She Was Too Hip for the Room
by Paul Wilner
AUGUST 25, 2009 TAGS:
After seeing that Paul Wilner’s story on Edie Sedgwick remains, after over a year, a source of buzz and interest among the chattering classes of the web, we at Obit, decided to give the story another run up top. We figured that the 37th anniversary of Sedgwick’s death (November 16) would be a great time to ask again, “what is it about Edie Sedgwick that continues to hold our attention?” Leave a comment below.
She was too hip for the room.
Edie Sedgwick was an Old Money girl who embraced the changing culture of the '60s. Her ancestors included a signer of the Declaration of Independence, an editor of The Atlantic Monthly and the founder of the Groton School, although her wealthy family rusticated to Santa Barbara, where she was raised.
A free spirit who never felt at home in the stultifying environment of Montecito -- a younger brother committed suicide after it was discovered he was gay -- she made her escape, first to art school in Cambridge and then, incongruously, to Andy Warhol's innermost circle in bohemian Manhattan.
Edie brought attitude, and valuable aristocratic contacts, to Warhol, a poor boy from Pittsburgh still trying to break through to the upper crust art world when he first met her in 1965.
Examples of the Edie revival going on these days include the recent release of Factory Girl, George Hickenlooper's director's-cut DVD of the biopic about Sedgwick, starring Sienna Miller, the subject of considerable tabloid speculation herself; Nat Finkelstein's book, Edie/Factory Girl (Powerhouse Books); Girl on Fire, a "visual biography'' by her former associate David Weisman (Chronicle Books); websites like Edienation.com and myspace.com/ediegirlonfire; Edie T-shirts sold by Kung Fu Nation and Urban Outfitters; the re-publication of POPism: The Warhol Sixties (Harcourt Brace); and the forthcoming book, In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness and Desire in an American Family, by her cousin, John Sedgwick.
Why Edie and why now?
An early adopter, Sedgwick was the first "It Girl'' of her time, combining celebrity, wealth and style. Poor Little Rich Girl, an underground film Warhol directed about her, was about a debutante who'd gone through her inheritance. She was also featured as part of the "Youthquake'' movement in Diana Vreeland's Vogue magazine because of her defining fashion statements, simple gestures like throwing a T-shirt over some leotards.
"She was the girl on fire with the silver hair close to her head, the eyes, the Viceroy in her fingers, the sleeves rolled up, those legs, yoicks! ... All you saw was her,'' the poet Rene Ricard, recalls, in Edie: American Girl, the bestseller by Jean Stein and George Plimpton, first published in 1982, before the current Sedgwick boom.
The whole scene at The Factory, where Warhol and his hangers-on congregated, also marked a deliberate contrast to the hippie, anti-materialist, folksinging, peace march-rallying ethos of the times. They had drugs, sex and rock 'n' roll in common - but speed, not grass, open homosexuality, not heterosexual promiscuity, and a louche, Wildean cynicism that played against the apocalyptic millenarianism. You would never confuse The Velvet Underground with the Jefferson Airplane.
In Hickenlooper's movie, the Warhol scene is contrasted with the rock milieu, embodied by her romance with a musician named "Quinn,'' a fictionalized Bob Dylan (who reportedly wrote "Just Like A Woman'' about Edie, with "her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls'') and was apparently contemptuous of the way he felt Warhol exploited her.
Both Warhol and "Quinn'' let her down " Edie seems like a girl born to be let down " but the Pop artist's indifference was stonier, more calculating. "I'd love to work with her " I've never seen a girl with so many problems,'' Warhol (Guy Pearce in the movie) says after first meeting her.
Smitten, he tells her, "I hope I die before you. I'd be too sad if you died before me.'' She did. After flameouts with her mentor over being paid for her roles in his movies, her diva-like behavior, and her increasing drug abuse, Warhol dropped her.
She moved into the Chelsea Hotel, headed in and out of rehab long before it was fashionable, and, after a last hospitalization in Santa Barbara, died of a drug overdose, in 1971. She was 28.
It's tempting to call Sedgwick the Paris Hilton of her time.
Both came from absurdly wealthy families, both had a seemingly inexhaustible taste for partying, both were prone to shedding underwear and both became famous for doing just about nothing.
The difference, of course is that Hilton is uncompromisingly vulgar and Edie had style. "I think your daughter's going to be famous,'' Warhol remarked to her mother."And what would be the value of that, Mr. Warhol?'' was the cool response. "I had much higher hopes for Edith.''
And sure enough, against the careerism and self-protectiveness of both Warhol and "Quinn,'' Edie's chronic vulnerability stood no chance. She was in way over her head.
Our culture loves to glorify young women -- particularly the blonde, the beautiful, and the wide-eyed -- and then watch them tumble under the weight of our gaze. "I haven't seen her in years,'' Warhol said, after hearing of Edie's death. "It was just so long ago. I hardly knew her at all.''
Paul Wilner is a Bay Area writer who contributes frequently to Obit.
She was too hip for the room.
Edie Sedgwick was an Old Money girl who embraced the changing culture of the '60s. Her ancestors included a signer of the Declaration of Independence, an editor of The Atlantic Monthly and the founder of the Groton School, although her wealthy family rusticated to Santa Barbara, where she was raised.
