About Me
Edith Minturn Sedgwick is best known famous for her time spent with pop artist, film-maker, icon, Andy Warhol, as his "Superstar." She became "girl of the year, 1965." Born from a prominent and important family, Edie seemed destined to be a star. After leaving Cambridge, Edie and friends fled to New York. Shortly after meeting warhol, she seemingly rejuvenated his already hugely successful in the art world through starring in his underground films, steering art into a whole new direction at the time. She was the Marilyn Monroe of Underground films.
The films, "Poor Little Rich Girl," "Beauty No. 2," "Vinyl," and "Outer and Inner Space" made Edie a star, dubbed the queen of the underground. She appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines such as, Life, Time and Vogue.
Edie had the beauty, wealth, and glamour. Edie, influential as a fashion icon during and after her short lived life, flourished the New York scene with black tights, chandelier earrings, blackened eyelids, and the cropped silver hair. Each time photographed, the look, the fashion embodied different emotions.
Being in the spotlight rapidly decreased for Edie, as did her relationship with Warhol in late '65, yet still associated through the years, due to her desire to leave the underground and pursue modelling and Hollywood status. She didn't get the chance to become the actual next Marilyn Monroe, though she still did underground films with various filmmakers.
Meanwhile, she used drugs during her time with Warhol, and after. And while under the influence causing her to burn down more than the wanted few apartments. Since the drugs she was using, were highly used and high addicted she was succumbed to being committed to mental hospitals.
And in 1967, she began filming a new film, "Ciao! Manhattan." Shooting became unpredictable, eventually causing the film to stop. During the break Edie's drug problem escalated and ultimately sending her back home to Santa Barbara, California. Filming for "Ciao! Manhattan" was picked up in 1970, while Edie was seeking help and was thought to have been clean of drugs.
While in Santa Barbara, she met her future husband, Michael Post, whom she married in August of 1971. Three months later, Edie suffocated to death as she over dosed on barbiturates.
The last official film Edie starred in for Andy Warhol, filmed during her final times with Andy in 1965, was about actress Lupe Velez, whose suicide (she overdosed on sleeping pills, and while regurgitating Lupe died with her head inside of the toilet bowl) was notorious to be that of obscurity and to reach cult status. Much like Marilyn Monroe and Lupe Velez, Edie's death parallels Andy Warhol's work, the repition, the use of a commodity repeated.
Edie's everlasting memory lives on, not to be remembered just as an Andy Warhol commodity, but as a person who set the standards for so many, both big and small. Through pictures, stories, myths and film, she lives on leaving more people wanting more.
An Edie Sedgwick Internet Site
Edie Nation
Girl on Fire
Edie @ Warholstars
Edie @ Wikipedia
Edie @ Livejournal
Everything that happened to me has been a
paradox for life. The very things that
I should have done would have been
the trap. The very things I might have
given into, that demanded, that said,
this is your life. I mean, this is your
only way to survive, are the things
I fought hardest to end. 'Cause I
believed in something else. You have
to work like mad to make people
understand... Even if I don't make
it, you know, I really insist on believing,
and then I fall off the edge
because there's nobody else to follow it.
And I would just fall off the edge...
-Edie
Edie Sedgwick
April 20, 1943 – November 16, 1971
_______________________________________________
Tidbits…
In the 1980s, according to an 1985 Interview magazine article, featuring Molly Ringwald, claims Warren Beatty bought the rights to Edie's life story and was planning to make a movie with Ringwald starring as Sedgwick. and in a 1988 Vogue article it was reported a film entitled The War at Home was set to be loosely based on her life during The Factory years. Linda Fiorentino was to portray her. It was to be based on John Byrum's fictionalized account of a working-class man who becomes enamored with her. Neither was ever produced.
Director Mike Nichols and actress Natalie Portman considered doing a film about Edie and Andy Warhol, yet decided to go with the film adaption of Patrick Marber's play Closer.
Although it was very brief, she was referenced and portrayed by Jennifer Rubin, in Oliver Stone's 1991 film The Doors starring Val Kilmer, during The Factory party scene when Jim Morrison meets Andy Warhol.
The alternative rock band Dramarama used a photograph of Sedgwick on their album Cinéma Vérité. On that album, the song "All I Want" makes a reference to Edith Sedgwick Post. Dramarama also recorded a version of The Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale" on their first "Cinema Verite" and their debut EP Comedy.
The Cult wrote a song about her life called "Edie (Ciao Baby)" which was on their Sonic Temple album, released in 1989. It was released as a single and video-clip starring an Edie-Double. The cover featured the famous "Ciao! Manhattan" cover shot.
From the band Bauhaus, David J. writes and directs 'Silver For Gold: The Odyssey Of Edie Sedgwick.' A stage production based on Edie Sedgwick's life.
Edie auditioned for Norman Mailer's play The Deer Park, but Mailer thought she "wasn't very good... She used so much of herself with every line that we knew she'd be immolated after three performances."
According to Bert Stern, he threw a part for model Twiggy in 1967, and Edie was there to attend.
On the night of November 15, 1971, Sedgwick went to a fashion show at the Santa Barbara Museum, a segment of which was filmed for the television show An American Family. Several hours later, Edie died.
According to the book, The Baby Name Bible, the name Edie has recently become popular due to the rediscovery of Edie Sedgwick.
_______________________________________________
Some books to check out!
