East End Pays Tribute To Pioneering Documentarian Albert Maysles

When we were teenagers at East Hampton High School in the late 1960s and 1970s, my sister and our friends used to drive over to the Grey Gardens house on Halloween, just to get scared. We would take turns walking through twisted brush and along a disheveled path, and then we’d knock on the front door. We were so petrified of the two women inside that we immediately ran away screaming when they opened the door.

At the time, we didn’t know that “Big Edie” Beale and her daughter, “Little Edie” Beale, were relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, whose family also had a home in East Hampton.

Little did I think that this dilapidated old house, its numerous cats and raccoons, and its eccentric mother-and-daughter inhabitants would become the focus of a major cult documentary film, a Broadway show and an HBO special. But Albert and David Maysles made it happen when they arrived in East Hampton in 1975 and started shooting their very special American version of cinéma vérité. They shot it in the most intimate, close-up way, where they simply followed these flamboyant women around, and captured them as they were naturally.

Throughout his life, and even following the death of his brother in 1987, Albert Maysles made more than 50 documentaries, right up until months before he died, on March 5, at the age of 88.

I could never have imagined that I would some day meet Albert, and follow him around for 13 years to some of his thrilling events and projects. But it happened.

In 2002, I was working at Hamptons Television, then housed at LTV Studios in Wainscott, when he walked in with his longtime friend and Southampton resident Andrew Wargo to film an artist who was making masks of the Statue of Liberty for an event called “Liberty Fest.”

Albert was mild-mannered and studious-looking, with gray hair and big black-rimmed glasses. He was soft-spoken, with a hint of a Boston accent. But his overwhelming enthusiasm was powerful and contagious—he lit up when he was filming a project. And over the years, no matter how old he got, he never lost his child-like wonder and curiosity about everyone he met.

Albert and David were pioneers of “direct cinema,” or cinéma vérité. They let the drama of life unfold without scripts, interviews and narration. They founded Maysles Films together in the 1960s, which turned out such iconic works as “What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A.” in 1964; “Meet Marlon Brando” in 1965; “With Love From Truman” in 1966; “Salesman” in 1968; “Gimme Shelter” in 1970; and “Grey Gardens” in 1976.

Throughout his celebrated career, Albert received a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Peabody Awards, three Emmy Awards, six lifetime achievement awards, the Columbia Dupont Award, and two nominations for an Academy Award—one for “Lalee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton” in 2000, the other for “Christo’s Valley Curtain” 27 years earlier.

Eastman Kodak saluted Albert as one of “the world’s 100 finest cinematographers” and, in 2014, he received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, as well as Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Made in New York” Award.

Yet, despite all his accolades, Albert remained unpretentious and down to earth.

“He was very humble, even though he knew so many famous people. He was truly a Renaissance man and a gentleman,” according to Mr. Wargo, who produced several screenings of “Grey Gardens” in the Hamptons. “I met Albert 25 years ago at a penthouse party in Sutton Place, and we stayed friends and went to many social events together.”

Albert was born on November 26, 1926, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and moved to Brookline when he was 13. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University, followed by a master’s from Boston University, where he taught psychology for three years before switching to the film business. He made his first film, “Psychiatry in Russia,” while visiting mental hospitals there in 1955.

Two decades later, he would find himself at Grey Gardens, filming the documentary that would make him a legend.

East Hampton resident Lois Wright, who has produced and hosted “The Lois Wright Show” at LTV Studios for more than 25 years, lived at Grey Gardens during the year the Maysles were filming. Her family had lived nearby and when her mother died, the Beale ladies invited her to stay with them—an adventure she has penned into the book “My Life at Grey Gardens, 13 Months and Beyond.”

“The Edies loved having Albert and David at their house,” a now 87-year-old Ms. Wright recalled. “They found it pleasant, stimulating and exciting. They both loved to sing and perform, so they didn’t mind Albert’s camera.”

Ms. Wright, who also appears in the film at Big Edie’s birthday party, remembers Albert as being “very serious and quiet,” while his brother was more “outgoing and talkative.”

Also on the “Grey Gardens” set was Patricia Watt, a theatrical producer in Manhattan and Southampton. In the early 1970s, she had met David when he came into her Southampton store, Animal Crackers.

