Albert Maysles, Filmmaker Who Introduced the World to Grey Gardens, Dies at 88

Legendary documentarian Albert Maysles, who helped introduce the world to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' outcast cousins Big Edie and Little Edie through his film Grey Gardens, died Thursday at the age of 88.

Albert H. Maysles was born November 26, 1926, in Boston to a postal clerk and a schoolteacher. He studied psychology at Syracuse University and subsequently received his master's degree from Boston University. For three years, he taught the subject before making his first foray into film, 1955's Psychiatry in Russia, a silent documentary he shot while abroad in the Soviet Union. This was quickly followed by Youth in Poland, which he codirected with his younger brother, David Maysles.

In 1962, the brothers created Maysles Films, creating television commercials to pay the rent, while also making documentaries. Their style was that of a "fly on the wall," separating the camera from the sound recording device and using them independently. Early works included What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A., which followed the British supergroup on tour in America, With Love From Truman, Meet Marlon Brando, and Shelter. A major hit was Gimme Shelter, which followed the Rolling Stones on tour in 1969.

But it was Grey Gardens, the true story of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' cousin Edith Bouvier, and Bouvier's daughter, Edith Bouvier Beale, who lived in squalor in a formerly grand East Hampton mansion, that won them longstanding recognition in the canon of American documentaries. In an unlikely turn of events, the 1976 film was turned into a Broadway musical written by Scott Frankel, Michael Korie, and Doug Wright, which opened in 2006 and won Tony Awards for Christine Ebersole (as Little Edie) and Mary Louise Wilson (as Big Edie). It premiered a year earlier off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons.

In a statement, the creative team of the Grey Gardens musical said, ''[We] had the pleasure and privilege of meeting with Albert on multiple occasions. After we’d finished our first draft we met with him to discuss it. That’s when he gave us what was perhaps the best advice we received. He said that we’d be tempted to take sides with either Edith or Edie, and think that one or the other was 'right.' His advice was direct and wise: 'Don’t take sides. They’re both right.' We took his advice to heart."

Maysles made several films about the work of installation artists Christo and Jean-Claude. Christo's Valley Curtain was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short-Subject Documentary. His last in that series explored the creation of The Gates, the 2005 project that placed bright-orange drapery across Central Park. In addition to a pair of Emmy Awards (for Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic and Soldiers of Music), he received the National Medal of the Arts in July 2014. His latest film, about the decorator Iris Apfel, premiered at the New York Film Festival in October.

Albert Maysles was predeceased by his brother, David, who died of a stroke in 1987. He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Gillian Walker, and their children, Rebekah, Sara, and Philip.