Interest in the Beales’ story has resulted in a variety of publishing and media projects and various mentions in popular culture. These include:
- The original 1975 Maysles brothers’ documentary, Grey Gardens.
- The musical Grey Gardens: A New Musical debuted off-Broadway in March 2006, starring Christine Ebersole, and played on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre November 2, 2006 – July 28, 2007 for 300+ performances. Little Edie was portrayed in the first act by actresses Sara Gettelfinger (off-Broadway) and Erin Davie (on Broadway). Ebersole played Little Edie in the second act. Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson won Tony Awards.
- Grey Gardens, the 2009 Emmy Award–winning made-for-television movie for HBO, starred Jessica Lange as “Big Edie” and Drew Barrymore as “Little Edie”. It was directed and co-written by filmmaker Michael Sucsy. Lange won an Emmy for her performance.
- In the 2011 episode of 30 Rock titled “Mrs. Donaghy,” Liz Lemon (portrayed by Tina Fey) does an impression of Drew Barrymore’s impersonating Little Edie.
- Musician Rufus Wainwright wrote a song titled “Grey Gardens”, which appears on his 2001 album Poses. The song’s narrative is partly composed of references to the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens and to Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice (or to Luchino Visconti’s film of the same title).
- The Spring 2010 issue of the online literary journal BigCityLit features a pantoum by American poet Joel Allegretti called “The Belles of Grey Gardens”, which is made up entirely of dialogue from the Maysles’ documentary.
- In a February 2013 episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Little Edie was imitated by drag queen Jinkx Monsoon in the Snatch Game challenge. Inspired by that episode, Jinkx Monsoon and Peaches Christ mounted a live 90-minute musical drag parody of Grey Gardens titled Return to Grey Gardens.
- The first episode of the IFC mockumentary series Documentary Now! spoofed Grey Gardens in 2015 with Fred Armisen and Bill Hader as mother and daughter in Sandy Passage.
- A new documentary film, “That Summer” released in 2018, which contains the “prequel” footage to Grey Gardens, filmed in 1972.
- Episode 9 of season 3 of the series Gilmore Girls opens with mother and daughter Lorelai and Rory watching the Grey Gardens documentary, admiring the Edies and saying that will be them in a few years.
