John Waters

Waters wrote and directed the comedy film Hairspray (1988), which was later adapted into a hit Broadway musical and a 2007 musical film. His other films include Desperate Living (1977), Polyester (1981), Cry-Baby (1990), Serial Mom (1994), Pecker (1998), and Cecil B. Demented (2000), each containing elements of post-modern comedy and surrealism. (2011), Excision (2012), and Suburban Gothic (2014), as well as the Child's Play franchise with the film Seed of Chucky (2004) and the third season of the television series Chucky (2024). He hosted and produced the television series John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You (2006). Waters also works as a visual artist and across different media, such as installations, photography, and sculpture. He was twice nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album, narrating his audiobooks Carsick (2015) and Mr. Waters was named an officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters in 2018. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023.

John Waters studied at Calvert School, Calvert Hall College High School and Boys' Latin School of Maryland. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are installation and figurative. Places of work recorded in the authority are Baltimore. Work by John Waters is recorded in the collections of Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art and Hessel Museum of Art. Distinctions recorded are Officer of Arts and Letters and GLAAD Stephen F.

Waters was born on April 22, 1946, in Baltimore, Maryland, one of four children born to Patricia Ann (née Whitaker) and John Samuel Waters, a manufacturer of fire-protection equipment. He was raised Catholic by his mother, though his father was not Catholic. Through his mother, who immigrated as a child to the United States from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, he is the third-great-grandson of George P. Whitaker of the Whitaker iron family. Waters grew up in Lutherville, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. His boyhood friend and muse, Glenn Milstead, later known as Divine, also lived in Lutherville. Waters lived at 313 Morris Avenue in Lutherville from his early teenage years until he moved out in his early twenties. Waters and Milstead shot many of their early films at the house, dubbing the front lawn the "Dreamland Lot". The film Lili inspired an interest in puppets in the seven-year-old Waters, who proceeded to stage violent versions of Punch and Judy for children's birthday parties. Biographer Robrt L. Pela says that Waters's mother believes the puppets in Lili had the greatest influence on Waters's subsequent career (though Pela believes tacky films at a local drive-in, which the young Waters watched from a distance through binoculars, had a greater effect). Cry-Baby was also a product of Waters's boyhood, because of his fascination as a seven-year-old with the "drapes" then receiving intense news coverage because of the murder of Carolyn Wasilewski, a young "drapette", and his admiration for a young man living across the street who had a hot rod. Waters was privately educated at the Calvert School in Baltimore. After attending Towson Jr. High School in nearby Towson, and Calvert Hall College High School, he graduated from Boys' Latin School of Maryland. While still a teen, he made frequent trips into downtown Baltimore to visit Martick's, a beatnik bar, where he and Milstead met many of their later film collaborators. He was underage and could not enter the bar proper, but loitered in the adjacent alley, where he relied on older patrons to slip him drinks.

Waters's first short film was Hag in a Black Leather Jacket. MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939) had a profound effect on Waters's creative mind. He said about it: I was always drawn to forbidden subject matter in the very, very beginning. The Wizard of Oz opened me up because it was one of the first movies I ever saw. It opened me up to villainy, to screenwriting, to costumes. And great dialogue. I think the witch has great, great dialogue. Waters has stated that he takes an equal amount of joy and influence from highbrow "art" films and sleazy exploitation films. Waters once said, “To understand bad taste one must have very good taste.” In January 1966, Waters and some friends were caught smoking marijuana on the grounds of New York University, and he was soon kicked out of his dormitory. He returned to Baltimore, where he completed his next two short films, Roman Candles and Eat Your Makeup. They were followed by the feature-length films Mondo Trasho and Multiple Maniacs. Waters became known as an underground filmmaker in the 1970s. Waters's films became Divine's primary star vehicles. All of Waters's early films were shot in the Baltimore area with his company of local actors, the Dreamlanders—which, in addition to Divine, included Mink Stole, Cookie Mueller, Edith Massey, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Susan Walsh, and others. Waters met Edith Massey while she was a bartender at Pete's Hotel. Waters's early campy movies present exaggerated characters in outrageous situations with hyperbolic dialogue. Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living, which he labeled the Trash Trilogy, pushed hard at the boundaries of conventional propriety and censorship.

