Edie Sedgwick Socialites Information

Edith Minturn Sedgwick (April 20, 1943 – November 16, 1971) was an American actress and fashion model. She is best known for being one of Andy Warhol's superstars. Sedgwick became known as "The Girl of the Year" in 1965 after starring in several of Warhol's short films in the 1960s. She was dubbed an "It Girl", while Vogue magazine also named her a "Youthquaker".

Edie Sedgwick was born in Santa Barbara, California, the seventh of eight children of Alice Delano de Forest (1908–1988) and Francis Minturn Sedgwick (1904–1967), a rancher and sculptor. She was named after her father's aunt, Edith Minturn Stokes, who was famously painted with her husband, Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, by John Singer Sargent.

Despite her family's wealth and high social status, Edie's early life was troubled. The Sedgwick children were raised on the family's California ranches. Initially schooled at home and cared for by nannies, their lives were rigidly controlled by their parents. They were largely isolated from the outside world, and it was instilled into them that they were superior to most of their peers. It was within these familial and social conditions that Sedgwick by her early teens developed an eating disorder, settling into an early pattern of bingeing and purging. At age 13 (the year her grandfather Henry Dwight Sedgwick died), Sedgwick began boarding at the Branson School near San Francisco. According to her older sister Alice "Saucie" Sedgwick, she was soon taken out of the school because of the eating disorder. Her father severely restricted her freedom when she returned home.

All the Sedgwick children had conflicted relationships with their father (whom they called "Fuzzy"). By most accounts, he was narcissistic, emotionally remote, controlling, and frequently abusive. He also openly carried on affairs with other women. On one occasion, Edie walked in on him while he was having sex with one of his mistresses. She reacted with great surprise, but he claimed that she had imagined it, slapped her, and called a doctor to administer tranquilizers to her. As an adult, Edie told people that he had attempted to molest her several times, beginning when she was seven.

In 1958, her parents enrolled her at St. Timothy's School in Maryland. She was eventually taken out of the school due to an eating disorder that had progressed to anorexia.

In the fall of 1962, at her father's insistence, Sedgwick was committed to the private psychiatric hospital Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut. As the regime was very lax, Sedgwick easily manipulated the situation at Silver Hill, and her weight kept dropping. She was later sent to Bloomingdale, the Westchester County, New York division of the New York Hospital where her anorexia improved markedly. Around the time she left the hospital, she had a brief relationship with a Harvard student, became pregnant, and procured an abortion, citing her present psychological issues, with her mother's intervention.

In the fall of 1963, Sedgwick moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts and began studying sculpture with her cousin, artist Lily Saarinen. Saarinen said of her cousin Sedgwick, "She was very insecure about men, though all the men loved her." During this period, she partied with members of an elite bohemian fringe of the Harvard social scene, which included many gay men.

Sedgwick was deeply affected by the loss of her older brothers, Francis Jr. (known as "Minty") and Robert (known as "Bobby"), who died within 18 months of each other. Francis Sedgwick, who had a particularly unhappy relationship with their father, suffered several breakdowns, eventually committing suicide in 1964 while committed at Silver Hill Hospital. Her second oldest brother, Robert, also suffered from mental health problems and died when his motorcycle crashed into the side of a New York City bus on New Year's Eve 1965.

Sedgwick's family was long established in Massachusetts history. Her seventh-great grandfather, English-born Robert Sedgwick, was the first Major General of the Massachusetts Bay Colony settling in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1635. Sedgwick's family later moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts where her great-great-great grandfather Judge Theodore Sedgwick had settled after the American Revolution. Theodore married Pamela Dwight of the New England Dwight family who was the daughter of Abigail (née Williams) Dwight. Ephraim Williams, the founder of Williams College, was Sedgwick's fifth-great grandfather. Judge Theodore Sedgwick was the first to plead and win a case for the freedom of a black woman, Elizabeth Freeman, under the Massachusetts Bill of Rights that declared all men to be born free and equal. Her paternal great-great-great grandfather, William Ellery, was a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence.

Sedgwick's mother, Alice, was the daughter of Henry Wheeler de Forest, the President and Chairman of the Board of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and a direct descendant of Jessé de Forest, of Huguenot ancestry, whose Dutch West India Company helped to settle New Amsterdam. Jessé de Forest was also Edie's seventh-great grandfather. Her paternal grandfather was the historian and acclaimed author Henry Dwight Sedgwick III; her great-grandmother, Susanna Shaw, was the sister of Robert Gould Shaw, the American Civil War Colonel; and her great-great-grandfather, Robert Bowne Minturn, was a part owner of the Flying Cloud clipper ship and is credited with creating and promoting Central Park in New York City. She was the first cousin once removed of actress Kyra Sedgwick. Kyra is the daughter of Henry Dwight Sedgwick V (Edie's first cousin), the son of Robert Minturn Sedgwick, who was the older brother of Francis Minturn Sedgwick.

With her twenty-first birthday, celebrated in Cambridge, and with her coming of age, Sedgwick received an $80,000 trust fund from her maternal grandmother and sought a new life in New York City to pursue a career in modeling.

