Corine Cohen: Chris, tell me what it was like to grow up as a
Beale. What was Jackie like?Bouvier was my grandmother's maiden name. She married Phelan Beale and had 3 children: Edith Bouvier Beale (Little Edie), Phelan Beale, and my father, Bouvier Beale.
I never knew my Granny Beale until I was about 10 when my father took me to visit her at Grey Gardens for Christmas. The matter of Granny, Aunt Edie and GG was seldom broached at our house. My mother, Katherine Ridgely Jones Beale, was mortified at the whole GG affair.
I first met Cousin Jackie on the first anniversary of JFK's death, in 1964, when I was 12. She came to visit us in our house at Glen Cove with her two children. She seemed to whisper and was very loving to her children, who wouldn't leave her alone. She liked my father, her first cousin.
She is one of the most famous women in United States History!
Grey Gardens is a masterpiece and Christine Ebersole moved me in
her portrayal as both Big and Little Edie. Tell me all about Little
Edie. Betsy told me that Little Edie lived with you in the 90's.
Was that before or after big Edie passed away?Granny died in the mid 70s. I invited Edie to live with us in Oakland in 1997. After Granny died, she sold GG and was very independent. She had been living in Montreal and we enjoyed her for 75 days before she decided she wanted to move to Florida, because she wanted to swim in the ocean, and it's too cold to do that here. She loved to swim.
Can you go into more detail about Jackie?
I met her first when I was 12 and not again until Granny's funeral and burial in East Hampton. I sat between her and Lee at the luncheon afterwards, where they bickered like school girls the whole time, and I acted as referee. The next time was another funeral, this time at a NYC church for my Great Aunt Michelle. In the vestibule afterwards, Cousin Jackie said hello and hugged my father and shook hands with some family members. She was always chic and very polite and very quiet. She always seems to embody friendly dignity and great intelligence. I never saw her again, but my father stayed in touch until his death in 1995.
Tell me all about Buddy. What was he like?"Buddy" is my father and only family members called him that. He was a very handsome, and vain, man with a true love of life (family, food, wine, tennis, duck hunting and travel, not necessarily in that order). I gave the eulogy at his funeral in 1995 at St. John's of Lattingtown Episcopal Church on Long Island. This was my mother's church (she had pre-deceased him by 4 months) and he was really an atheist, if not a nihilist. Karl Marx had it right about religion, according to Pops. With his year-round tan, he was revered at the Piping Rock Club (where he spent weekends when not at Jones Beach or Bridgehampton). He was a "character" and fun to sit with at dinner while he regaled his guests with anecdotes.
He is such a small character in Grey Gardens and it is fascinating to know more about him. You can’t help feeling for both Little Edie and Big Edie in the second act. If Little Edie was "The Body Beautiful Beale" why didn’t she pursue other things?
I believe, as the musical hints at, that even though Edie had a few breakthrough moments, like living at the Barbizon, getting a few modeling jobs and even working for her father in his office, she could never really make it on her own. Like many girls of her social standing at that time, she had no training. She could never really be away from her mother for long. Insecure? Perhaps. Mentally not always stable? Maybe.
She was such a character! Did you meet Christine Ebersole and
what did you feel about her performance as a family member of Big
and Little Edie? She moved me to tears. How did the show make you
feel?I met CE both at the after party of the Playwright's Horizon production last February and again at the Boathouse this month. She has done about as good a job of depicting my relatives as I think possible - and this is from the point of view of both a relative and an actor. Granted, she had a two-hour documentary (the Maysles brother's film) to study speech patterns and movement, giving her great material, but she used it to good effect. I am a sentimental slob anyway but she gets me in the second act. It's really very emotional. I loved Granny and Edie for exactly what they were to me, my Granny and Auntie. I miss them both. This whole thing of seeing your relatives on stage is really too bizarre.
It must be! Tell me about Grey Gardens before it was run down. Was the mansion really 28 rooms?
I never saw GG in good shape (it was in the early 60s by then, and already on its way downhill) until after Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn bought it and fixed it up in the late 70s. It was, if Pops was to be believed, a lovely "House and Garden" type house in its day. He grew up there. It wasn't as large as 28 rooms make it sound. That's probably including bathrooms, large closets, pantries, cellar and attic rooms, porches, etc.
