Edie Sedgwick

At 28 years old, Edie Sedgwick has this physical status:

Edith Minturn Sedgwick (April 20, 1943-November 16, 1971) was an American socialite, actress, and fashion model.

She is best known for being one of Andy Warhol's most popular artists.

After appearing in several of Warhol's short films in the 1960s, Sedgwick first became known as "The Girl of the Year" in 1965.

She was dubbed "It Girl" by Vogue magazine, though she also identified her as a "Youthquaker."

Early life and education

Edie Sedgwick was born in Santa Barbara, California, seventh of Alice Delano de Forest (1908-1988) and Francis Minturn Sedgwick (1904–1967), a rancher and sculptor, and a descendent of Massachusetts' historic Sedgwick family. Alice Wheeler de Forest, Henry Wheeler de Forest's daughter, was Sedgwick's mother and chairman of the Southern Pacific Railroad board. Edith Minturn Stokes, who was famously painted by John Singer Sargent with her husband Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, was named after her father, Edith Minturn Stokes. She was of English and French Huguenot ancestry.

Sedgwick's early life was turbulent despite the family's wealth and social standing. The Sedgwick children were raised on the family's California ranches. Initially educated at home and cared for by nannies, their children's lives were largely dictated by their parents. They were largely isolated from the outside world, and they were taught that they were superior to the majority of their peers. Sedgwick's early teens, under these familial and social circumstances, developed an eating disorder, eventually leading to a pattern of binge and purging. Sedgwick started boarding at the Branson School in San Francisco at age 13 (the year her grandfather Henry Dwight Sedgwick died). Alice "Saucie" Sedgwick, her older sister, was soon kicked out of the classroom due to her eating disorder. When she returned home, her father severely restricted her freedom.

All the Sedgwick children had tense relationships with their father (whom they affectionally refer to as "Fuzzy"). He was, on the most, narcissistic, physically distant, tyrical, and often verbal, and he was verbally hostile. He also openly dealt with other women. On one occasion, Edie walked in on her while having sex with one of his mistresses. She expressed shock, but she denied it, slapped her, and ordered a doctor to give tranquilizers to her. Sedgwick admitted to people that he attempted to molest her several times as an adult, beginning when she was seven years old.

Her parents attended St. Timothy's School in Maryland in 1958. She was eventually kicked out of the school due to an eating disorder that had progressed to anorexia.

Sedgwick was admitted to the private Silver Hill psychiatric hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut, at her father's request. Sedgwick was able to fix the situation at Silver Hill as the regime was still tense, and her weight kept decreasing. She was then sent to Bloomingdale, the Westchester County, New York division of New York Hospital, where her anorexia improved dramatically. She had a brief relationship with a Harvard undergraduate, became pregnant, and obtained an abortion, citing her current psychological problems.

Sedgwick and her cousin, artist Lily Saarinen, moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to study sculpture in the fall of 1963. Sedgwick "was really worried about men," Saarinen said, though all the guys loved her." She partied with members of an upper-middle section of the Harvard social scene during this period.

Sedgwick was profoundly affected by the deaths of her older brothers, Francis Jr. (known as "Minty") and Robert (known as "Bobby") who died within 18 months of each other, who died within 18 months of each other. Francis Sedgwick, who had a difficult childhood with their father, had several breakdowns before ending in 1964 when incarcerated at Silver Hill Hospital. On New Year's Eve 1965, her second oldest brother, Robert, suffered from mental illness and died when his motorcycle crashed into the side of a New York City bus.

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