A free spirit who never felt at home in the stultifying environment of Montecito -- a younger brother committed suicide after it was discovered he was gay -- she made her escape, first to art school in Cambridge and then, incongruously, to Andy Warhol's innermost circle in bohemian Manhattan.
Edie brought attitude, and valuable aristocratic contacts, to Warhol, a poor boy from Pittsburgh still trying to break through to the upper crust art world when he first met her in 1965.
Examples of the Edie revival going on these days include the recent release of Factory Girl, George Hickenlooper's director's-cut DVD of the biopic about Sedgwick, starring Sienna Miller, the subject of considerable tabloid speculation herself; Nat Finkelstein's book, Edie/Factory Girl (Powerhouse Books); Girl on Fire, a "visual biography'' by her former associate David Weisman (Chronicle Books); websites like Edienation.com and myspace.com/ediegirlonfire; Edie T-shirts sold by Kung Fu Nation and Urban Outfitters; the re-publication of POPism: The Warhol Sixties (Harcourt Brace); and the forthcoming book, In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness and Desire in an American Family, by her cousin, John Sedgwick.
Why Edie and why now?An early adopter, Sedgwick was the first "It Girl'' of her time, combining celebrity, wealth and style. Poor Little Rich Girl, an underground film Warhol directed about her, was about a debutante who'd gone through her inheritance. She was also featured as part of the "Youthquake'' movement in Diana Vreeland's Vogue magazine because of her defining fashion statements, simple gestures like throwing a T-shirt over some leotards.
"She was the girl on fire with the silver hair close to her head, the eyes, the Viceroy in her fingers, the sleeves rolled up, those legs, yoicks! ... All you saw was her,'' the poet Rene Ricard, recalls, in Edie: American Girl, the bestseller by Jean Stein and George Plimpton, first published in 1982, before the current Sedgwick boom.
The whole scene at The Factory, where Warhol and his hangers-on congregated, also marked a deliberate contrast to the hippie, anti-materialist, folksinging, peace march-rallying ethos of the times. They had drugs, sex and rock 'n' roll in common - but speed, not grass, open homosexuality, not heterosexual promiscuity, and a louche, Wildean cynicism that played against the apocalyptic millenarianism. You would never confuse The Velvet Underground with the Jefferson Airplane.
In Hickenlooper's movie, the Warhol scene is contrasted with the rock milieu, embodied by her romance with a musician named "Quinn,'' a fictionalized Bob Dylan (who reportedly wrote "Just Like A Woman'' about Edie, with "her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls'') and was apparently contemptuous of the way he felt Warhol exploited her.
Both Warhol and "Quinn'' let her down " Edie seems like a girl born to be let down " but the Pop artist's indifference was stonier, more calculating. "I'd love to work with her " I've never seen a girl with so many problems,'' Warhol (Guy Pearce in the movie) says after first meeting her.
Smitten, he tells her, "I hope I die before you. I'd be too sad if you died before me.'' She did. After flameouts with her mentor over being paid for her roles in his movies, her diva-like behavior, and her increasing drug abuse, Warhol dropped her.
She moved into the Chelsea Hotel, headed in and out of rehab long before it was fashionable, and, after a last hospitalization in Santa Barbara, died of a drug overdose, in 1971. She was 28.
It's tempting to call Sedgwick the Paris Hilton of her time. Both came from absurdly wealthy families, both had a seemingly inexhaustible taste for partying, both were prone to shedding underwear and both became famous for doing just about nothing.
The difference, of course is that Hilton is uncompromisingly vulgar and Edie had style. "I think your daughter's going to be famous,'' Warhol remarked to her mother."And what would be the value of that, Mr. Warhol?'' was the cool response. "I had much higher hopes for Edith.''
And sure enough, against the careerism and self-protectiveness of both Warhol and "Quinn,'' Edie's chronic vulnerability stood no chance. She was in way over her head.
Our culture loves to glorify young women -- particularly the blonde, the beautiful, and the wide-eyed -- and then watch them tumble under the weight of our gaze. "I haven't seen her in years,'' Warhol said, after hearing of Edie's death. "It was just so long ago. I hardly knew her at all.''
Paul Wilner is a Bay Area writer who contributes frequently to Obit.
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COMMENTS (7) TO ADD A COMMENT, PLEASE FIRST SIGN IN OR REGISTER.
James Totulis wrote on August 27, 2009 1:29am
Every artist needs a beauty and a story and Andy had both of quality -over-the-top! [Report Comment]
veronicaromm wrote on February 24, 2008 5:28pm
'I love Edie, her story though tragic is one that many have lived, just not with her style and that "IT" quality.' [Report Comment]
texas t-bone wrote on February 20, 2008 11:41am
'nice to know someone else watched the movie, or at least read the box it came in. Great article Paul.' [Report Comment]
Lola wrote on January 8, 2008 2:47pm
'she preety much gave a glimpse of half the celebrity population's future' [Report Comment]
Emily wrote on December 15, 2007 9:45pm
'"Our culture loves to glorify young women -- particularly the blonde, the beautiful, and the wide-eyed -- and then watch them tumble under the weight of our gaze." Excellent line, so well written.' [Report Comment]
Nick wrote on July 30, 2007 11:11pm
'She`s soooo lovely...se all the great videos on Youtube. Great article Paul.' [Report Comment]
Nick wrote on July 30, 2007 11:09pm
'She`s soooo lovely...se all the great videos on Youtube. Great article Paul.' [Report Comment]