What did Little Edie do when Big Edie passed away? Did she ever marry or have a boyfriend?
Much to the amazement of the family, after her mother died in the 70s, she wasted no time and moved to NYC and got a night club gig at Reno Sweeney's. I never saw it because I had moved to California by then and was a starving actor. Again, whether she actually had talent, or was just a novelty (and cousin of Jackie) is a questions still debated. The Maysles movie had come out, and she was a bit of a cult figure, especially in gay circles.
She was never married, never engaged, especially not to Joe Kennedy, and didn't have any "straight" boyfriends that I know of. She did always seem to have friends, both before and after she lived with us. She was always on the phone.
She sounds like fun! I would have liked to have met her! What were the names of the other sons and why were they not part of the story of Grey Gardens. Tell me all about Edie's sons. What are they doing now and tell me all about what you are doing now.
Again, my father, Bouvier Beale ("Buddy") and his older brother
Phelan are Big Edie's sons and Little Edie's brothers. Phelan moved
to Oklahoma in the 60s and I saw very little of him just the stray
wedding or funeral. Phelan was very different from my father - very
gentle, quiet and not vain at all. Not a hunter. My mother always
said he was a nice man; a lover. He bailed out of the whole GG debacle
and let my father deal with it.Both brothers are dead. Phelan has one daughter, Michelle, who lives in Houston. My father had 3 sons, of which I am the youngest.
If you want to know more about the Bouvier's, read my Cousin John "Jack" Davis' book, "The Bouviers".
Also, my brother's and I, specifically my brother Bouvier's wife Eva, are working on a book about Edie with her poetry and many family photos, scheduled to come out next year. The working title is "Little Edie: The Flower of Grey Gardens."
I live in the San Francisco Bay area with my wife Betsy Ballenger, and am a commercial actor (mostly) and the sole proprietor of a legal services business.
Tell me more about your acting. Most of this interview was because I am a huge fan of Grey Gardens the musical, BUT I want to know more about you! If you could change any of Grey Gardens the musical what would it be and why?
I came to the Bay area in 1977 after graduating from Boston University's School of Fine Arts. I was looking for Sam Shepard (the playwright) and oddly, years later had the privilege of working with him on Phil Kaufman's movie "The Right Stuff." I've got film credits, local theatre and lots of commercial work under my belt now.
I
would prefer the film and musical had never happened, for obvious
reasons. Lots of people have wacky grandmothers and aunts. Just
because mine were related to Jackie they were immortalized by the
Maysles brothers. I'd prefer to think everyone lived happily ever
after. The fact is, Granny and Aunt Edie wanted to stay at GG. My
father tried to get them out, but they didn't want to go. Jackie
stepped in with Onassis' money after the embarrassment of the squalor
came out in the papers, but the fact is, as Granny says in the musical,
they chose their life, and they lived it.Who are you closest to of the Beale's?
My two brothers and their families and old friends from school, most of whom live back East.
What do you want the world to know about your family?
We really aren't that different from everyone else. We're just related to Jackie.
Based on the landmark documentary by the Maysles Brothers, and following a sold out Off-Broadway premiere last spring, GREY GARDENS is on Broadway at The Walter Kerr Theatre (219 West 48th Street). Tickets: www.telecharge.com, (212) 239-6200. Visit www.greygardensthemusical.com for more information.
Grey Gardens is a must see. Christine Ebersole gives the performance of a lifetime. Corine's Corner recommends this show and advises you to buy tickets in advance. It is a hard ticket to attain. 10 STARS.
Photos: 1. Chris and Betsy Beale; 2. Christine Ebersole (by Joan Marcus); 3. Mary Louise Wilson (by Joan Marcus); 4. Mary Louise Wilson and Christine Ebersole (by Joan Marcus); 5. Christine Ebersole and Bob Stillman (by Joan Marcus); 6. Mary Louise Wilson (by Joan Marcus)
Interview conducted by Corine Cohen
