Divine also developed a career as a club performer and would produce a number successful singles in the 1970s and 1980s, even appearing on the hit U.K. And now every drag queen, every one that’s successful today is cutting edge.”ĭivine’s star continued to rise with Waters’ film Female Trouble (1974) afterward, he began doing more theatre work in New York and London. They were square then, they wanted to be Miss America and be their mothers,” Waters said in an interview with Baltimore Magazine. “His legacy was that he made all drag queens cool. It was something drag queens at the time didn’t do. He became even more over-the-top as the “Godzilla of Drag,” donning miniskirts and tight dresses that drew attention to his ample frame and even more ostentatious makeup. It was around this time that John Waters suggested Divine ramp up his aesthetic. Fearless, raunchy, and unapologetic, Divine became an underground star, even heading out to San Francisco to perform with The Cockettes. The film became a cult sensation at midnight film screenings, perhaps most notable for the scene in which Divine eats fresh dog feces (yes, actually). A love and lore of Divine began to spread through underground culture - mostly because Waters would only show Multiple Maniacs at churches he rented out in order to avoid censors - and increased to an incredible degree when Pink Flamingos came out in 1972. Rated X, the film follows Divine as she heads the misfit sideshow troupe the Cavalcade of Perversion and seeks out revenge on a cheating lover. He wanted, as I've been called, inflated Jayne Mansfield.”Īnd so Divine took to the screen again with this look, this time in Multiple Maniacs, today considered a Waters classic (to the point of it being included in the Criterion Collection). “He wanted a 300-pound beauty, as opposed to a 110-pound beauty. “John wanted a very large woman because he wanted the exact opposite of what normally would be beautiful,” Divine told Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air in 1988. Waters helped Divine craft her image, suggesting something strange and extravagant for her appearance, which included Divine shaving her hairline back to the middle of her head and wearing wildly-drawn eye makeup by artist Van Smith. Their first efforts together were Roman Candles and Eat Your Makeup, two shorts from 19 in which Divine appears on screen in drag for the first time (in the latter as Jackie Kennedy in their restaging of JFK's assassination, considered a profoundly “too soon” moment at the time), followed by the aforementioned Mondo Trasho, their first feature-length film together.
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