Born Harris Glen Milstead just after the end of WWII, Baltimore's
most outrageous resident eventually became the international icon
of bad taste cinema, as the always shocking and highly-entertaining
transvestite performer Divine.
Milstead met maverick film director
John Waters in high school in Baltimore. The two became good
friends and combined to star in and direct several ultra-low-budget,
taboo-breaking cult films of the early 1970s. Their first efforts included
Roman Candles (1967),
Eat Your Makeup (1968), and
Mondo Trasho (1969)....however,
their most infamous work together was the amazing
Pink Flamingos (1972), in which
Divine starred as "Babs Johnson", the "filthiest person alive", living
in a pink trailer with her egg-eating grandmother, chicken-loving son,
and voyeuristic daughter.
Divine also starred as career criminal Dawn Davenport in
Female Trouble (1974), bored homemaker Francine Fishpaw in
Polyester (1981), as outlaw gal Rosie Velez in
Geier, Geld und goldene Eier (1984)
and in Waters' loving (but still slightly bizarre) salute to teen
dance-TV shows as Ricki Lake's mother in the superb
Hairspray (1988).
Milstead's health deteriorated due to to his obese frame, and he passed
away in his sleep from a combination of heart attack and apnea in 1988.
