Lois Erdmann Wright, who had close relationships with Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter, "Little Edie" of Grey Gardens fame, was "an intimate witness to the eccentricities of aristocracy," according to her family.
An artist, author, and palmist who hosted one of LTV's longest-running public access shows, "The Lois Wright Show," from 1984 to 2018, Ms. Wright died of cardiopulmonary arrest and failure to thrive on Oct. 13 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. A nearly lifelong resident of East Hampton, she was 95.
Ms. Wright was the author of "My Life at Grey Gardens" in 2006 and "The Ghost of Grey Gardens" in 2019, both independently published. She appeared in the 1975 documentary "Grey Gardens," and played "a central role," her family said, in "The Beales of Grey Gardens" in 2006 and "Wild Blue Yonder" in 2007. She also "consulted in depth" with Michael Sucsy and Drew Barrymore for the television movie "Grey Gardens" in 2009, and was an "off-stage character" in the 2017 film "That Summer," the family said. She was featured in the 2010 children's book "Bijoux Goes to Gray Gardens" by J.C. Burdine.
Ms. Wright, who was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, was born in New York City on July 9, 1928, to William Clark Wright and the former Kathryn Erdmann. Growing up in East Hampton from the age of 9, she withdrew from school after the eighth grade.
As a young child, her family said, Ms. Wright was fascinated with palmistry; later in life, she was often called "the palmist of the Hamptons." Starting at the Sea Spray Inn in 1940, she was said to have read the palms of Bette Davis, Helen Hayes, and Ethel Merman. She later set up a table at the old post office in Southampton and then at the Neptune Lounge at Gurney's Inn, where she read the palms and tarot cards of a great many more celebrities, including, the family wrote, Frank Sinatra, Patty Hearst, Yoko Ono, and Billy Joel.
She was also a painter, often portraying the Beales in her work, along with seascapes off the coast of Montauk. Relatives said her paintings have been shown at Guild Hall and in galleries in Sag Harbor and New York City.
Ms. Wright is survived by two nieces, Siri Michele Zwemke, who lives in Virginia, and Brooke Hargrove, who lives in Florida. She was cremated and buried next to her brother, William Wright, at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton. Memorial donations have been suggested to East Hampton Meals on Wheels, online at ehmealsonwheels.org.