“I became good friends with David when I was 20, and I used to hang out at Grey Gardens and watch them film,” she said. “Little Edie was always prancing around singing, and sometimes she and her mother would bicker back and forth. But Albert was always so relaxed with them … He let them do whatever they wanted. He was fascinated by them and by people in general. He had a real zest for life.”

The first time I was inside Grey Gardens was during the summer of 2006, standing next to Andrew at a garden party hosted by socialite Frances Hayward, who was renting the house. Michael Sucsy was in the process of directing HBO’s version of “Grey Gardens”—based on the original Maysles film, which screened at Guild Hall following the party—starring Jessica Lange as Big Edie and Drew Barrymore as Little Edie. They were all in the crowd, along with Fred Schneider of the B-52s and other local celebrities.

Ruth Appelhof, executive director of Guild Hall, also was at the party, and later at the screening. “Our theater was packed for his film, which was soul-shaking,” she said. “Albert came backstage with me, and we found out we both went to Syracuse University, where he studied psychology, which I thought was the secret to his insights.”

In 2007, Albert showed his award-winning film “Gimme Shelter,” chronicling the Rolling Stones’ 1969 tour, to a sold-out crowd at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. This summer, Bay Street will stage the musical “Grey Gardens,” dedicated to Albert’s memory.

“He was one of the most important filmmakers of this century,” said Gary Hygom, managing director of Bay Street Theater, “and did so much with his use of the camera to bring the documentary genre to the forefront of modern filmmaking.”

In 2009, Andrew and I were again with Albert, this time in the living room of Grey Gardens following the premiere screening of the HBO film at a private estate in Southampton. Owners Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn were hosting the event, drawing the likes of Christie Brinkley, Dick Cavett, Alec Baldwin and Ms. Wright. The house had been transformed into a magnificent country home, with flowers all around, and beautiful wallpaper, drapes, and wicker furniture.

Just prior to the debut of the HBO film, Andrew, Albert and I went to a talk by Ms. Lange, hosted by The New York Times, about her role. She said one of her biggest challenges in portraying Big Edie was that it took several hours in makeup to age her into her 80s. Leaning over the stage, she pointed to the filmmaker seated in the front row, joking, “Albert Maysles, what did you get me into?”

On several occasions, Andrew and I visited Albert at Maysles Films, first located on West 54th Street and most recently in Harlem. I loved looking at all the posters of his many films, framed on the walls of his spacious studio.

He would tell us stories about his film adventures. “My brother and I were in our early 30s when we got the call to go film the Beatles arriving at Kennedy Airport in 1964,” I remember him saying. “We said, ‘Who are these guys?’ But we went, and saw them coming out of the plane, and all these young women were stampeding them … So we jumped in their cab and started shooting them. Then, we followed the Beatles to ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ and captured their first U.S. performance. We had no idea who they were, but we knew they were something big.”

This past October would be the last time I ever saw Albert, at the premiere of his film, “Iris” during the Hamptons International Film Festival. He sat in the Southampton UA Theater alongside the documentary’s 93-year-old star, Iris Apfel, a fashion maven and interior designer who collects eclectic jewelry.

“I wanted to make this movie to just show how talented and creative Iris is, and I loved following her around in her fascinating day-to-day travels,” he told me. “We had so much fun doing this.”

Albert was one of the “all-time greats,” David Nugent, artistic director of the Hamptons International Film Festival, said. “He achieved a level of intimacy that has never been achieved before. Al was different—he had a relationship with the people he filmed, which you don’t find very often.”

“Iris” won Albert the Audience Award for Documentary Feature—a fitting final honor. And although we feel a void, now that he is gone, we know his films will never die.

Albert Maysles is survived by his wife, Gillian Walker; two daughters, Sara and Rebekah; a son, Philip; and a stepdaughter, Auralice Graft.

A daylong tribute and screening of Mr. Maysles’s films will be held on Sunday, March 22, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. at the Maysles Documentary Film Center in Manhattan. Registration is required. For more information, call (212) 537-6843, or visit maysles.org. A memorial service will be held this fall, following the New York Film Festival.