Staunch Little Edie.

1 March 1975
Audio Transcript of Harpers Bazaar interview with former First Lady, Edith Kennedy
Grey Gardens, Georgica Pond, East Hampton, New York

EK: Oh hi. Thank heaven you're here. You look absolutely terrific, honestly. This kimono was a gift from my mother. Isn't it terrific?

We can just sit here and do it, can't we? These are my chairs from Connecticut. The man who made them died. It was awful.

Scoot, Whiskers, or I'll sit on you. I mean, nine lives, honestly, he'll outlive all of us. I'm glad the fabric hasn't faded in all the salt air.

HB: (Muffled) ... from the White House.

EK: Joe and I lived at the White House from the very first day in 1961. Until the end, of course. But this was our home.

We were never happier in our whole lives than when we were here. I mean, it was just so free.

The kids used to ride their bikes in the hallways of the White House and get in everyone's way! Can you imagine?

It was a wonderful time.

HB: I really can't imagine. What was it like when you and President Kennedy first walked through those doors in 1961?

EK: I was in such a state but I remember the carpet. It was grey, honestly. Grey. I hated that carpet.

It was built in 1800 and was nearly burned down completely only 12 years later can you imagine? I don't know if you know that. I mean, do you know that?

I just thought it was such an important building and I was just sad that it had become so run down.

HB: So when you redecorated it ...

EK: I didn't redecorate it. I made it something new. Not to criticise Eleanor but home decor just wasn't her stock in trade.

(laughter)

No. You needed about about a million yellow forms just to change a lightbulb let alone make it nice. I can understand.

I was used to colour. Everyone there said I was doing it all wrong. It wasn't ... authentic. Authentic! I hate that word.

I was trying to be authentic and not live in a museum. I don't think we need to live in the past. Of course, we need to learn from the past.

It's all very important and all that. But we're in this world. I think people today need to know that. The past wasn't so great. Look where we are.

Maybe that's ... . I don't know. I don't think we should venerate things so much. I think we need to make sure we don't look through rose-coloured glasses.

I grew up in a different time. I don't want it to still be 1941. Why should we live like that? I'm not the same person anymore.

HB: (muffled) ... fashion model.

EB: They called me Body Beautiful Beale. It's true. That was my, whaddyacallit, sobriquet. That was a very long time ago. You weren't even born yet!

HB: You've been called 'revolutionary' more than once in regards to your fashion. Where does your style inspiration come from?

EB: Oh you mean my turban? Do you like it? I think the best kind of costume for today is one that shows the wearer. Who they are inside.

It can't be ordered from L.L. Bean.

You need to have clothes that are for you. If it means that in order to be who you are you have to make a poncho from your duvet then I think that's style.

There's more to living than kelly green.

(laughter)

HB: Yes. I think you might be pulling my leg a little bit.

EK: Not at all.

HB: When you were in France with President Kennedy in 1961, at ... the ... when President de Gaulle suggested you were really more French than American ...

EK: Yes, that was at Versailles, my god. That didn't go down very well did it? I couldn't help myself. I couldn't. I know another person would have been able to be demure and defer and stand quietly and smile.

But I was mad. Joe was saying something. I don't know what. But I just had to say it. That I might have been born a Bouvier but I chose to become a Kennedy. And all that.

I've heard it played back a hundred times and I still remember how mad I was. I was American. Bouvier? Bouvier Beale. Anyway, I was a Beale really.

I didn't know they had the microphones over on me and all that. I didn't know. I thought it was incredibly arrogant. Anyway.

And the fallout. My god. Everyone over here just went wild. Thank god. I was being told what a mistake I made and everything and it just seemed to really hit a chord with people over here.

As if we weren't good enough.

HB: It has been said that on that trip you transcended from being a mere trend-setter into an icon that endures to this day.

EK: That's very kind. I hated that man. (laughs)

HB: Do you mind if we talk about Marilyn?

EK: Of course. What took you so long?

HB: When did you two become friends?

EK: Right after.

HB: After 'Happy Birthday'?

EK: Yes. Right then. In the ... out the back of the Madison Square Garden. In the wings right behind after.

She was shaking and crying and I couldn't help it.

I knew all about it at that stage, of course. She was alone. No one around her at all. That dress. She had to be sewn in, you know.

She didn't know it but it was glittering, absolutely glittering in the dark.

Thousands of stars on her and no one was even helping her. I think that was what was wrong the most. I could see that no one was helping her.

She was just shaking and the stars just glittered on her.

I think everyone was still in shock. I don't know. I didn't tell anyone I was going to do it. To break in on her singing and do the joke.

