3 minute read
Literary Lives 12
from 07162021 WEEKEND
by tribune242
These were glorious and happy years in the sun. President Kennedy and Radziwill’s sister would stay with them in Buckingham Place rather than the American Embassy, and they were invited to all the great events, dinner at Buckingham Palace, and some, if not all the important social events in the United States. Also an eventful unofficial nineday trip that Radziwill took with her sister to India in March 1962 that included New Delhi, Agra, Benares, Udaipur and Jaipur.
Prince Stanislaw Radziwill and his wife travelled to Washington often. They were a glittering and popular couple.
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And then quite suddenly it was all over. At 12.30pm on November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Lee Radziwill immediately flew from her home in England to be with her sister in Washington – but things were never quite the same again – either in her life or with her elder sister.
“Well, there was Jack’s death and ... and ... Ari (Aristotle Onassis). I think the world knows more about all that than I do. He was dynamic, irrational, cruel I suppose, but fascinating. He also had the most beautiful skin, and smelled wonderful. Naturally, I mean. Fascinating ... as my sister discovered:”
- Lee Radziwill
In 1972, Lee Radziwill, encouraged by her lover – the adventurer/photographer Peter Beard, hired the documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles to work on a film about the Bouvier family. But the film did not quite turn out the way Radziwill wanted. The two brothers filmed the eccentric and reclusive members of the extended family, Edith “Big Edie” Ewing Bouvier Beale, and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale – “Little Edie”. They were Radziwill’s aunt and cousin respectively, and they lived in a rambling, rundown, decaying house in East Hampton, New York. Impecunious, the two “Edies” were always short of money and were supported by other members of the family.
“We lived fairly near my aunt Edie Beale and I’d play with her daughter, Little Edie, even though she was quite a bit older. Grey Gardens was a beautiful house, but I lost touch when I married and lived in England. Later I had my own house in East Hampton, and went to visit them with Peter Beard. My God, you should have seen the place! And them! But they were sweet and funny and happily living in their own world. The original idea for the film was to be about my return to East Hampton after thirty years and to have my aunt Edith narrate my nostalgia and hers, so we phoned the Maysles brothers. Initially the Edies were against it, but the Maysles charmed them as they only worked with sixteen millimetre cameras, and we were finally allowed in. The remake is good.” been shot of the Beales. However, the Maysles brothers were fascinated by the strange life the two women led, and after completing Radziwell’s original project they raised money for film and equipment on their own, ignoring any original moral obligation to Radziwell, and then filmed 70 more hours of footage with Big Edie and Little Edie. The resulting film, titled Grey Gardens (1976) after the name of the Beales’ house, is now generally considered a documentary masterpiece. It was later adapted as a 2006 musical of the same name, in which both Jackie and Lee Bouvier appeared as visiting children. A TV movie by HBO based on the documentary, also called Grey Gardens, appeared in 2009. It starred Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange.
LEE Radziwil with second husband Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill and their children, Anna Christina and Anthony. (Photo by Anthony Wallace).jfif
