E:      I don't know, don't ask me. But I tell you I haven't gone down to

the Village since and I don't go to the Catholic Church anymore.



W:      Do you have a car?



E:      You know, I'm scared.



W:      Do you have a car?



E:      No, this girl that lives with us has. She's got a uh, Karmann Ghia .

          You ever ridden in one of them?



W:      No.



E:      They're very cute. They're half Volkswagen.



W:      Lois lives here? She's an artist or something.



E:      She lives in the back. Yeah she's an old friend.



J:       I saw her paintings over there.



E:      She did that. That's Montauk. Did you know, have you ever been to

Montauk?



W:      No this is as far..It took us three and a half.



E:      You gotta call me up. Didn't I talk to you on the phone?



W:      No it was me. I called you a month ago.



E:      No wonder his voice sounded more familiar than yours. You said

          you were gonna ring me again. So I said to mother, well the boys

          are going to be very late and I won't, I won't  keep them waiting

          cause they're going to be so late.  You know, did you get the

          directions? To Lily Pond Lane? Is that why you never called

          again?  You're very smart.

 

W:      Well, I got them from the East Hampton Police Department.



E:      You did, you stopped?

 

W:      I did, I called the East Hampton Police Department and and they told me exactly how to get here. Do you want us to start asking you some questions?



E:      Yeah.



W:      Does this open? This      door?



E:      Yeah, if you can do it. I don't know. That's a Dutch door.



W:      Do you want to have some of these or do you want me to take some up, can I take these up to your  mother or something?



E:      No, she isn't ready to see anyone.

 

W:      OK



E:      No she can't see. She would if this terrible thing hadn't happened.

We lost our best, pink male kitten.



W:      Really?



E:      Half Siamese with ears like a Russian blue. The most wonderful cat. Course, I think somebody stole him.



W:      It may have just gotten lost.

 

E:      I don't know whether he tumbled off that porch.



W:      Sometimes cats do that. They wander off sometimes and they go away and leave and they come back.



E:      It's nonstop camping. I've got my mother right here and I still..

W:      Why don't we take them up to her.



E:      I think she'll feel better if I do. She feels very badly. Mother, the

boys expected to see you. I don't know whether you realized it.

 Mother!

 

W:      Tell her we brought some pastries for her too.



E:      Mother, the boys brought food and expected to see you. Yeah I told

them  about our terrible  thing, how we had to hunt for the cat for

 two hours and everything. Here are some cookies.


 
J:       Can I ask you a favor?


 
E:      Yeah.



J:       If we can hold the interview maybe upstairs where it's much brighter. We don't have any light down here.

 

E:      Yeah, would you rather do it on the second floor?



J:       Yeah, we'll get a lot more light up there than this.



E:      Listen, the boys are coming up to the second floor where they get light. You can pull up the shades. I pull them down because of the glare. The boys are up here now.



W:      Where are your brothers living?



E:      Uh, one's in the Southwest, Oklahoma City and the other lives in Glen Cove, the one that's a  lawyer, the one we think raided the house.



W:      What's his name?



E:      Bouvier Beale.



W:      What's his first name?



E:      Bouvier.



W:      Oh his name's Bouvier?



E:      Yeah, My mother was a Miss Bouvier.



W:      Are you in the book about the Bouviers at all?



E:      Yeah, I'm Jacqueline's first cousin.



W:      Well there was a book written about the Bouviers.



E:      Yeah I know, my first cousin wrote it. Jack Davis.



W:      Jack Davis?



E:      And he went to Princeton.



W:      Really?



E:      He wrote that in Italy but he couldn't get it published until Mr. Onasis married Jacqueline. I don't know why they wouldn't publish it.



W:      It came out like in the 60s or something didn't it?



E:      Yeah.



W:      Are there pictures of you in the book or anything?



E:      Oh yeah.



W:      Do you have the book here?



E:      Oh I don't know if I could find it.



W:      How did you um, meet the Maysles?



E:      My cousins, uh, planned to do a movie after our publicity. Jackie and Lee, who are fifteen and twelve years younger than I am uh, decided that they wanted to do a movie. They did with each other and they had a friend named Peter Beard. So they came down here and uh, I met Peter Beard and uh, this was after Jackie decided to help Mother with the house. So she sent Lee down with Peter Beard and they were going to make a movie in the house, but they didn't tell us and they didn't introduce us to the Maysles. So Lee brought, this was when the work was going on, just to make things more confusing they decided to make the movie in the house, but of course they didn't tell us. So I think Jackie was behind it.



W:      You think it was Jackie's idea.



E:      I don't think she would have sent Lee and Peter Beard down here if she hadn't known about it. But my mother doesn't think, you know, that Jackie, planned it, but that Lee and Jackie went together with Peter Beard and backed the whole thing. I don't think that Lee that would back it when Jackie has all the money if you get what I mean. So I think it was all a..



