A who’s who of Andy Warhol’s glamorous high society connections
With her pixie crop of platinum-blond hair, heavily made-up eyes and penchant for wearing hosiery instead of trousers, Edie Sedgwick is instantly recognisable. A poster girl of the New York swinging scene, she was the transatlantic equivalent of Twiggy, with an added backstory of drama and tragedy. Desperate to be a star, she was introduced to Warhol at Tennessee Williams’ birthday party in March 1965, going on to become his ‘Girl of the Year’ and starring in 10 films in under 12 months (including Poor Little Rich Girl, written about her). At first inseparable, they offered each other what the other did not have: beauty, wealth, cultural cachet and connections. And so many connections she had: with her family history stretching all the way back to the Pilgrim Fathers, as Warhol liked to boast. In a case of nominative determinism, her namesake great-aunt, Edith Minturn Stokes, had even been a major socialite of the Gilded Age. Yet her and Warhol’s platonic love affair burned bright and then was extinguished quickly, with Sedgwick breaking from the Factory set in 1966 and moving into the Chelsea Hotel, where she soon fell under the spell of Bob Dylan. By 1971, she had kicked drugs, relapsed and married a fellow former addict, before dying of an overdose aged just 28.