Edie (41 page)

Somebody had sent a plane down for us. We were all terribly late. We didn’t have our wardrobes quite together. The plane waited at the airport for a couple of hours until we turned up.

BOB NEUWIRTH
 It was Joan Kennedy’s birthday party in Hyannis Port. They wanted us because of the ladies—Susan Burden, Edie. Big Kennedy-compound birthday party. Tents set up in the back yard, local inept rock group of sixteen-year-old kids, smashing guest list.
I can remember Lillian Hellman smoking cigarette after cigarette. Jackie. Sam Spiegel, the producer. But it wasn’t Hollywoodish. It was an East Coast kind of party. It was a foggy night, right? I was the only one who wasn’t dressed properly. I had on summer clothes—a light turtleneck. The only other person there who wasn’t dressed was this guy in a black Japanese bathrobe who turned out to be Sargent Shriver. I spent most of the evening in front of the fireplace at Teddy Kennedy’s drinking and discussing this great plan I had for giving free eight-millimeter cameras to the ghetto in order to get a good inside view. I was very hot on people making their own movies.

Edie was a smash. She had absolutely no respect for anyone; she had herself a great time. She was a scamp, but totally social—one of the few people in contact with all the elements of the party.

ONDINE
 One day in the Factory I said, This is ridiculous, but i’m penniless. I’ll do anything.” Edie said, “Oh, I need a maid.” Andy said, “Oh, do you think you need a maid?” Edie said, “I do.” So I became her French maid. My salary was something like thirty dollars a week, which was enough, I guess, for a male maid. I needed just enough money to buy amphetamine and I was fine. You see, the dealers used to come to the factory. They were nice—not street dealers. Very elegant. Rotten Rita would appear frequently. He looked like an advertising executive who’d gone awry; he’d come out with this big soprano voice. There was one called the turtle. He only sold drugs to friends—three hundred dollars a pound for amphetamine. almost always amphetamine, never anything else. He was called the turtle because he had one bone missing from his back, so his neck did not quite appear above his collar.

Those were the days I lived in Central Park. I’d wake up by the lakes and swim in them. I was really out of it—very far out. Then I’d go to the West Side, where I had a couple of opera friends who did nothing but listen to music and shoot up, and after that to Edie’s house on the other side of the Park in the Sixties.

She’d invariably be asleep. I would have to wake her up. That was my main duty as a French maid. She was barbiturated and there was no way she could get up except resentfully. I had this nervous ring on the bell—zzz-zzz-zzz-zzz. She would finally answer it: “That you,
Ondine?” I’d say, “Yeah, if s me.” When I got up there, she’d start coming to and ask if I had any amphetamine. I’d give her some and she’d be fine. In her leotards she’d start doing her exercises. Then we’d play opera and stuff. I introduced her to the world of opera. I would always play Callas. I’d make her something to eat. She mostly ate roast-beef sandwiches and potato salad. A couple of mornings I made eggs. She’d sniff the amphetamine or put it in her coffee. That would start her to come alive. She’d begin to talk. She would open the
I Ching.
We threw an
I Ching,
the two of us collectively, and it was called “Pushing Upward, No. 46.” It was a difficult one and really very strange. When we played the
I Ching,
I’d put on her earrings. Do you remember her earrings? The most fabulous earrings, and she’d say, “Here, take them.” I’d put them on for the J
Ching.
We loved the
I Ching.
It was very serious about rulers, and about being truthful to the Prince. At that point we thought Warhol was the Prince. It’s a very strange book.

We sat on her hippopotamus, called Wallow. It was this big leather hippo. He was so divine. Or was it a rhinoceros? I have no idea, but it was one of those things. We’d talk about Wallow. Then she’d go to the Victrola and play Joan Sutherland’s
Traviata
and next I’d play Callas’
Traviata
just to see; then we’d play the Beatles. This went on and on and on. And phone calls; every minute there were phone calls. Dates. People. Thousands of people who wanted her to do layouts for this and that.

