"Up until the early Sixties social life in New York was extremely
predictable. There was a form to the whole thing : if you someone had a
black tie dinner, everyone there was in black tie. If people were
invited to a brunch they were attired in a certain way. Everyone held on
to the values of the Fifties, those standards that have been created by
life in and around El Morocco, the Stork Club, by polo players and
debutantes- patterns that were followed by the nouveaux riches, the
Jews, or whatever. No one told the truth. People lied. Society was a
group of liars. People pretended that they weren't unfaithful. They
pretended that they weren't homosexuals. They pretended that they
weren't horrible. If you wanted to social climb or socialize in New York
City, you had to follow these rules.
Edie came in at the destruction of all those rules. Showing up
late to someone's dinner, or never showing up at all, became a way of
life. People were going to start shooting up in the bathroom. Freaks
were going to become sought after. Overnight you could become famous for
having big hair or short skirts or a neon bra. There was such a
desperate hunger. Suddenly all these women in little black dresses and
men in pinstripe suits from Meledandri and Sills and Saville Row would
be rushing down to Trude Heller's on the corner of Ninth Street and
Sixth right across from the Women's House Of Detention. There they would
see Monte Rock. Or they would rush down to the Dom in St. Mark's Place
where only the black people used to dance.
The wild stuff began coming out of the woodwork. People showing
off. "Look at me! I've got something to say! I am something!" And the
more freakish you could be about it, so much the better. Look at Edie.
Or Tiger Morse, who was a society girl from a good family wearing very
straight clothes, and all of a sudden the next day she was a speed freak
with her hair wired, wearing electric dresses and green glasses. And
then dead. These insane people wallowed in self destruction... almost as
if they were trying to punish their parents and the world of rigid
systems that had been so painful to them in their formative years. Edie
came into the world of people getting ready to come out and make that
kind of statement."
JOEL SCHUMACHER - EDIE, AN AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY