More and more I hear about the deep fascination that people (in the fashion and cosmetics industry) have over Edie Sedgwick – that glorious muse of Andy Warhol. She was however a tragic individual.
The following copy is taken directly from Tamburina:
Edie Sedgwick is best known for her close relationship with Andy Warhol, but besides that, she was also a socialite, actress and a model. She had a difficult relationship with her father, which resulted in a troubled childhood and teenage years. She developed anorexia and a binge eating disorder. She spent years in and out of hospitals, finally ending up in a hospital in Westchester, New York in 1962.
In March 1965, Sedgwick met artist and avant-garde filmmaker Andy Warhol at Lester Persky’s apartment and started going to The Factory regularly. 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. Warhol kept putting her in more movies, and Edie’s popularity grew. She became somewhat of his muse.
She departed from Warhol’s circle a year and a half later, and started getting close to Bob Dylan. Throughout most of 1966, Sedgwick was involved in an intensely private yet tumultuous relationship not with Bob Dylan, but with Dylan’s closest friend, Bob Neuwirth. During this period, she became increasingly dependent on barbiturates. In early 1967, Neuwirth, unable to cope with Sedgwick’s drug abuse and erratic behavior, broke off their relationship.
Afterwards, Sedgwick kept abusing drugs and attempting to have a film career (she filmed Ciao! Manhattan in this period). In August 1969, she was hospitalized in the psychiatric ward of Cottage Hospital after being arrested for drug offenses by the local police. While in the hospital, she met another patient, Michael Brett Post, whom she married in 1971. She was sober for the first few months of the marriage, but then went back to taking pills and combining them with alcohol.
She died on November 16, 1971 at age 28. The coroner ruled Sedgwick’s death as “undetermined/accident/suicide.” The death certificate claims the immediate cause was “probable acute barbiturate intoxication” due to ethanol intoxication. She is buried in California.
The Andy Warhol Foundation exists for the advancement of visual arts.
Who would be your muse and why?