She didn't know either. I know what people say but she didn't. It was a secret.

I couldn't help it but I went over to her and she saw me and turned into the curtain away from me. And it just broke my heart. She was like a frightened thing, a deer.

I just said something like 'It's going to be ok', or something. I don't know what I said really. My heart was just breaking looking at her. I knew what was going on. And she hugged me.

I can't describe it.

From that second on we've been inseparable. I'm just mad about her. I mean, she's strong now of course but back then you couldn't know. It was all anyone could do to stop looking at how beautiful she was to look what was inside.

You see! This is why it's so important all the work she is doing with all the kids and the charities and all that. She is tireless. You can't know what you're doing to someone on the inside. It hurts you on the inside and all those wounds they add up.

It makes me so MAD sometimes when I think about it. NO man EVER took care of her! NO woman EITHER! ONLY ME! She was taken care of. Not SEXUALLY! And if YOU imply that she was using me I will SHOVE YOU UNDER THE GODAMMNED BED!

(pause)

EK: (sighs) I'm sorry.

It's still very close to me. I mean, the way she was treated at that time. It's still very close to me.

It's very difficult to keep a line between the past and the present.

(pause)

HB: (audibly shaken) uh ... In 1972 Miss Monroe was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work with the retar... with all the mentally ill people patients. How much ...

EK: Yes. It was absolutely terrific. She was.

HB: How much do you think your husband's time in the White House helped Americans to come to terms with all that? All the mentally ill?

EK: Absolutely. It was Joe that started all that. All the proper care and talking about it. Just talking about it really. And all the mean, nasty Republicans saying that we were destabilising the nation.

You can't print that.

And Stu. People don't give him enough credit you know. Stu was the one who started it all really.

No Joe started ... . They were both. Stu and Joe both hated all the ways people were putting people down.

Did you know Stu would not speak at meetings that were segregated! Twenty years ago! In the 50s! And they called him sanctimonious. That's a man. He's a darling.

So he and Joe, well you couldn't stop them. You don't know what it was like. All the horrible things that were going on. Maybe you do. Awful things.

At Joe's inauguration they tried to make him say "and so help me god" at the end and he said "for the good of one and all" and they thought that was Communist talk!

Can you believe it?! We've come a long way now.

HB: Not much talked about at the time amidst all the important integration talk was the Mental Health Act in 64.

EK: Yes.

HB: They say that you were the major force behind it. That it wouldn't have been possible if you hadn't appeared on televison and spoken the way you did.

Why do you think there was such a reluctance and backlash against all that?

EK: I don't know.

HB: You had a lot of people saying you were wrong to do that.

EK: But, you see, in dealing with me... the faceless men didn't know... that they were dealing with a staunch character.

And I tell you, if there's anything worse than a staunch woman ... S-T-A-U-N-C-H. There's nothing worse, I'm telling you. (sighs)

They don't weaken... no matter what. But they didn't know that. Well, how were they to know?

I needed to talk to people about it. I was going around all day talking to people in hopsitals who were the same as me all day. Shaking their hands and talking to them.

And it just felt phony. I was visiting this one man who was very unwell and I was just asking him how he was and he said he was not so well and then he put his hand on my hand and asked me how I was.

And it just hit me. I needed to stand up and say my story. That I was like them. The same.

There's no shame and it's not wrong. I got a lot of wonderful support from everybody here. American people.

It was just time I guess. Joe and Stu did it all. I just said what I thought. I thought we'd be talking about my turbans today. (laughter)

HB: I guess. No. We can talk about that too. Actually, do you mind if we take a break and change the tape?

EK: Sure. Go ahead. I need to get Whiskers some lunch. I wonder if Mother wants some soup. Tomato or the bisque?
 
Karen Carpenter: A Real Superstar

Excerpt Rolling Stone Magazine, 15 April 1991

Talkin' to myself and feeling old.
Sometimes I'd like to quit;
Nothing ever seems to fit;
Hangin' around, nothing to do but frown;
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.

Rainy Days and Mondays, 1971.

Karen Carpenter has been called the voice of a generation. Her soothing vocals gave comfort during the darker days of the 70s and her solo career as the Queen of Disco sparked a renewal of the genre carrying it strongly into the 80s. She was never a diva. She was someone who you would like to be friends with, someone to laugh and cry with and also someone you wanted to protect.

America loved the Carpenters. Hit after hit earned the young siblings millions and they played to sell-out audiences across the globe. There was something about the deep timbre of Karen’s voice in harmony with her brother Richard that sounded so good.

