Documentarian Ellen Hovde, finest identified for co-directing the groundbreaking film “Grey Gardens” with the Maysles brothers, has died at age 97.
Hovde’s February 16 passing was confirmed final week by her youngsters, Tessa Huxley and Mark Trevenen Huxley, who stated the trigger was Alzheimer’s illness, and shared July 11 with The New York Times.
“Gray Gardens” was launched in 1975 and adopted the reclusive relations of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Edie Beale and her mom Edith Beale, who lived in East Hampton, New York in a deteriorating mansion. The movie was co-directed by Hovde, Albert Maysles, and David Maysles. Hovde started working with the Maysles within the Sixties as a contributing editor on “Salesman,” their documentary made with Charlotte Zwerin about touring Bible salesmen, and in addition labored as an editor on their Rolling Stones documentary “Gimme Shelter.” She was a credited director with the Maysles on their artist portrait “Christo’s Valley Curtain,” launched in 1974. The movie obtained an Oscar nomination for finest documentary quick.
“Gray Gardens” was named to the Nationwide Movie Registry in 2010 and restored by Criterion in 2015. “We didn’t take away any of the raccoon stuff. We left the smells so you may nonetheless use your creativeness as to what that residence was like,” Lee Kline, technical director at The Criterion Assortment, told IndieWire on the time of sustaining the feel of the grainy 16mm authentic.
“Gray Gardens” spurred a 2009 Emmy-winning HBO movie starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, for which Barrymore tapped into a Method acting style. A Broadway musical primarily based on the documentary additionally ran in 2006 and gained three Tony Awards.
Director Hovde spoke candidly about “Gray Gardens” in a Film Quarterly interview in 1978, revealing, “Massive Edie didn’t actually need to do it at first. Little Edie did. Within the months when there was plenty of controversy about it, it was Mrs. Beale and Edie who referred to as us and stated, ‘ there was this criticism — don’t fear. It’s alright. We all know that it’s an trustworthy image. We imagine in it. We don’t need you to really feel upset.’ That was their angle, and so they by no means wavered from that.”
Hovde and frequent collaborator, editor Muffie Meyer, went on to discovered Middlemarch Movies, which made a collection of documentary options and movies. The corporate additionally produced the PBS documentary collection “Benjamin Franklin,” which gained the Emmy for excellent nonfiction particular.
Along with her youngsters, Hovde is survived by two grandchildren.
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