't believe the whole thing or they  say we've been exploited. So

          the Maysles think that if I'm  there uh, people will realize that's it's

           genuine, you know. That's it isn't a fake.



W:     That it's for real.



E:       Correct. The dining room is quite dirty, it smells of cats. Would

           you like a Coca-Cola or…                    



W:      I brought cookies for your mother.



E:       Aren't you darling, honestly.



W:     And I brought pastries right here.

 

E:      Well, come on in. I don't think the dining room looks very nice.

         These are my Easter pants.



W:      Oh really?  



E:      They're the new type.



W:      The new type?



E:       Bell bottoms. I don't like them at all.



W:      You don't?

 

E:       No. So I was terrible to keep you waiting.

 

W:      That's OK, that's alright.



E:      See the last 5 years have been pure hell.



W:      Why is that?



E:      Well when they raided, I wanted mother to sell this house. I didn't

          want to live here. So Jackie came down.



W:      Did she?



E:      And asked Mother what she wanted. Mother wouldn't say. You

          know mother's a perfect lady, So she sat there finally I said,

          this was 4 years ago, I said, “Jackie would you mind asking  

Mother  her plans?” So Jackie said. “ Auntie Edie, what is it that you want to do? So Mother said, “Well, I wanted to live here 5 more years. I expected to but now I guess I'll have to leave.” You know, after all the trouble. So then Jackie went back.


W:      This is after the people came in?


 
E:      Yeah, in the spring, they started raiding.



W:      Was this was in 73?



E:      They started raiding in the fall, no 1971 they started the raid and

uh, I mean really raid.



W:      Really?



E:      I wasn't allowed to read the search warrant.



W:      What did they do?



E:      They didn't produce it on me outside. They produced it on the inside after they crashed through the front door. See I was trying to keep them out. They wouldn't let me read it.  I didn't think it was real. Then they took pictures all around the house. So it was very dilapidated. Well this ceiling was fallen About eight other ceilings were fallen. But it wasn't too bad. It wasn't ramshackle. It needed to be cleaned up because somebody took our gardener away and he was the one who took the uh, the uh, cans of uh, you know empty cat food cans to the local dump. So when they took the gardener, the garbage man was the gardener so we lost the gardener and the garbage man. So things piled up in here and uh, I can't explain it, they took pictures all over, you're not supposed to do that with a search warrant you come in to look for one thing and one thing only.



W:      That's right.



E:      They looked for twenty five dozen things.



W:      Did you contact a lawyer?



E:      I couldn't get one. All the East Hampton Village lawyers said to let

them in. Well I decided you know, the concentration camp next.

You know they said we're crazy and had to go to Islip and had to get out of the house in fifteen minutes. So I said, well this is what happens from uh, from feeding cats and living with your mother. I really don't know what's going on and the uh, the United States of America  has gone totalitarian here and I didn't even know it. I was still voting on Election Day. And so you can't be too careful. Well, So anyway that's the story of the raid, I don't know.  They thought we had dope in here. They were coming in. Well you see they do have quite a dope problem in East Hampton. But how they got us linked up with it...



W:      Yeah, how did you get involved?