photographer unknown
Seventy-two years ago today, on October 19, 1945, Harris Glenn Milstead
was born in Baltimore, Maryland to a conservative middle-class family. He is better
known by his stage name, Divine.
Divine was an American actor, singer and drag queen closely associated with the independent filmmaker John Waters, He was a character actor, usually performing female roles in cinematic and theatrical appearances, and adopted a female drag persona for his music career.
By the time of Divine's birth in 1945, the Milsteads were relatively wealthy and socially conservative Baptists. At age 12, Divine and his parents moved to Lutherville, a Baltimore suburb, where he attended Towson High School, graduating in 1963.
During his childhood and adolescence, Divine was called "Glenn" by his
friends and family; as an adult, he used the stage name "Divine" as his
personal name, telling one interviewer that both "Divine" and "Glenn
Milstead" were "both just names. Glenn is the name I was brought up
with, Divine is the name I've been using for the past 23 years. I guess
it's always Glenn and it's always Divine. Do you mean the
character Divine or the person Divine? You see, it gets very
complicated. There's the Divine you're talking to now and there's the
character Divine, which is just something I do to make a living. She
doesn't really exist at all."
At one point he had the name "Divine" officially recognized, as it
appeared on his passport, and in keeping with his personal use of the
name, his close friends nicknamed him "Divy".
When he was 17, his parents sent him to a psychiatrist, where he first realized his bisexuality, something then taboo in conventional American society. In 1963, he began attending the Marinella Beauty School, where he learned hair styling and, after completing his studies, gained employment at a couple of local salons, specializing in the creation of beehives and other upswept hairstyles. He eventually gave up this job and for a while was financially supported by his parents, who catered to his expensive taste in clothes and cars. They reluctantly paid the many bills that he ran up financing lavish parties where he would dress up in drag as his favourite celebrity, actress Elizabeth Taylor.
In the mid-1960s, Milstead befriended John Waters; they were the same age and from the same neighborhood, and both embraced Baltimore's countercultural and underground elements.
Waters gave his friends new nicknames, and it was he who first called Milstead "Divine". Waters later remarked that he had borrowed the name from a character in the Jean Genet novel, Our Lady of the Flowers (1943), a controversial book about homosexuals living on the margins of Parisian society, which Waters – himself a homosexual – was reading at the time. Waters also introduced Divine as "the most beautiful woman in the world, almost", a description widely repeated in ensuing years.
Milstead joined Waters' acting troupe, the Dreamlanders, and adopted female roles for their experimental short films Roman Candles (1966), Eat Your Makeup (1968), and The Diane Linkletter Story (1969). Again in drag, he took a lead role in both of Waters' early full-length movies, Mondo Trasho (1969) and Multiple Maniacs (1970).
In the early seventies, Milstead joined the San Francisco based group, the Cockettes, an avant garde psychedelic hippie theater group founded by Hibiscus (George Edgerly Harris II) in the fall of 1969.
Divine next starred in the Waters film, Pink Flamingos (1972), which proved a hit on the U.S. midnight movie circuit, became a cult classic and established Divine's fame within the American counterculture.
Divine was an American actor, singer and drag queen closely associated with the independent filmmaker John Waters, He was a character actor, usually performing female roles in cinematic and theatrical appearances, and adopted a female drag persona for his music career.
By the time of Divine's birth in 1945, the Milsteads were relatively wealthy and socially conservative Baptists. At age 12, Divine and his parents moved to Lutherville, a Baltimore suburb, where he attended Towson High School, graduating in 1963.
Glenn "Divine" Milstead
high school yearbook age 17
When he was 17, his parents sent him to a psychiatrist, where he first realized his bisexuality, something then taboo in conventional American society. In 1963, he began attending the Marinella Beauty School, where he learned hair styling and, after completing his studies, gained employment at a couple of local salons, specializing in the creation of beehives and other upswept hairstyles. He eventually gave up this job and for a while was financially supported by his parents, who catered to his expensive taste in clothes and cars. They reluctantly paid the many bills that he ran up financing lavish parties where he would dress up in drag as his favourite celebrity, actress Elizabeth Taylor.
In the mid-1960s, Milstead befriended John Waters; they were the same age and from the same neighborhood, and both embraced Baltimore's countercultural and underground elements.
photo by Susan Segal
Waters gave his friends new nicknames, and it was he who first called Milstead "Divine". Waters later remarked that he had borrowed the name from a character in the Jean Genet novel, Our Lady of the Flowers (1943), a controversial book about homosexuals living on the margins of Parisian society, which Waters – himself a homosexual – was reading at the time. Waters also introduced Divine as "the most beautiful woman in the world, almost", a description widely repeated in ensuing years.
Milstead joined Waters' acting troupe, the Dreamlanders, and adopted female roles for their experimental short films Roman Candles (1966), Eat Your Makeup (1968), and The Diane Linkletter Story (1969). Again in drag, he took a lead role in both of Waters' early full-length movies, Mondo Trasho (1969) and Multiple Maniacs (1970).