At ‘The Last Love-In’ held on the last day of winter 1980 when Karen sat tiny on the lip of the stage under the great white arc of the Hollywood Bowl and sang Rainy Days and Mondays alone, Richard was conspicuously absent. The Carpenters had never performed separately. It was the first real sign to the public that something was wrong and that everything was not as it seemed.

"[The Carpenters] is the only music that my parents and I agree on," gushed one fan letter. Music critics were less impressed. Richard and Karen’s music was not faulted but their image was disparaged relentlessly. "Because we came out in the middle of the hard rock thing, we didn't dress funny, and we smiled, we ended up with titles like 'Vitamin-swallowing, Colgate-smiling, bland Middle America’”, Karen recalled. "The more successful we got, the more they attacked [us]." One reviewer labelled her ‘Miss Innocence Personified’.

This widely-publicised criticism on her image and the pressure to maintain it, soon took a toll. “We had to speak out and tell the truth about us as it is. It's hell living like a pair of angels. Richard is 30, and I'm 26. But the letters we got when we said we weren't virgins, read as though we had committed a crime. People must have been dumb to have believed that we were that good.”

Like most people at the top of their field, Karen was a perfectionist. She demanded 100 per cent from everyone including herself. This intense control extended to her body. Karen dieted after seeing unflattering photos of herself. In the spring of 1975 when Karen was 25 her weight dropped to 41kg. Her gaunt frame drew gasps from audience members. She was too ill to go on tour and was forced to spend six weeks at home recuperating. Despite being weak with malnutrition, Karen was determined to perform. "I gotta sing," she would say. "I love that crowd."

The pressure for perfection surrounding the pair – perfection in their work and in their lives, from the industry, from the media, from the fans, and from themselves – was a time bomb.

Richard faltered first. In early 1979 the 33 year old checked into a treatment centre in Kansas for his addiction to Quaaludes. At the same time, Karen reluctantly agreed to treatment at the Edie Kennedy Clinic for her weight.

“It is absolutely the hardest thing I have ever done. The therapy meant I had to make myself vulnerable at the time when I wanted to protect myself the most. It meant I had to go against the grain of my reasoning and reject my every instinct in order to get better. If it weren’t for my wonderful doctors and family I don’t know what would have become of me.”

This proved to be a turning point in Karen’s career. After treatment she immediately flew to New York and recorded the solo album Karen Carpenter with producer Phil Ramone while Richard remained in Kansas. The songs capitalised on the popularity of the disco sound and used Karen’s higher vocal register. With hindsight, some lyrics were intensely personal.

Got my house, got my fancy cars, everything's going like I planned so far,
But something's not there, that should be there.
I gotta find it somewhere.

Something’s Missing (In My Life), 1980.

Karen dedicated the album to Richard. It met a negative response from her record company A&M Records, Herb Alpert (the A of A&M) calling it ‘unreleaseable’. Karen was devastated but undeterred. Quincy Jones championed the album and Karen broke with A&M to release the album under Epic Records in 1981. She was now in a very different arena. The stable of Epic included Michael Jackson and The Clash. Epic offered Karen, now 31, a chance to explore a very different sound – disco.

Arguably, Epic became the most successful label of the 80s in no small part to the enormous success of Karen, Karen Carpenter’s 1983 album. Her soaring, heavily-reverberated vocals over thumping four-on-the-floor beat were transcendent and managed to instantly revive a genre that had been pronounced dead four years earlier. The standout track Tonight showed a Karen who was happy, strong, and sexy. There was no hint of the love, loss and reminisces that were the staples of the Carpenters lyrics.

Karen’s split with A&M left the Carpenters in limbo. Karen continued to feel hurt by their refusal to release her solo album and vindicated that it proved to be a hit for Epic. Richard was happy that Karen had achieved solo success and was strong again, yet uncertain where this left him. In the end, it was Karen that ended it.

At a family dinner in early 1983 Karen announced that she was quitting the Carpenters and the music industry altogether. She felt that wasn’t who she was anymore. If she continued with the group she would always feel the pressure to be wholesome and pure. The Carpenters were her past. For fans, it was the end of a golden era. For Karen it was only the beginning.

Karen married long-time friend Mike Curb three months later and settled into a happy family life in Burbank. In 1989, Karen began collaboration with the United States Department of Health and Human services to help to publicise the conditions of anorexia and other health issues, which continues. Last year Karen established the We’ve Only Just Begun Foundation to raise funds for charities worldwide.

“There are questions we need to ask about the connection between the media and celebrity. And especially how the media portrays women. They write such garbage. The Carpenters weren’t squeaky clean. We weren’t monsters either. There is a middle ground and it’s called real life.”
 
