Edith Bouvier Beale was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 socialite

Socialite

A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....

, fashion model

Model (person)

A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

 and cabaret

Cabaret

Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

 performer. She was a first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle...

 and Lee Radziwill

Lee Radziwill

Caroline Lee Bouvier Canfield Radziwill Ross best known as Lee Radziwill, is an American socialite, public relations executive, and former actress and interior decorator. She is the younger sister of the late First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis...

. She is best known as "Little Edie," one of the subjects of the documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens is a 1975 documentary film by Albert and David Maysles, with Susan Froemke, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive socialites, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived at Grey Gardens, a decrepit mansion at 3 West End Road in...

by Albert and David Maysles

Albert and David Maysles

Albert and David Maysles were a documentary filmmaking team whose cinéma vérité works include Salesman , Gimme Shelter and Grey Gardens . Their 1964 film on The Beatles forms the backbone of the DVD, The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit...

 detailing life at the East Hampton home

Grey Gardens (estate)

Grey Gardens is a 14-room house at 3 West End Road and Lily Pond Lane in the Georgica Pond neighborhood of East Hampton, New York, that is chronicled in the Grey Gardens 1975 documentary, 2006 Broadway musical and 2009 television movie. The mansion has been the topic of numerous other books and...

.
Beale was born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, the only daughter of Phelan Beale

Phelan Beale

Phelan Beale was a wealthy attorney and sportsman in New York City.Beale, who was married to Edith Ewing Bouvier, an aunt of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is probably best remembered as the absent father chronicled in the Grey Gardens saga portrayed in a 1975 movie documentary, 2006 Broadway...

, a lawyer, and Edith Ewing Bouvier (known as "Big Edie"). She was born at 1917 Madison Avenue (now the site of the Carlyle Hotel

Carlyle Hotel

The Carlyle Hotel, known formally as The Carlyle, is a combination luxury and residential hotel located at 35 East 76th Street on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue, in the Upper East Side area of New York City...

). She had two brothers, Phelan Beale, Jr.

Phelan Beale, Jr.

Phelan Beale, Jr. was an American journalist and unemployment compensation law expert. Beale was a son of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and a brother of Edith Bouvier Beale whose lives were highlighted in the documentary Grey Gardens...

, and Bouvier Beale

Bouvier Beale

Bouvier Beale was a prominent American lawyer. Beale was a son of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and a brother of Edith Bouvier Beale whose lives were highlighted in the documentary Grey Gardens. Beale was a first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill.-Early life:Beale was born on 13...

 and had a privileged upbringing and gilded youth.