Divine
Born Harris Glenn Milstead in 1945, it was as his female persona Divine that we best know him from his stage and film work. Divine and John Waters met as kids in the Baltimore area. The collaboration between the two, Waters writing and directing with Divine acting, would create many of America’s cult classics. Divine’s character names were as fun as Waters’ titles: The Smoking Nun in Roman Candles (1966), Jacqueline Kennedy in Eat Your Makeup (1968), as Divine in their first hit Mondo Trasho (1960), Lady Divine in Multiple Maniacs (1970), Babs Johnson in Pink Flamingos (1972), Dawn Davenport and Earl Peterson in Female Trouble (1974), Francine Fishpaw in Polyester (1981), and Edna Turnblad and Arvin Hodgepile in Hairspray (1988), which was their biggest hit, and has found new life as a Broadway musical and new movie based on the musical. Divine died in 1988, the night before he was to start a recurring role on Fox television’s prime time show, Married...With Children.
