Drew signs on for HBO adaptation

Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange will star in an HBO movie adaptation of "Grey Gardens," the 1975 documentary about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's eccentric cousin and aunt. The story follows the relationship between the mother-daughter duo of "Big Edie" (Lange) and "Little Edie" (Barrymore), who spent most of their lives in a decaying mansion on New York's Long Island. The project was originally announced as a feature film in 2006, though HBO films was not involved at the time. Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale made national headlines in 1971 when the Suffolk County Health Department raided their dilapidated East Hampton mansion - named Grey Gardens - and found more than 50 cats, raccoons, fleas, piles of garbage, human and cat excrement and no heat or running water. The department threatened to kick the pair out of the 28-room mansion before Kennedy Onassis stepped in and paid to help clean it up. Big Edie died in 1977, and Little Edie sold the house to Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and his wife two years later. She became a nightclub singer, moved to Florida and died in 2002.

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