My duties as a French maid were really just to get her up for all of this, give her a cup of coffee, and then talk to her. Mostly talk to her. Because she
had
a maid. She had a colored woman—I don’t remember what her name was. Jane? Once I whispered to Edie, “I’m going to put some amphetamine in her tea.” Edie said, “Oh, that would be fabulous I” So we put this drug in her tea, and the woman started vacuuming the house, but she didn’t have the vacuum plugged in. The opera was playing so loud she didn’t miss that there was no sound from the vacuum cleaner. She went nuts on this one little rug. She vacuumed it for like two hours. She was
so
involved in getting spots off this and that. She polished the faucets in the bathroom. She cleaned out everything in there. We sat there for two hours roaring. After she finished, she said, “Oh, I’m just so exhausted, I really need a beer or something. I don’t know why I feel this way. I just want to talk.” So we gave her a beer, and we had this marvelous conversation with this just wonderful person . . . talked about her life and husband and all these people. Just on and on.

I was Edie’s French maid for about four months. After I stopped,
Victor became her French maid. Edie constantly accused him of stealing things . . . which he did or did not do, I have no idea. She could be mean to people. I remember her keeping Victor in the bathroom for about an hour and a half, trying to find a diamond ring that she had misplaced.
She
had misplaced it, but she accused him of stealing it. “It’s got to be in the bathroom I” Edie really used him. “Get in that bathroom. Look for that ring!” She was marvelous for him. It was just what he wanted. Everyone did it to him.

You won’t find Victor now. Down the hatch. He was a very pretty guy, but he was just out of it. He was just totally crackers. His favorite movie star was Jane Russell, the pin-up star. So
he
liked to be pinned up on walls. He was very famous for that. People would come in, shoot him up, and pin him on a wall . . . like he was the original crucifixion.

Then I moved to the Upper East Side into a friend’s house who was probably the most original and fabulous prostitute in New York City. Her name was Leah. All I could think about was Leah. Women: Leah! I entered into a love relationship with her. I’d catch her on the side with girls, making it. I found out later that Edie and Leah were very good friends, and I had this feeling that she was making it with Edie and another girl, too. Just that quiet thing where nobody knows about it. Just not spoken about. Women do that so well, but men make a big stink about it. Leah owns a big castle in France now. She’s totally insane. Warhol tried to film her once and she smashed every camera he had. 1 told you not to come into my bedroom. It’s where I work.”

There were orgies downstairs in Edie’s building. Three females and three men, and the men would all be having sex—the girls sort of watching . . . everyone so drugged and drunk. Edie and I went. Leah telephoned me there one night. She was screaming. I asked, “What’s the matter?” She said, “Someone is fucking me in the ass,” and she started yelling that peculiar painful yell. I said, “Get over here quickly!” She came and joined in. I’ll never forget the look on Edie’s face. She was in Wonderland. Just demented. She couldn’t believe it . . . just freaked by the scene.

Often Edie and I would talk about how marvelous it was being with Warhol. Things would come up. Other people were telling her that she should concern herself with being a very famous star . . . putting it in her mind that she was the greatest thing since Greta Garbo or Marilyn Monroe—she owed it to herself to be that famous. She didn’t know what to do. She began to get qualms. She told me I was her guru at one point, and I said, “I refuse the challenge. I’ll be nobody’s guru, darling. I can’t even guru myself.” She really wanted some guidance very badly; she wanted a spiritual moment. And nobody gave it to her. I just wasn’t qualified. I felt the greatest thing I could do for her was to be her friend. Strictly her friend.

The back room at Max’s Kansas City

RICHIE BERLIN
 I used to visit Edie in that apartment. I wondered from the first about her. You know, what’s her scene? What is she into? Is she straight? Is she gay? Is she Edie Sedgwick who charges and shops a lot and has fun? Is she Andy Warhol’s superstar? I thought that was a putdown, but it really held her up.

