Edie Sedgwick

One of Andy Warhol's friends, Edie Sedgwick. She was one of the many famous people who hung out at the factory.

Edith Minturn "Edie" Sedgwick (April 20, 1943 – November 15, 1971) was an American socialite, debutante and heiress who starred in many of Andy Warhol's short films in the 1960s.


In January 1965, Sedgwick met Andy Warhol at Lester Persky's apartment. She began going to the Factory regularly in March with Chuck Wein. During one of these visits, Warhol put her into Vinyl. She made short cameo appearances in Warhol's film, Horse, when she and Ondine entered the Factory toward the end of the film.



On April 30, 1965, Warhol took both Sedgwick and Wein (as well as Gerard Malanga) with him to the opening of his exhibit at the Sonnabend Gallery in Paris. Upon returning to New York City, Warhol told his scriptwriter, Ron Tavel, that he wanted to make Sedgwick the queen of the Factory and asked him to write a script for her: "Something in a kitchen. White and clean and plastic." The result was Kitchen, with Sedgwick, Rene Ricard and Roger Trudeau. It was shot at soundman Buddy Wirtschafter's studio apartment.


After Kitchen, Wein replaced Tavel, being credited as writer and assistant director for the filming of Beauty No. 2, in which Sedgwick appeared with "Gino [Piserchio], a hunk in jockey shorts". Beauty No. 2 premiered at the Cinematheque on July 17th and her onscreen appearance was compared to Marilyn Monroe's. During this time she became Warhol's Girl of the Year. The pair would often dress alike, and Sedgwick frequently called herself Miss Warhol. The friendship did not last beyond 1966 when Warhol and Sedgwick made an acrimonious public split. As a result of her popularity, she was getting a lot of advice from people to leave him and become a real actress.

Warhol filmed Sedgwick for The Chelsea Girls but when she left the Factory, he edited her out of the film, ostensibly at her request. Her footage was replaced with a shot of Nico with colored lights projected on her face with Velvet Underground music in the background.

When she married Michael Post on July 24, 1971, she supposedly began drinking and taking pills until October when pain medication was given to her to treat a physical illness. She remained under the care of Dr. Wells who prescribed her barbiturates, but she would demand more pills or say she had lost them in order to get more, often combining them with alcohol.

On the night of November 15, 1971, Sedgwick went to a fashion show at the Santa Barbara Museum, a segment of which was filmed for the television show An American Family. After the fashion show, she attended a party and was supposedly attacked by a drunken guest who called her a heroin addict. She phoned Post, who arrived at the party and saw that she was unwell.

He eventually left the party and took her back to their apartment. Before they both fell asleep, he gave her the medication that had been prescribed for her. When he awoke the following morning at 7:30, she was dead, aged 28. The coroner registered her death as "Accident/Suicide" due to a Barbiturate overdose.

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