Multiple Maniacs - 1970
In the early seventies, Milstead joined the San Francisco based group, the Cockettes, an avant garde psychedelic hippie theater group founded by Hibiscus (George Edgerly Harris II) in the fall of 1969.
photographer unknown
Divine next starred in the Waters film, Pink Flamingos (1972), which proved a hit on the U.S. midnight movie circuit, became a cult classic and established Divine's fame within the American counterculture.
Pink Flamingos - 1972
Designed by Waters to be "an exercise in poor taste," the film featured Divine as Babs Johnson, a woman who claims to be "the filthiest person alive" and who is forced to prove her right to the title from challengers, Connie (Mink Stole) and Raymond Marble (David Lochary). In one scene, the Marbles send Babs a turd in a box as a birthday present, and in order to enact this scene, Divine defecated into the box the night before.
A screenshot of final scene in the film Pink Flamingos, showing as best possible the scene which caused outrage and earned the film its reputation, dominating the career of actor Divine. In this scene, Babs (Divine) eats fresh dog feces for the camera.
Displaying the tagline "An exercise in poor taste", Pink Flamingos is notorious for its "outrageousness", nudity, profanity, and "pursuit of frivolity, scatology, sensationology [sic] and skewed epistemology." As it features a "number of increasingly revolting scenes" that centre on exhibitionism, voyeurism, sodomy, masturbation, gluttony, vomiting, rape, incest, murder, cannibalism and foot fetishism, the film is considered a preliminary exponent of abject art. What more can possibley be said about the film?
Pink Flamingos was released on VHS and Betamax in 1981, and the re-release in 1997 by New Line Home Video
became the second best-selling VHS for its week of release. The film
was released in the John Waters Collection DVD box set along with the
original NC-17 version of A Dirty Shame, Desperate Living, Female Trouble, Hairspray, Pecker, and Polyester. The film was also released in a 2004 special edition with audio commentaries and deleted scenes as introduced by Waters in the 25th anniversary re-release (link below).
Divine appeared in a later film by Waters, Polyester (1981), starring as Francine Fishpaw. Unlike earlier roles, Fishpaw was not a strong female but a meek and victimized woman who falls in love with her dream lover, Todd Tomorrow, played by Tab Hunter.
In 1988 he made a major breakthrough when he appeared in Hairspray with Ricki Lake, Debbie Harry, Sonny Bono, Jerry Stiller, Leslie Ann Powers, Colleen Fitzpatrick, and Michael St. Gerard. My friend, Lon Clark (link below) was one of the dancers in the film.
Divine was nominated the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. Previous Waters films were rated X by the MPAA; Hairspray got a PG rating.
Hairspray was a moderate success on its initial theatrical release, earning a gross of $8 million. However, it managed to attract a larger audience on home video in the early 1990s and became a cult classic. Most critics praised the film, although some were displeased with the overall campiness. The film ranks #444 on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.
In 2002, the film was adapted into a Broadway musical of the same name, which won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical in 2003. A second film version of Hairspray, an adaptation of the stage musical, was also released by New Line Cinema in 2007, which included many changes of scripted items from the original. However, Divine was in neither of these projects.
Divine's career as a disco singer continued and his records had sold well, but he and his management felt that they were not receiving their share of the profits. They went to court against American composer Bobby Orlando, and his company, O-Records, and successfully nullified their contract. After signing with Barry Evangeli's company, InTune Music Limited, Divine released several new disco records, including You Think You're A Man and I'm So Beautiful, which were both co-produced by Pete Waterman of the then-up-and-coming UK production team of Stock Aitken Waterman. In the United Kingdom, Divine sang his hit You Think You're A Man – which he had dedicated to his parents – on BBC television show Top of the Pops.
Pink Flamingos (An exercise in poor taste)
movie poster
Divine appeared in a later film by Waters, Polyester (1981), starring as Francine Fishpaw. Unlike earlier roles, Fishpaw was not a strong female but a meek and victimized woman who falls in love with her dream lover, Todd Tomorrow, played by Tab Hunter.
Polyester - 1981
Divine with Ricki Lake
Hairspray - 1988
Hairspray - 1988
movie poster
Hairspray was a moderate success on its initial theatrical release, earning a gross of $8 million. However, it managed to attract a larger audience on home video in the early 1990s and became a cult classic. Most critics praised the film, although some were displeased with the overall campiness. The film ranks #444 on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.
In 2002, the film was adapted into a Broadway musical of the same name, which won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical in 2003. A second film version of Hairspray, an adaptation of the stage musical, was also released by New Line Cinema in 2007, which included many changes of scripted items from the original. However, Divine was in neither of these projects.
