Edie Sedgwick
I'll admit I share a fascination that many have with Edie Sedgwick, who streaked comet-like through the underground art movement of the 1960s, becoming a fashion trend-setter and Andy Warhol's muse, before dying of a drug overdose at 28. When I wrote my review of the film Factory Girl, which is about her, I expressed my disappointment that the film was a dud because I'd been waiting for that film for over twenty years.
I first became interested in Edie after reading the oral biography of her by Jean Stein and George Plimpton sometime in the early 80s. If she hadn't existed, surely some novelist would have created her. A scion of a very old moneyed family of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Edie had some artistic ability and came to New York. She found some success as a model, but it was hitched to Andy Warhol's star that she became famous, appearing in his underground films and becoming a fixture on the New York scene. The clothes she wore and the way she cut her hair became iconographic, and many women copied her style. She dated Bob Dylan, and is supposedly the inspiration for the songs Just Like a Woman and Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat. She fell out with both Warhol and Dylan, though, and ended up in rehab in California, where she met a fellow patient and married him, and it seemed she would have a happy ending. But she died of a barbiturate overdose.
Last night I saw her last film, Ciao, Manhattan, which was directed by a couple of splinter members of Warhol's Factory. It was filmed over a long period of time, first in 1967, and then just before Edie's death. As with many avant-garde underground films of the period, it is completely incoherent, and interesting only for anthropological reasons. The film is structured as the Edie of 1971 has returned to her mother's home in California, where she lives in an empty swimming pool. She's become friendly with the hitchhiker who brought her home, a Texas rube named Butch (who was played by an actual hitchhiker from Texas). Edie seems eerily too good playing a zonked out girl, constantly flashing her tits (it is clear she had breast implants, and must have been proud of them). This footage is in color, and in black and white flashbacks we see the film they shot back in '67, which is a garbled mess that I couldn't begin to try to explain.
What's clear from this document is that Edie was a beautiful girl, and though a drug addict, maintained an innocent appearance. She had huge brown eyes, which were accentuated by excessive mascara and eyelashes. The short hair made her look like a pixie. And though she didn't seem to have any acting skill to speak of, the camera loved her. In some interviews on the DVD, it comes across that people wanted to protect her. She was the quintessential "poor little rich girl," who came from a family that had a history of insanity. As George Plimpton put it, when it came to Edie there really wasn't anything there, she just sort of wafted through the time period. "I don't think she ever had a serious thought in her head," was how he put it.
As I said, I'm not the only one who's fascinated. When I was in Virgin Records in Times Square a few months ago there was a whole table of Edie merchandise (no doubt timed for the Factory Girl release). She's been referenced in many songs. It seems that people can kind of project their own feelings about the sixties and underground art onto her, turning her into a symbol of sorts. Of course, she was a living breathing human being who lived a very sad life, but left an enduring legacy.
I first became interested in Edie after reading the oral biography of her by Jean Stein and George Plimpton sometime in the early 80s. If she hadn't existed, surely some novelist would have created her. A scion of a very old moneyed family of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Edie had some artistic ability and came to New York. She found some success as a model, but it was hitched to Andy Warhol's star that she became famous, appearing in his underground films and becoming a fixture on the New York scene. The clothes she wore and the way she cut her hair became iconographic, and many women copied her style. She dated Bob Dylan, and is supposedly the inspiration for the songs Just Like a Woman and Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat. She fell out with both Warhol and Dylan, though, and ended up in rehab in California, where she met a fellow patient and married him, and it seemed she would have a happy ending. But she died of a barbiturate overdose.
Last night I saw her last film, Ciao, Manhattan, which was directed by a couple of splinter members of Warhol's Factory. It was filmed over a long period of time, first in 1967, and then just before Edie's death. As with many avant-garde underground films of the period, it is completely incoherent, and interesting only for anthropological reasons. The film is structured as the Edie of 1971 has returned to her mother's home in California, where she lives in an empty swimming pool. She's become friendly with the hitchhiker who brought her home, a Texas rube named Butch (who was played by an actual hitchhiker from Texas). Edie seems eerily too good playing a zonked out girl, constantly flashing her tits (it is clear she had breast implants, and must have been proud of them). This footage is in color, and in black and white flashbacks we see the film they shot back in '67, which is a garbled mess that I couldn't begin to try to explain.
What's clear from this document is that Edie was a beautiful girl, and though a drug addict, maintained an innocent appearance. She had huge brown eyes, which were accentuated by excessive mascara and eyelashes. The short hair made her look like a pixie. And though she didn't seem to have any acting skill to speak of, the camera loved her. In some interviews on the DVD, it comes across that people wanted to protect her. She was the quintessential "poor little rich girl," who came from a family that had a history of insanity. As George Plimpton put it, when it came to Edie there really wasn't anything there, she just sort of wafted through the time period. "I don't think she ever had a serious thought in her head," was how he put it.
As I said, I'm not the only one who's fascinated. When I was in Virgin Records in Times Square a few months ago there was a whole table of Edie merchandise (no doubt timed for the Factory Girl release). She's been referenced in many songs. It seems that people can kind of project their own feelings about the sixties and underground art onto her, turning her into a symbol of sorts. Of course, she was a living breathing human being who lived a very sad life, but left an enduring legacy.
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