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| Edie Sedgwick's & Michael Post's Marriage July 24, 1971 |
At age 13 (the year her grandfather Babbo died) Edie began boarding at the Branson School near San Francisco; but, according to Saucie (her eldest sister), she was soon taken out of the school because of her anorexia. In 1962, at Fuzzy's insistence, Edie was admitted to the Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut. According to fellow patient Virginia Davis, the regime was very lax there, and Edie and her friends often left the hospital after lunch and went into town on shopping sprees, charging up thousands of dollars worth of goods on credit at local stores. Edie easily manipulated the situation at Silver Hill, but her weight kept dropping to just ninety pounds. Consequently, her family had her transferred to a "closed" facility at Bloomingdale, the Westchester County, New York division of the New York Hospital. There, thanks to the strict treatment program, Edie's condition improved markedly. Around the time she left the hospital she had a brief relationship with a Harvard student but she became pregnant and procured an abortion with her mother's help.
In March 1965, Sedgwick met artist and avant-garde filmmaker Andy Warhol at Lester Persky's apartment. She began going to The Factory regularly in March 1965 with her friend, Chuck Wein. During one of those 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.
The Factory
Andy Warhol's factory was an old New York loft building located at 231 East 47th Street and was used from 1963 until 1967. The factory had been splendidly and lavishly decorated by Warhol's close friend Billy Name. He had used a concept of utilizing silver foil around the loft space, something that many people have continued to reproduce to this day. The factory was used by Warhol, and his assistants, to produce silk-screens and artwork during the day and for holding factory parties at night.
Warhol's infamous factory is a place that has been well-documented elsewhere - housing a strange combination of artists, poets, drugged crazed people, socialites, party goers and drug dealers. Visitors would be dazzled by the shining silver walls and once inside, receive a jolt to the ears through music and visionary effects. The sounds of Maria Callas and pop music piping out from the sound system. During the mid-sixties, the factory became the most exciting place to be - and to be seen - in New York.
The Films
During 1964, Edie started to develop her acting skills and managed to get some small parts in the first Warhol directed films. These films were not such a great success commercially at that point - but marked a concerted effort for Warhol to change from artist to film maker. The early films were often only screened inside the factory, at parties or later-on as backdrops used during concerts of Warhol's band, the Velvet Underground. However, through a connection with Jonas Mekas, an underground film-maker, the films started to receive regular showings at the New York Film Makers Co-operative. As a result, Warhol's films started to become more popular and started to generate some media interest.
Edie very quickly became an underground film star, often noticeable by her striking presence on screen - Edie had now died her hair silver to match Warhol's - and although she did not follow any kind of coherent plot or script, as would be available to modern film actresses, she still received favorable comments about her acting talent. When Warhol decided to get much more involved with the development of these films, Edie then had entire Warhol films staring herself. Edie believed in her acting and she began to dream about starring in larger budget films, films made in Hollywood. She was very happy, and enjoyed factory life building close relationships with some of the Warhol's factory entourage who loved her deeply.
Filmography
Year Title
1965 Horse
1965 Vinyl
1965 Bitch
1965 Screen Test No.1
1965 Screen Test No.2
1965 Poor Little Rich Girl
1965 Face
1965 Restaurant
1965 Kitchen
1965 Afternoon
1965 Space
1965 Beauty II
1965 Factory Diaries
1965 Outer and Inner Space
1965 Prison[35]
1966 Lupe
1966 The Andy Warhol Story
1967–1968 ****
1969 Diaries, Notes and Sketches
1972 Ciao! Manhattan
Marriage & Death
Sedgwick married Michael Post on July 24, 1971, and under his influence she reportedly stopped abusing alcohol and other drugs for a short time. Her sobriety lasted until October, when pain medication was given to her to treat a physical illness. She remained under the care of her physician Dr. Wells, who prescribed her barbiturates, but she would demand more pills or claim that she had lost them in order to get more, and often combined the medications with alcohol. Post was later put in charge of administering her medication; by his account, she took at least two 300 mg Quaalude tablets and two capsules of three-grain Tuinal every night, in addition to alcohol and whatever other drugs she may have been secretly consuming.
On the night of November 15, 1971, Sedgwick went to a fashion show at the Santa Barbara Museum, a segment of which was filmed for the television show An American Family. After the fashion show, she attended a party where (according to the accounts of her husband and brother-in-law) a drunken guest insulted her by calling her a heroin addict and repeatedly asserting that her marriage would fail. Sedgwick phoned Post, who arrived at the party and, seeing her distress at the accusations, took her back to their apartment around one in the morning. On the way home, Sedgwick expressed thoughts of uncertainty about their marriage. Before they both fell asleep, Post gave Sedgwick the medication that had been prescribed for her. According to Post, Sedgwick started to fall asleep very quickly, and her breathing was, "bad – it sounded like there was a big hole in her lungs," but he attributed that to her heavy smoking habit and went to sleep.
When Post awoke the following morning, Edie Sedgwick was dead. The coroner ruled Sedgwick's death as "undetermined/accident/suicide." The time of death was estimated to be 9:20 A.M. The death certificate claims the immediate cause was "probable acute barbiturate intoxication" due to ethanol intoxication.
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