Grey Gardens Screening/NY POST

EDIE, DRINK & BE MERRY AT LI FILM MANSE

A WILD & WACKY 'GARDENS' PARTY

Last updated: 9:59 am
April 13, 2009
Posted: 2:16 am
April 13, 2009

BIG EDIE must have been dancing -- and singing -- in her grave.

On Saturday night, after a screening of HBO's way-crazy, wonderful "Grey Gardens," 100 or so guests headed over to the real thing, Grey Gardens in East Hampton, for a party.

It was exactly the kind of soiree that Edith Bouvier Beale would have thrown in her heyday.

Edith, a k a Big Edie, was an aunt of Jacqueline Kennedy and a rich, slightly screwy socialite of the 1930s who turned into a nutty recluse in the 1960s, living in Grey Gardens with her equally loopy daughter, Little Edie, in filth and squalor.

The 18-mom "cottage," now restored to its former glory by its new owners, former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, was filled to overflowing with just the kind of rich bohemian types that Big Edie loved.

Glorious as the house was, what I really wanted to see was the infamous bedroom, the one room in the crumbling, filthy manse that the women "lived" in during the filming of the famous documentary in 1975.

Trust me, after this Saturday's premiere of the movie "Grey Gardens," starring Jessica Lange and Drew Banymore, you will know which bedroom I'm talking about.

Now it has been restored to a glorious, flower-bedecked, frilly room with perfectly lined drapes. But still, I just had to lie down in the bed in that bedroom.

Even though the urine-stained, cat-befouled twin bed was long gone, the spirit, if not the odor, lingered on.

But I had to wait my turn. Publicist Peggy Siegal jumped on it first.

So in the spirit of Little Edie, I grabbed a big scarf and tied it around Peggy's head, giving me the chance to screech, "Edie! I need you here, Edie!" and she answered, "Yes, Motha dahling."

A trip downstairs yielded the biggest prize -- the spot in the corner of one room where thousands of roach-filled, empty cat-food cans had once upon a time been tossed by Little Edie.

And now, that spot is -- yes -- the dining room where Bob Balaban, Lorraine Bracco, Dick Cavett, Henry Kravis, Steve Kroft, Lay McInerney and Christie Brinkley were chowing down on delicious food that, thank God, did not include pate.

EFTA00748745

Sally Quinn, gorgeous in a gray kimono, gray hair perfectly coifed as Big Edie's once was, told me that when they went looking for a house in 1979, "the Realtor showed me everything from Bellport to Montauk. Finally she said, 'Grey Gardens is available ... but I'm not going in there!'"

Sally did and fell in love at first sight, if not smell.

When showing her the house, "Little Edie twirled around," Quinn said, and declared, "It just needs a coat of paint!"

When Quinn went over and tinkled the keys of Big Edie's famous piano, the floor caved in under it.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "The rich are different from you and me."

EFTA00748746