W:      A conspiracy floating around.



E:      A trio in it. Peter Beard, Jackie and Lee. So um, I recognized one of the photographers because I read the uh, theatrical section of the New York Times. And I recognized the younger photographer. He was David Maysles.  So anyway, uh, Jackie and Lee's movie fell through. I don't know. It didn't go on. It was supposed to be called Reminiscences of Old East Hampton. And uh, the next summer the Maysles came here and uh, well they did send us Christmas cards and presents for Christmas. But the next summer they came here and uh, we were very fond of them. You know, they had become friends. We liked them right away. Anyway, so in the fall of 1973 Al  Maysles was sort of joking and he said we ought to make a movie and I said yes, we ought to make  a movie. So that's how it all happened and so we started, and we did in September 1973.



W:      And how long were they here for?



E:      Five or six weeks.



W:      Five or six weeks?



E:      Yeah, and Jackie and Lee and Peter Beard wrote a book together, except I don't think his name was in it.



W:      Has it come out yet?



E:      Yeah, it was called One Special Summer.



W:      Oh, I remember that.



E:      Yeah so that's what they did. And we made a movie.



W:      It's a picture book of Jackie and Lee.



E:      Yeah, and we made a movie with the Maysles. So I guess the um, the moral of the whole story is that uh, uh, you really don't know anything about life and the things that you think are going to pan out don't, and the things that you never think about uh, come true and everything is kind of a miracle. Anyway you look at it, I mean that's all I can tell you boys. You know. Took my whole life to find that out. You know, everything's kind of a miracle. But we don't think so, take it for granted. But anyway, nowadays it's different, because it's the space age.



W:      Why do you think the film's getting so much publicity?



E:      My God, I don't know. See, we think that we're terribly interesting people, my mother and I. Now we don't have superiority complexes, but my mother was a trained singer and she was trained to be an actress though she came from a very good family. The Bouviers have royal blood which uh, we don't say because Jackie was first lady and my cousin wrote this book and said absolutely there  wasn't a drop of royal blood in the Bouvier family And he denied everything and wrote this big things saying they were very uh uh poor people who came from a certain street in Paris where all the poor came from. Not true. The Bouviers have royal blood. But Mother and I, we don't, we don't think about that. What we think about is, uh, art, if you get what I mean.



W:      Definitely



E:      See I wanted to be a ballerina and my mother was trained to be a singer. But her family got her married to my father because her father wanted to start a law firm with my father and they did. They called it Bouvier, Cathie and Beale. And then uh, my father came from the south and he wouldn't let me be a dancer or go out on dates.



W:      Oh, so it was like the same thing with your mother. Your mother wanted to..



E:      Correct, except southern people are much worse than French people.



W:      Did your mother ever get to sing anywhere professionally.

 

E:      No, Granddad kept a strict watch on her. He got her married and then she was..



W:      Even after she was married?



E:      Yes, yes! He used to rule her you know, said she couldn't accept an engagement or anything.



W:      How about that 45 record that she made, that you played in the movie?



E:      She made those with two friends a piano player and a composer she was very close to.



W:      So she never sang anywhere professionally?



E:      No, she had a lot of jobs, awful. And poor me, my gosh I got sent to a social school and was a New York debutante.



W:      What was the name of the school?



E:      Miss Porter's School. But I did go to every college prom that I could go to. And I stopped a lot of, you know. I stopped a lot of dances. Also in New York. Yeah, I guess I was a Southern Belle or  something. I just loved to dance.



W:      Have you lived here all your life?



E:      Yeah, my father gave this house to my mother.



W:      Your father, what happened with your father and mother?



E:      Uh, they separated when we went to boarding school. Then came the war four years later. Very sad. Wars, broken homes. A lot of things in life that are very sad.



W:      Do you like the film that the Maysles have made of you and your mother?



E:      Uh, Yes, but I don't think I look well in it. I'm too fat and uh, I'm funny. I worked as a professional model and I would have preferred to, to have had uh very good looking costumes and makeup and danced and sung and everything. But that would have been contrived, planned. The Maysles don't go in for that. They're absolutely bona fide. They're real. They don't uh, do anything but absolutely what they see. And they come in to tape what they see. And they didn't want me all dressed up and looking divine or anything. So in a way, I think, oh my God, how wonderful I could have looked, how glamorous I could have looked. You know, if, if, but that wasn't the way it was done. And we agreed, you know. I signed a contract. We agreed.



W:      Are they making any money from the film?



E:      What?



W:      Are they making any money from the film? The Maysles?



E:      It's pretty good, you can't get a uh, a ticket without waiting a long time. That's what they tell me.  People called up and said it's very crowded and uh, it looks wonderful. I don't know because I only went to the opening. I didn't go back. You know, I should have gone back on my own just gone into the theater, sometime. Now I've only got three days to do it and I don't think I can get out of here.