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It's happening slowly as my brain gets around it but it will expand. Karen sprang from nowhere but took ages to click into place.

Thanks for the compliments.
 
White House Wednesdays
by Jennifer B. Pickens
March 6 2013


Ten iconic dresses worn by Diana, Princess of Wales are expected to raise a huge sum when auctioned by Kerry Taylor on the 19th of March. The collection was originally bought at a charity sale held in New York in June 1997, arranged by the Princess. The upcoming auction will feature gowns by designers including Zandra Rhodes, Catherine Walker and Bruce Oldfield.

The highlight of the collection, however, will certainly be the midnight blue, velvet Victor Edelstein gown that Diana wore to the White House for a 1985 State Dinner held by President and Mrs. Reagan. The dress and that State Dinner became famous when she danced with Saturday Night Fever star John Travolta, an experience Travolta later described as being “like a fairytale.”

It was a memorable evening at the White House for many reasons. The star-studded guest list that included Neil Diamond, Karen Carpenter, Clint Eastwood, and Tom Selleck, to name just a few, dined a perfect menu that included lobster mousse. But what most don’t know is that Princess Diana had actually requested that John Travolta be there for that dance and that Mrs. Reagan as the perfect hostess made sure that all of the princess’s requests came true.

The Washington Post ran Travolta’s reaction to the moment the following Monday:
“Observers at the party the night before suggested Diana had indeed enjoyed the dance. The royal couple didn’t leave the White House until 12:30, according to the embassy, despite the accumulated effect of a day spent traversing the city. While guest Neil Diamond, a favorite of Diana’s and not scheduled to perform, sang “September Morn” and a duet with Karen Carpenter “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” the guests danced for more than half an hour. The royals and the Reagans took the first round (Nancy with Charles, Ronald with Diana), followed by the Diana-Travolta performance. The crowd of artists, dancers, actors and others reportedly stayed off the dance floor and watched.

Travolta, who also danced with Nancy Reagan, said Diana “was charming. I found her refreshing and down-to-earth.” And her dancing, he said, was “good. She has style and rhythm.” Diana offered no critique of her partner.

The dresses are expected to raise more than $1 million.
 
PM says Prince William not suitable for top job



June 29, 2007 12:00AM
  • Future heir "in search of a career"
  • Wants G-G role just like his father
  • Indepth: Princess Diana - 11 years on
PRIME Minister John Howard has ruled out Prince William following in his father's footsteps as a future governor-general of Australia, saying only a long term and permanent citizen would be acceptable.

And Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has told Southern Cross radio: "There is a great place for the British royals, and it's in Britain."

According to a new biography on the future heir to the throne, Prince William harbours a desire to become Australia's next governor-general, revealing anecdotes from his father's time as his grandmother, the Queen's representative in Australia.

But Mr Howard said today that was unlikely to happen.

"We have for a long time embraced the idea that the person who occupies that post should be in every way an Australian citizen," the Prime Minister said Southern Cross radio.

Mr Rudd said there were many Australians who had contributed to the life of the nation who would be more suitable for the role, mentioning former defence chief Peter Cosgrove.

"When it comes to Prince William, he's 25 years old, I think it would be party, party, party out at Yarralumla," he said.

Mr Howard said it was unlikely the issue would arise in the near future, but Prince William did have a very special link with Australia as the second in line to the throne and as son of our 21st Governor General, Prince Charles.

Despite Prince William's own grandfather, Prince Philip, once allegedly referring to former prime minister Gough Whitlam as a "socialist arsehole", the book claims William is keen to snare the vice-regal role that delighted his father.


Blogocracy: PM's stance is wrong on a foreign head of state
Quick vote: Would you like Wills to be G-G?
Video: Prince wants seachange to Yarralumla
Gallery: Party boy princes loving the high life
Splat: He wants us but why should we want him?


The future heir to the throne, who celebrated his 25th birthday last week, is in search of a career.

Prince Charles has spoken in the past about his gratification and honour at being accepted by the Hawke government as governor-general in the 1980s.

Former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown reveals in the new book - The Diana Chronicles - that William would also like to claim the job for himself.

"Charles really wanted the job because he saw it as a way to get the hell out of the grip of Prince Philip and the Queen," Brown writes.

She told The Australian Women's Weekly: "You might like to know ... it has been thought up in regard to William, too.

"Yes, they would very much like that and he would like that very much."

Bob Hawke said yesterday Prince Charles's escape plan was aided by his government because it could see the enormous popularity of the Prince and Princess of Wales, given the instability of his party's own popularity.

"It came up at some stage. Although, I initially considered it ridiculous due to our favour for a republic. But the idea of those two in Australia held enormous popular appeal."