Hairspray - 2007
movie poster
Divine vinyl
In the late sseventies, Divine dropped agent, Robert Hussong, and
replaced him with Bernard Jay. Jay suggested that with
his love of clubs, Divine could obtain work performing in them; as a
result, he first appeared in 1979 at a gay club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
where his unscripted act included shouting "fuck you" repeatedly at the
audience and then getting into a fight with another drag queen, a
gimmick that proved popular with the club's clientele. Subsequently, he
saw the commercial potential of including disco songs (link below) in with his act
and, with Tom Eyen and composer Henry Krieger, created Born to be Cheap in 1981.
Divine ~ Jungle Jezabel
photographer unknown
Divine's career as a disco singer continued and his records had sold well, but he and his management felt that they were not receiving their share of the profits. They went to court against American composer Bobby Orlando, and his company, O-Records, and successfully nullified their contract. After signing with Barry Evangeli's company, InTune Music Limited, Divine released several new disco records, including You Think You're A Man and I'm So Beautiful, which were both co-produced by Pete Waterman of the then-up-and-coming UK production team of Stock Aitken Waterman. In the United Kingdom, Divine sang his hit You Think You're A Man – which he had dedicated to his parents – on BBC television show Top of the Pops.
Divine - 1978
photographer unknown
In 2013, I Am Divine, an American documentary film was produced and directed by Jeffrey Schwarz of the Los Angeles-based production company Automat Pictures. The documentary features extensive contemporary interviews with Waters, as
well as Divine's mother Frances Milstead, and surviving members of the Dreamlanders.
On March 7, 1988, three weeks after Hairspray was released nationwide, Divine was staying at the Regency Plaza Suites Hotel in Los Angeles. He was scheduled to film a guest appearance the following day as Uncle Otto on the Fox network's television series Married... with Children in the second season wrap-up episode. After spending all day at Sunset Gower Studios for rehearsals, Divine returned to his hotel that evening, where he dined with friends at the hotel restaurant before returning to his room. Shortly before midnight, he died in his sleep, at age 42, of an enlarged heart. His body was discovered by Bernard Jay the following morning, who then sat with the body for the next six hours, alongside three of Divine's other friends. They contacted Thomas Noguchi, the Chief Coroner for the County of Los Angeles, who arranged for removal of the body; Divine's friends were able to prevent the press from taking any photographs of the body as it was being carried out of the hotel.
Divine ~ I Am Divine - 2013
photo by Clay Geerdes/Film Collaborative
On March 7, 1988, three weeks after Hairspray was released nationwide, Divine was staying at the Regency Plaza Suites Hotel in Los Angeles. He was scheduled to film a guest appearance the following day as Uncle Otto on the Fox network's television series Married... with Children in the second season wrap-up episode. After spending all day at Sunset Gower Studios for rehearsals, Divine returned to his hotel that evening, where he dined with friends at the hotel restaurant before returning to his room. Shortly before midnight, he died in his sleep, at age 42, of an enlarged heart. His body was discovered by Bernard Jay the following morning, who then sat with the body for the next six hours, alongside three of Divine's other friends. They contacted Thomas Noguchi, the Chief Coroner for the County of Los Angeles, who arranged for removal of the body; Divine's friends were able to prevent the press from taking any photographs of the body as it was being carried out of the hotel.
The funeral took place at Prospect Hill Cemetery, where a crowd of hundreds had assembled to pay their respects.
The ceremony was conducted by the Reverend Higgenbotham, who had
baptized Divine into the Christian faith. John Waters
gave a speech and was one of the pallbearers who then carried the coffin
to its final resting place, next to the grave of Divine's grandmother.
Many flowers were left at the grave, including a wreath sent by actress Whoopi Goldberg, which bore the remark "See what happens when you get good reviews." Following the funeral, a tribute was held at the Baltimore Governor's Mansion. In the ensuing weeks, the Internal Revenue Service confiscated many of Divine's possessions and auctioned them off, as restitution for unpaid taxes. Something about death and taxes?
Viewfinder links:
Lon Clark
Divine
John Waters
Walk Like a Man
Net links:
Divine Discography
Divine Filmography
Tab Hunter, Out of the Hollywood Closet in His Own Words
Nowness ~ Divine Filth (video)
New York Times ~ I Am Divine film review
Nonfics ~ I Am Divine film review
Bright Lights Film Journal ~
Monster Queen: The Transgressive Body of Divine
New York Times obit
People obit
YouTube links:
I Am Divine ~ movie trailer
I'm So Beautiful
Jungle Jezabel
Walk Like a Man
Lon Clark
Divine
John Waters
Walk Like a Man
Net links:
Divine Discography
Divine Filmography
Tab Hunter, Out of the Hollywood Closet in His Own Words
Nowness ~ Divine Filth (video)
New York Times ~ I Am Divine film review
Nonfics ~ I Am Divine film review
Bright Lights Film Journal ~
Monster Queen: The Transgressive Body of Divine
New York Times obit
People obit
YouTube links:
I Am Divine ~ movie trailer
I'm So Beautiful
Jungle Jezabel
Walk Like a Man
No comments:
Post a Comment
PLEASE NOTE: comments are moderated BEFORE they are posted so DO NOT appear immediately.
Thank you.