Grey Gardens (1975)
Edith Bouvier Beale: Self
Photos
Quotes
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : The cat's going to the bathroom right right in back of my portrait.
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : God, isn't that awful?
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : No, I'm glad he is. I'm glad somebody's doing something he wanted to do.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Aren't you going to feed, uh, Whiskers, Edie? Come on, go feed Whiskers. No, don't eat it; give it to Whiskers, please!
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : My body is a very precious place. It's concentrated ground.
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : He might as well leave right now, 'cause he's *never* gonna get it. So that's it.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Get what? Sex with you?
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : What he's after!
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : He doesn't want any sex with you.
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : That's all they're after!
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : An old person like you?
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : That's all they're after! So why don't you tell him right now? You should tell him right now so I'm not bothered by him.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : She had a proposal of marriage from Paul Getty. Remember Paul, the richest man in the world?
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : He always compliments me on the way I do my corn.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : [annoyed by her daughter's singing] Where in the hell did you come from?
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : It's very hot in New York on July 29th.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Will you shut up? It's a goddamn beautiful day, shut up!
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : Mother, you don't have enough clothes on.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Well, I'm going to get naked in just a minute, so you better watch out.
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : That's what I'm afraid of.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Yeah, for what, now why? I haven't got any warts on me.
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : But the movie, the movie!
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : I haven't got any warts on me!
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : That isn't the point, mother darling.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : It is a beautiful ocean today, isn't it? What would you say that is, sort of sapphire? I've never seen anything like that ocean!
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : You can't have your cake and eat it, too in life.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Oh, yes, I did. I did, I had my cake, loved it, masticated it, chewed it and had everything I wanted.
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Norman Vincent Peale : To get on top of things and stay there.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Does that mean women, too?
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : [offering food to David and Al Maysles] Will you eat some liver pate, you kiddies?
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : It's not awfully good.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : If you put lemon with it, it's all right.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : I may die with this diet!
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : France fell but Edie didn't fall.
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : She doesn't like the Catholic Church.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Oh, go on, what the hell, I worship the Catholic Church!
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : I like freedom.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Well, you can't get it, darling. You're being supported. You can't get any freedom when you're being supported.
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : You can't?
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : No. You can't get it.
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : I think you're not free when you're not being supported... .It's awful both ways.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : You didn't *feel* then the way you do now. Everybody thinks and feels differently as the years go by, don't they.
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : Ponder - both? Or, pondering each? Pondering one, I took the other. And that made all the difference.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Robert Frost?
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : Isn't that wonderful?
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Did he say that?
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : That's all you need, just three lines like that.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Edie, is that Robert Frost?
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : Who else?
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Edie, stop it! I'm going to get up now. Goodbye. I'm going right in the other room with the cats where I'll be happy. I'm not going to take it. I hope my bathing suit falls off. I hope it does. Something fell off just then.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Always must do everything correctly!
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : [saying goodbye to her birthday party guests] Thank you for your card and your ice-cream, I love you very much!
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : When are going to learn, Edie, you're in this world, you know. You're not out of the world.
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : I suppose I won't get out of here until she dies or I die.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Who is she?
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : I don't know when I'm going to get out of here.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Well, why do you want to get out?
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : Because I don't like it.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Anyplace would be much worse. Anyplace on earth.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : I had a perfect marriage. Beautiful children. Terribly successful marriage. Never had a fight in my life.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : ["Tea for Two" on the record player] This is a dance. Come on, Edie.
[Little Edie giggles]
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : I - I used to do it myself, you know. I could dance the soft shoe.
[singing]
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : To see us or hear us, No friends or relations on weekend vacation, They won't have it known, dear, that we own a telephone, no, no, no, I'll awake and start to bake, A sug-sug-sugar ca-ca-cake...
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : I'll have to get drunk. I'll have to start drinking. I can't take it. She'll make a drunkard out of her mother.
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : When am I going to get out of here?
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : She's always talking like that.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : See, she doesn't want to eat any more. She got fat, so, I have to sit here and starve all the time.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : After Mr. Beale stopped living in East Hampton, I had a terrible hard time with Edie. She just want *wild* after her father wasn't living her. She went wild.
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : It's absolutely disgusting, for women to alone. What are they proving? They have to go around dogs or other women or something.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Dogs are lovely. I'll take a dog anyway.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : [singing] After the night and the music die, will I have you?
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : You didn't say "la". You're not Czechoslovakian. Love! You don't say "laaave". You say the la - you see, she knows she's singing so badly she had to wiggle about 20 times to every note to distract the people, you know, that she really can't sing a drop.
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : I can sing - like mad!
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Well, sing beautifully. You're singing incorrectly. Very ugly. All of us must do everything correctly.
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : I see myself as - a little girl and all that.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : And I see a very immature child.
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : You know, she see's me as a baby and I see myself as - some kind of a little girl. They see me as a woman. I don't - I don't see it. When I get out of here, I do. When I go to New York City I'll see myself as a woman. But, in here, I'm just, you know, mother's little daughter.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : You do. You've got a beautiful face, like a girl. Like, you look like my mother. Absolute image of my mother, Jerry.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : You're waiting for the chicken? You mean to say, you're not going to have soup or a drink or high ball, or something like that? Don't you think we better have some rum?
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : You are not going to sing that song! Stop it, will you!
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : Why not?
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Because I don't want to hear it. I'm your mother. Remember me?
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : I stood for yours all these years.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Come on. Well, my voice is beautiful and trained. It was beautifully trained, my voice. I never tried to attract men with it.
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : She's always hated Marlene Dietrich.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : I can't stand her!
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : She absolutely loathes Marlene Dietrich.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : She makes me very ill.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : I have to get very tough with Edie. To get anything you get very, very tough. "Strong hand," says the priest. He said, "She needs a strong hand as her father." I know it. I brought her here without her father. It was very difficult. Then, she went to New York and did what she wanted to. You know, I wanted to get Mr. Beale back and have him come back. She said she'd leave the house forever if I had her father come back.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Stop that silly nonsense! Quit it!
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : I can't have any fun.
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Go away! You've had enough fun all your life.
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : I never had a minute's fun. Not a minute. I never had a minute's fun.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : [singing] In the silence of my lonely room, I think of you...
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Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : Mother, do you realize that your whole chest was showing in that movie?
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Yeah, I'm awful glad everything is perfectly disgusting on account of you. You did it. You sure bring out the worst in your mother.
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Sing "Only a Rose" now Edie. You ought to do that. Go on sing it.
[singing]
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Only a rose
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : Only a rose... Only a rose, I give you, Only a rose
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Dying away
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : Dying away, Only a rose
Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : To keep in memory
Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale : To keep in memory, Only...
[laughs]
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Oh, Edie! Are you around?
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Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale : Oh, Edie, it's not the best one!