Edie: Girl on Fire Melissa Painter
Model, film star, socialite, friend, lover, addict, Edie was the first it girl of the Andy Warhol Factory scene and later muse to Bob Dylan. The arc of Edie's life traced the rise and fall of the 1960s - from idyllic experimentation to dissolute recklessness. After being toasted by the whole of New York City, Edie died alone of a drug overdose in California at the age of 28. David Weisman (with John Palmer) filmed Edie for the last five years of her life in his cult film, Ciao! Manhattan. When he recently uncovered lost footage of Edie, David was inspired to create Edie: Girl on Fire, a book and a documentary film that explores Edie's true story. He and coauthor Melissa Painter have tracked down and interviewed many of Edie's surviving intimates, including Danny Fields, Baby Jane Holzer, and Ultra Violet. They also unearthed hundreds of never-before-published photos portraits, professional ad shoots, and heartbreaking snapshots of the girl who won New York's heart and nearly burned down the Chelsea hotel. A rebuttal to Hollywood's highly fictionalized film Factory Girl, Edie: Girl On Fire is an insightful and startling portrait of a woman that nobody quite knew.