I heard her talk and the tone of her voice. Is she well born? Is she a buttonhook child? Somebody once told me that’d be a fine name for a book. A
Buttonhook Child.
That’s said of certain children. Bight? The smocked dress; the buttonhook to do your shoes. Isn’t she absolutely darling?”

Edie had eyes as big as teacups. She’d bat them twice and immediately you’d say, “Oh, darling, come in,” and you’d run her a Vitabath or whatever. She’d call the drugstore downstairs, Tuna salad heavy on the mayo, hold this, hold that,” and then she’d ask, “Can I have a poke, please?” and you’d give her a poke and then she’d ask, “Do you have anything to wear?” She was my size, right? The phone would be ringing, a thousand times, and I would say, “She’s ready. She’s here.” She’d be dressed and looking fantastic in my clothes. When she was poked up and ready to go out, she was La Sedgwick. But I said to myself every time she left, “What a loss. What abuse,” as if I were my own mother taking over my head.

What fun she was to be with! All my friends are the most divine mixture of horrors. Darling, you have no idea what it was like, to get up, get into a Donald Brooks dress, put my Zuckerman coat on, get my gold shoulder earrings out, get my Margaret Jerrould pumps on, and go around with Edie to Lord & Taylor’s on the ground floor with my paranoia and tell them I’m rich . . . “Mrs. Richard Berlin’s daughter. No, don’t be silly! I don’t carry identification with me. You can call up
all
the stores; they know me instantly. I’ve
got
to have those things,” and those things would start coming down the chute. Edie would go with me on the “trips”—a Hedda Hopper, a shoplifting tour. She’d pop those eyes at them—the storekeepers waiting for the merchandise to be packaged, and I’d always be waiting for that dick to come down the tubes telling the manager that we were to freeze at the counter. My picture was on the cash register of the Notions Department of Bloomingdale’s.

To go into a store was like Broadway. This was it I You’d go in and you’re up for the Academy Awards on the ground floor. It was their number against yours. There was nothing to make you feel marvelous like a quick purchase. Bath products. A little of this, a little of that. Edie didn’t care. She’d say, “Listen, we’ll go and get these fabulous things. We can trade them for cash for Dr. Roberts.”

I used to trade Daddy’s old Knight of Malta medals for vials of amphetamine. Eva Braun’s barrette she got from Hitler that he’d bought somewhere. Brigid sold Daddy’s Calvin Coolidge letters for twenty-five dollars. Anything for a poke or a pill. One day I swallowed the cufflinks from my new Brooks Brothers shirt. Somebody said, “Here,” and I took them as if they were Miltowns or something. Had to have a pill. I’ve got to get my heart started.

Edie SEDGWICK
 (from tapes for the movie
Ciao!Manhattan) 1 think drugs are like strawberries. That was something I was very much a part of, but at the same time there’s that incredible nightmare paranoia . . . it drives human beings crazy. It frightened me to see it around me . . . I had everything that could be moved stolen by speed freaks. Things began to disappear. The Queen Bee Speedfreaks and Amphetamine Annie had found out where my apartment was. AH my jewelry was stolen and all my expensive clothes. Dior, Balenciaga . . . just tons of originals. By the way, have you heard anything about my furs? Everybody’s wearing them.

GENEVIEVE CHARBIN
 When I lived with Edie, she would give me a pI’ll in the morning to get me up faster so I could start doing things for her, like running to Cambridge Chemists to buy her eighteen cases of make-up or going to the laundry for her. My first image of the day was this little voice saying, “Genevieve, here’s your breakfast.” I’d look up and see Edie arrive with her hair all upside down, in a dirty negligee, with that funny little bird walk, holding a tray with an impeccable breakfast on it—orange juice, a little napkin, eggs and toast, and a little plate with a pI’ll on it, next to the coffee and the orange juice—the first thing within reach so you’d be sure to get it right away.