“If all I cared about was me, I could make a million. And that's what they will never understand.” – Edie Sedgwick

Edie Sedgwick was born in Santa Barbara, California, to wealthy highborn parents. Her early life was one of isolation, turmoil and intense societal pressures. By the age of 13, she had turned inward and began a life-long struggle with anorexia and bulimia. Heading to New York in 1963, Sedgwick's hard-partying, socialite lifestyle led her to meet artist Andy Warhol, and she became his muse during the height of the Pop Art movement. She starred in several of Warhol's movies before her death in 1971.

“I think something very weird's going on now, 'cause the power that is permitted to youth is quite extraordinary. And they are sort of run by that kind of power.” – Edie Sedgwick

Edie moved to New York in 1964, shortly after receiving an $80,000 trust fund from her maternal grandmother, whom she lived with upon entering the city. With aspirations to become a model, she began taking dance classes, tried out for modeling gigs, and attended high society events.

“The whole place turned into a gigantic orgy, every kind of sex freak, from homosexuals to nymphomaniacs, especially the needle and mainlining scene, losing syringes down the pool drains and blocking up the water infiltration system with broken syringes. Oh, it was really some night...Drinking, guzzling tequila, vodka, and scotch, and bourbon, and shooting up every other half-second, and just going into an incredible sexual tailspin. Gobble gobble gobble gobble. Just couldn't get enough of it. It was one of the wildest scenes I've ever been in or ever hope to be in, and I should be ashamed of myself. I'm not, but I should be.” – Edie Sedgwick

By the fall, she had moved out on her own, to a place on East 64th Street, which her parents furnished, and spent nearly every night partying with her Harvard friends.

“It's not that I'm rebelling. It's that I'm just trying to find another way.” – Edie Sedgwick
By March of 1965, Edie had met Andy Warhol, who ran a salon he called The Factory. At the Factory, Edie reinvented

herself, becoming a performance artist and Warhol's film muse.

“It was really sad Bobby Neuwirth's and my affair. The only true, passionate, and lasting love scene, and I practically ended up in the psychopathic ward. I had really learned about sex from him, making love, loving, giving. It just completely blew my mind it drove me insane. I was like a sex slave to this man. I could make love for forty-eight hours, forty-eight hours, forty-eight hours, without getting tired. But the minute he left me alone, I felt so empty and lost that I would start popping pills.” – Edie Sedgwick

While rumors swirled about the real reason Sedgwick hid from the public eye towards the end of her life, the general consensus was that she had completely succumbed to drugs.

“You have to put up with the risk of being misunderstood if you are going to try to communicate. You have to put up with people projecting their own ideas, attitudes, misunderstanding you. But it's worth being a public fool if that's all you can be in order to communicate yourself.” – Edie Sedgwick