I’m nobody’s kid sister.
Lee Radziwill on being Jackie Kennedy’s Sister. (The Commonplace Book Project)
The Commonplace Book Project is a daily post based on Ray Bradbury’s advice to aspiring writers: read a poem, a short story, and an essay every day for 1000 days. These posts start with a quote and go wherever the rabbit hole leads. Follow The 1000 Day MFA publication so you don’t miss a thing.
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“I’m nobody’s kid sister. I think it’s time to make up a new story or go to bed.” — Lee Radziwill, People
Lee Radziwell hired documentary makers Albert and David Maysles to make a film about the Bouvier family. I’m not sure if she thought that they’d catch a glimpse of Camelot, but what came of it was a cult film about her odd aunt and cousin called Grey Gardens.
I watched Grey Gardens tonight, while I was writing this post. The two women — mother and daughter — lived together in a 28-room mansion in the Hamptons that was nearly condemned before Lee Radziwell and her sister, Jackie Kennedy, stepped in and spent more than $30,000 (in the 1970s) to clean and repair it.
Lee Radziwill tried to be an actress, but was panned so badly for her performances in The Philadelphia Story in Chicago and in the tv movie called Laura that she gave it up.
She also worked briefly as an interior designer.
One of the things she’s most well known for, though, was being Truman Capote’s frequent companion. She became a princess, through marriage. It seems, though, like she struggled her whole life with always being outshone. By her sister, especially.
J. Randy Taraborrelli wrote a biography of Lee and her sister and their mother, Janet — Jackie, Janet, and Lee.
I was so enraptured by Grey Gardens that it was actually difficult to write this post. I kept getting drawn into it. If you’ve never seen it, definitely take a look. The women — Big and Little Edie — are magnificently eccentric. There’s a scene where the daughter takes a loaf of Wonder bread up to the attic, wearing fishnets and heels, and dumps it on the floor to feed the raccoons.
It’s like Hoarders in an marvelous, decrepit rambling mansion. There are parts where the mother and daughter show photographs of themselves when they were young and they were truly beautiful. Both of them.
Here’s a Paris Review article about the library at Gray Gardens.
Here’s a collection of photographs of Lee Radziwill.
And this article about Lee’s apartment in New York was interesting.
Today’s Poem:
Little Edie recites The Road Not Taken in Gray Gardens. I thought it would be a good choice for today.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
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Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the author of Viral Nation and Rebel Nation and the upcoming novel The Astonishing Maybe. She is the original Ninja Writer.