Charles wanted role

In 1994, Prince Charles detailed his becoming governor-general in an interview with The Australian's Paul Kelly, admitting the "splendid" atmosphere in Australia and the "give a bloke a go" outlook attracted him to the country.

He told a similar story to Jonathan Dimbleby in a celebrated television interview later that year, during which he confessed his adultery with Camilla Parker Bowles, complaining that "it's always very easy going" (to Australia) and revealing that his predecessor, governor-general Sir Ninian Stephen's plan to pick him as his successor was sanctioned by Mr Hawke.

"I was very honoured to be wanted and I remember those four years in Yarralumla with Diana and the boys very fondly. It gave us room and time together." he added.


Diana's "bulimic haze"

Despite Brown's book suggesting Princess Diana spent her 1983 tour to Australia in a bulimic haze, Mr Hawke said he saw little evidence.

- with The Australian
 
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sprite

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I love this type of alternate history. Social history, that usually is in the periphery when people post a list of dates, is much more interesting. Loved Edie as the first lady.

As for Charles as G-G i could see this happening only if the dismissal didn't happen.
 
For the original people of this land it must all have seemed very different and if they should say that their predicament is not yet ended it would be hard to know how to answer beyond suggesting that a country free enough to examine its own conscience is a land worth living in and a nation to be envied.
Excerpt from 1988 Australia Day address by Governor General HRH Prince Charles

As a bicentennial project the local tribes are recording herbal healing practices. The prince who's always been fascinated by alternative medicine looked engrossed as he sniffed the herbs and discovered how eating termites can cure diarrhoea. But it was the princess who won the sympathies of onlookers when she openly wept while listening to the traditional song of the Central Australian Aboriginal Women's Choir. It seems the Aussie women singers have a fan in Shy Di. Jeremy Thompson, ITN, Darwin.
Local news broadcast snippet, ITN Darwin 1988.


Kylie Minogue chokes up talking about her ex, Michael Hutchence of INXS

Last updated 10:22, December 14 2015


Kylie Minogue choked up while talking about her ex-boyfriend Michael Hutchence in a radio interview.

The 47-year-old Australian singer opened up about the INXS founder - who was found dead in a Sydney hotel room in 1997 - while appearing on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs show in the UK on Sunday.

Minogue, who dated Hutchence between 1989 and 1991, picked the INXS hit Need You Tonight as one of her desert island choices on the show.

"It's getting me very emotional," she said, her voice cracking.

"I met a new person and I fell in love. Yes, he was this wild guy, he was the rocker, he was all of that. But I'm always at pains to say, he was Byron-esque, he was poetic, he was cultured and hilarious and tender, he was all of these other things.

"I guess, I was at the perfect age, I was 21 years old, to get the butterfly wings and go out into the world and we collided at that time and I guess he just fast-tracked some of it. Anyway, it was a glorious time. I loved it."

Minogue credited Hutchence, who died aged 37, with rebuilding her confidence as she learned how to perform live in front of audiences.

"We did this little gig and I was so inexperienced at doing live performance. I feel my career is backwards. I started successful then I had to learn everything in front of everyone.

"I mean he was uber, uber famous. He's an icon already. And he was in the middle of the audience, just gazing up at me, and just willing me, willing me with all of his heart and his love to do well, and he believed in me.

"And it was at a time when so many people didn't.

"Professionally, he was so supportive. Someone called me the 'singing budgie' in Australia as a knock," she said.

"So I did this warm-up gig and we said. 'It's the singing budgie, take that, own it and go out'."

Minogue and Hutchence remained friends after their break up, during a time of considerable soul searching which saw her embrace her home country in a new and rewarding way.

"Budgerigars are beautiful. They're a beautiful native Australian bird and they're the most popular bird in the world. There are worse things to be compared to."

Minogue's final desert island song choice was the 1991 song Treaty by fellow Australian band Yothu Yindi, a song close to her heart. Indigenous people were formally recognised in a constitutional treaty with the Australian Government in 1992 due in no small part to Minogue, whose vocal and energetic support of the Indigenous treaty movement is now seen as a reason it won popular support across the country.

"It was all at first called 'Princess Protest' and 'Pouting Princess' all the 'P' words. I was 22 or 23, just a baby really, now that I look back, how did I do it? The nerve! But I had people, women telling me it was right to have an opinion and I knew what I was doing was right in my heart. I'm not an anarchist! My Dad's an accountant!" she laughed.

The former Neighbours star also talked about returning to acting, as she admitted: ‘I want more out life. Who knows if Delinquents 3 is one of my horizons. But if that were to happen that would be incredible.’
 
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