11. Little Edie Tried To Escape The Grey Gardens
Big Edie feared that if the popular socialite Little Edie married, she would have no one to take care of her since only daughters typically cared for ailing parents at the time. Luckily for Big Edie, Little Edie’s overwhelming love for her mother led her to drop everything literally in 1952 to move home and take care of her mother. She gave up a rapidly rising fame and possibly even a movie career to care for her mother.
Unsurprisingly, it is reported that Little Edie quickly felt trapped and stifled by her new arrangements. In addition to lighting her own hair on fire in the act of protest or desperation shortly after moving to the Grey Gardens, Little Edie also revealed in the documentary Grey Gardens that she had attempted to escape and run away from her mother three times.
Little Edie often lamented in Grey Gardens that she wanted to take her mother and move to a busy city like New York City or Paris. Her mother coldly responded, “You’ve had enough fun in your life.” Little Edie following up this exchange by remarking to the documentarian that she had “been a subterranean prisoner [at Grey Gardens] for 20 years.”