In March 1965, Sedgwick met artist and avant-garde filmmaker Andy Warhol at a party at Lester Persky's apartment. Shortly afterward, she became a frequent visitor to The Factory, Warhol's famed art studio. During one of her subsequent visits, Warhol was filming Vinyl, his interpretation of the novel A Clockwork Orange. Despite Vinyl's all-male cast, Warhol put Sedgwick in the movie. She also made a small cameo appearance in another Warhol film, Horse. Sedgwick's appearances in both films were brief but generated enough interest that Warhol decided to create vehicles using her presence to the fullest.

The first of those films, Poor Little Rich Girl, was originally conceived as part of a series of films featuring Sedgwick called The Poor Little Rich Girl Saga. The series was to include Poor Little Rich Girl, Restaurant, Face and Afternoon. Filming of Poor Little Rich Girl began in March 1965 in Sedgwick's apartment. Like the majority of Warhol's avant-garde films, Poor Little Rich Girl saw a limited release to underground film theaters and viewings at The Factory. Sedgwick's next film for Warhol was Kitchen (1965). Written by Factory scriptwriter Ronald Tavel, the film stars Sedgwick, Rene Ricard, Roger Trudeau, Donald Lyons and Elecktrah. After Kitchen, Chuck Wein replaced Ronald Tavel as a writer and assistant director for the filming of Beauty No. 2, in which Sedgwick appeared with Gino Piserchio.

Warhol's films were not commercially successful and rarely seen outside The Factory circle and underground film theaters, but Sedgwick's notoriety grew. Mainstream media outlets began reporting on her appearances in Warhol's films and her unusual fashion sense. During this period, she developed her ' look ' – black leotards, mini dresses, large chandelier earrings, and a trademark eye make-up. Sedgwick also cut her naturally brown hair short and was to color it with silver spray, creating a twin look with the hair-pieces Warhol wore. Warhol christened her his "Superstar" and both were photographed together at various social outings.

Throughout 1965, Sedgwick and Warhol continued making films together – Outer and Inner Space, Prison, Lupe and Chelsea Girls. However, by late 1965, Sedgwick and Warhol's relationship had deteriorated and Sedgwick, made a demand that Warhol no longer show her films. The edited footage of Sedgwick in Chelsea Girls would eventually become the film Afternoon.

Lupe is often thought to be Sedgwick's last Warhol film, but Sedgwick filmed The Andy Warhol Story with Rene Ricard in November 1966, almost a year after she filmed Lupe. The Andy Warhol Story was an unreleased film that was only screened once at The Factory. Along with Sedgwick, the film featured Ricard satirically pretending to be Andy Warhol.

Following her estrangement from Warhol's inner circle, Sedgwick began living at the Chelsea Hotel, where she became close to Bob Dylan. Dylan and his friends eventually convinced Sedgwick to sign up with Albert Grossman, Dylan's manager. According to Paul Morrissey, Sedgwick had developed a crush on Dylan that she thought he reciprocated as the start of a romantic relationship. She was also under the impression that she and Dylan would star in a mainstream film together. Unbeknownst to Sedgwick, Dylan had secretly married his girlfriend Sara Lownds in November 1965. Morrissey claimed that Sedgwick was informed of the marriage by Warhol (who reportedly heard about it through his lawyer) in February 1966. Friends of Sedgwick's later said that she saw the supposed offer of doing a film with Dylan as a ticket to a mainstream film career. Paul Morrissey claimed that Dylan likely never had plans to star in a film with Sedgwick, and Dylan "...hadn't been very truthful."

Since Sedgwick's death, Bob Dylan has routinely denied that he ever had a romantic relationship with her, but did admit to knowing her. In December 2006, several weeks before the release of the controversial film Factory Girl, the Weinstein Company and the film's producers interviewed Sedgwick's older brother, Jonathan, who said that Sedgwick told him she had aborted a baby she claimed was Dylan's. Jonathan Sedgwick claimed that Edie had the abortion soon after she was injured in a motorcycle accident. As a result of the accident, doctors consigned her to a mental hospital where she was treated for drug addiction. No hospital records or Sedgwick family records exist to support this story. Nonetheless, Sedgwick's brother also claimed "Staff found she was pregnant but, fearing the baby had been damaged by her drug use and anorexia, forced her to have the abortion."

Throughout most of 1966, Sedgwick was involved in an intense but troubled relationship with Dylan's friend, Bob Neuwirth. During this time, she became increasingly dependent on barbiturates. In early 1967, unable to cope with Sedgwick's drug abuse and erratic behavior, Neuwirth broke off their relationship.

After breaking with Andy Warhol and The Factory scene, Sedgwick attempted to forge a legitimate acting career. She auditioned for Norman Mailer. His stage adaptation of his novel The Deer Park was being produced. But Mailer "turned her down....—She was very good in a sort of tortured and wholly sensitive way—...She used so much of herself with every line that we knew she'd be immolated after three performances."

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