Its Tragic Beauty Tuesday! Every Tuesday Im gonna post a new tragic beauty until Ive got something better to post: This week’s tragic beauty is Edie Sedgwick, the greatest of Andy Warhol’s “Superstars.” Warhol was fascinated with fame, and he used his own fame to celebrate the low-life junkies and glamorous transvestites that populated New York’s seedy underworld. He called them “superstars” even though most of them didn’t gain much attention outside the skewed world of Andy’s Factory. The one exception was Edie Sedgwick, but she wasn’t like the other superstars. She stood out from Warhol’s usual cadre of delusional misfits and cross dressers. She was gorgeous and dignified, and exuded the kind of effortless grace that’s found in people born into fabulous privilege. Which she was. Sedgwick’s American roots could be traced back to the Mayflower. Sedgwick met Warhol while pursuing modeling in New York. The real life progeny of WASP aristocracy, Sedgwick was Andys lifeline to the upper crust society that he not so secretly lusted to be accepted by. Sedgwick instantly became Warhol’s most prized superstar and starred in several of his notable films, including Poor Little Rich Girl, a semi-autobiographical account of a day in the life of a bored and addicted heiress. She was also the most popular of Andy’s superstars and the only one to break out of Andys shadow, probably because she didn’t look or act all that different from the real superstars that Andy’s “Superstars” were meant to lampoon. Andy couldn’t stand the idea of someone in his circle becoming as famous as him and their relationship deteriorated. Despite her association with Warhol, Sedgwick’s greatest contribution to pop-culture was through music. But she was no singer. After being kicked out of Warhol’s inner circle, she had a short and turbulent affair with Bob Dylan while they were both staying at the infamous Chelsea Hotel. She enjoyed the subsequent privilege of (allegedly) being the target of not one but two of the famously bitter poet’s most scathing character assassinations: 1966’s “Just Like a Woman,” and 1965’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” the latter of which is a good candidate for greatest rock song ever recorded if there was such a thing. (She was also the titular subject in the Velvet Undergrounds Femme Fatale) One of the lines tying Sedgwick to “Rolling Stone” refers to the subject’s predilection for “fog, amphetamines, and pearls.” a possible allusion her well-known wealth and the addictions. Years later in 1971, after years of struggling with depression and anorexia and an unsuccessful stint in rehab, Sedgwick accidentally overdosed on barbiturates in her Santa Barbara home at the age of 28. When asked about the death of his most famous Superstar, Warhol commented: “I never understood Edie. Even when she had a drawerful of amphetamines at home she would steal a few more from another one of the girls.” youtube/watch?v=hLW_sXv44Uc
Posted on: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 21:38:22 +0000
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