I'm ever so grateful to Paris Hilton for giving me such a great insight into what it's like to be an heiress via Twitter.
This morning, I read about how she woke up to
"a man holding 2 big knifes" and I thought, How dreadful!
I've never had to wake up to a man holding 2 big knifes except for the time I dated a guy from the internet who listed
Masterchef and
Boxing Helena as his favourite film and TV picks, so I really shouldn't have been shocked in that instance. But truly, is
this what it's like to be an heiress, day in, day out?
I think the knifes were probably a one-off. Paris's tweets are generally more along the lines of: "How cute is my pug Mugsy?" or "Getting ready to leave for Vegas!".
Boring!
That is, the lifes of heiresses
seemed boring until I read the diary of another heiress—Little Edie Beale!
For those who don't know, Little Edie is one of the stars of the 1975 cult documentary
Grey Gardens—although you might argue that cult is the wrong word for a film that has spawned a Broadway musical, an HBO
telemovie starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, a magazine fashion spread featuring Mary-Kate Olsen and a style all its own.
Here are some quick photos to illustrate the GG vibe for the uninitiated:
From the 1975 documentary
From the 2009 HBO telemovie starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange
From the Mary-Kate-Edie Olsen-Beale fashion shoot
From the Tony-award-winning Broadway musical
But before the cardigan-headscarves, the cat food and the tablecloth sarongs, mother and daughter Big Edie and Little Edie Beale were total American royalty! And even though their relative was the world's most famous book editor,
Jacqueline Kennedy, this didn't help them much as they slowly slipped away from society, living mostly on corn cobs,
pâté and ice-cream. By the 70s, their squalid East Hampton mansion, Grey Gardens, was filled with raccoons, cats and holes in the roof.
The Bealeses 'before'
So let's get onto Little Edie's diary. Written in 1929 when she was 11 years old,
I Only Mark the Hours That Shine is an absolute joy. It will only take you a couple of hours to read, but the voice will stay with you ...
forever! The entries are short and staccato-like, and Little Edie gives each one gorgeous and informative headings: 'Summer Seems Gone'. 'A Bad Bilious Attack'. 'Michael Comes for Luncheon'. Or—'Love':
I was a bit dubious at first because, from memory, kids' diaries are pretty tedious. (When I was 11, my diary read something like: "Went to beach. Came home. Watched
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. It was sooooo cool!!!!!!!") But Edie's style is so expressive and articulate that the whole thing makes you smile. (Until you remember how she ended up, eating cat food.)
There are certainly no 'knifes' in the text either—Edie is a better speller at 11 than
Paris Hilton is at 30. And her entries are infused with such exuberance. Here is her movie review of the Mary Pickford film,
Coquette:
"It was all about a southern girl in Kentucky who falls in love with a man from the hills. When she wants to marry him, her father objects—kills the man and breaks her daughters heart. When he is on trial for murder she tries to protect him and he shoots himself in court. Wasn't that a sad ending? After, we went + bought some hats + I got a cute red straw for summer!"
I Only Mark the Hours That Shine gives us another remarkable insight in to the Grey Gardens story, but it's also just beautiful to read. If you know and love Edie in her
Grey Gardens incarnation, you'll love the kid she was, too—plucky and dramatic and sweet, obsessed with dresses and stockings and the smell of pine trees, and constantly bringing out gems such as this:
"At breakfast I saw the most handsome sailor—handsome but common—but I shall never—never forget him!"
Little Edie Beale at 11
Little Edie Beale in Grey Gardens
Grey Gardens is an astonishing film for so many reasons, and Little Edie's girlhood diary is just as remarkable. Reading about her childhood, when told in her own inimitable voice, makes what became of her (see:
Grey Gardens) particularly moving and intense.
Read it if you want! I ordered it from
here and it took less than a week to be delivered to Melbourne.