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The Kennedy Cousin Who Chose Cats

Jackie Kennedy's cousin had Hollywood offers, high-society suitors and a Princeton crowd at her feet. The full story behind Beales' fall from society darling to East Hampton documentary legend.

How does one of the most glamorous, genteel women in America end up in a “garbage-ridden, filthy, 28-room house with eight cats, fleas, and no running water?” A place where, according to the Washington Post in 1976, “the smell assaults and dominates.” 

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The predictable answer would probably be “drugs” or “a really bad man.” But Edie Bouvier Beale’s descent from the society page to Grey Gardens infamy owed far more to her mother, “Big Edie.” 

This fall did not seem likely when Edith Bouvier Beale was born in 1917. Her mother was Jack Bouvier’s sister, making Little Edie Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy’s cousin. And, like Jackie, Little Edie seemed to be born with every opportunity. Their home, Grey Gardens, had been bought for Big Edie by her husband, Phelan Beale, four years after their marriage at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The East Hampton mansion served as a perfect home for Big Edie to host parties, at which, as an amateur singer, she frequently serenaded the guests with tunes like As Time Goes By and Tea for Two. Little Edie was educated at Spence and then Miss Porter’s, where she enjoyed a lively social life. And then she stepped into a world of Hamptons parties, which her brother, Phelan Jr., said resembled The Great Gatsby revelries. There she was known as “Body Beautiful Beale.” She was written........

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