Waters's 1981 film Polyester starred Divine opposite former teen idol Tab Hunter. It was the first time that Waters was not the primary camera operator for his own work, as he had started collaborating with local film student David Insley. Since then, his films have become less controversial and more mainstream, although works such as Hairspray, Cry-Baby, Serial Mom, Pecker and Cecil B. Demented still retain his trademark inventiveness. Hairspray became a hit Broadway musical that swept the 2003 Tony Awards; and a film adaptation of the Broadway musical was released in theaters on July 20, 2007, to positive reviews and commercial success. Cry-Baby, itself a musical, also became a Broadway musical. In 2004, the NC-17-rated A Dirty Shame marked a return to Waters's earlier, more controversial work of the 1970s. Having received mixed reviews and bombing at the box-office, it is his last film so far. In 2007, Waters became the host ("The Groom Reaper") of 'Til Death Do Us Part, a program on America's Court TV network. In 2008, he planned to make a children's Christmas film, Fruitcake starring Johnny Knoxville and Parker Posey. Filming was set for November 2008, but the project was shelved in January 2009. Waters has been open about financing problems for his movies. In 2010, Waters told the Chicago Tribune that "Independent films that cost $5 million are very hard to get made. I sold the idea, got a development deal, got paid a great salary to write it—and now the company is no longer around, which is the case with many independent film companies these days." In 2017, he stated that "they all want you to make a movie for under a million dollars, which I don’t want to. I don’t want to be a faux radical film-maker at 70. I did that. I don’t need to do it again." In October 2022, it was announced that Waters will adapt his novel, Liarmouth, into a film. Village Roadshow Pictures was set to produce, with Waters writing and directing. However, in November 2024, it was reported that the film was "no longer happening". Waters has often created characters with alliterated names for his films, such as Corny Collins, Cuddles Kovinsky, Donald and Donna Dasher, Dawn Davenport, Fat Fuck Frank, Francine Fishpaw, Link Larkin, Motormouth Maybelle, Mole McHenry, Penny and Prudy Pingleton, Ramona Ricketts, Sandy Sandstone, Sylvia Stickles, Todd Tomorrow, Tracy Turnblad, Ursula Udders, Wade Walker and Wanda Woodward. On September 18, 2023, Waters was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Dreamlanders members Ricki Lake and Mink Stole were among the guest speakers.

Waters is a bibliophile, with a collection of over 8,000 books. In 2011, during a visit to the Waters house in Baltimore, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson observed: Bookshelves line the walls but they are not enough. The coffee table, desk and side tables are heaped with books, as is the replica electric chair in the hall. They range from Taschen art tomes such as The Big Butt Book to Jean Genet paperbacks and a Hungarian translation of Tennessee Williams with a pulp fiction cover. In one corner sits a doll from the horror spoof Seed of Chucky, in which Waters appeared. It feels like an eccentric professor's study, or a carefully curated exhibition based on the life of a fictional character. Waters has had his fan mail delivered to Atomic Books, an independent bookstore in Baltimore, for over 20 years. Puffing constantly on a cigarette, Waters appeared in a short film, shown in film art houses, announcing that "no smoking is permitted" in the theaters. The spot was directed by Douglas Brian Martin and produced by Douglas Brian Martin and Steven M. Martin. They also created two other short films for the Nuart Theatre (a Landmark Theater) in West Los Angeles, California, in appreciation for their showing Pink Flamingos for many years. It is shown immediately before any of Waters's films, and before the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Waters played a minister in Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat, directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. In the 1980s, Waters taught inmates at the Patuxent Institution, a Maryland prison. He was hired to teach literature, but his classes also encompassed discussions of film. In 1985, he made a film with his students called Reckless Eyeballs, but it was not intended for release and was never publicly screened. Waters is a board member of the Maryland Film Festival, and has selected and hosted a favorite film there each year since its launch in 1999. He is also on the advisory board of the Provincetown International Film Festival, and has hosted events and presented awards there every year since it was founded in 1999. He is a contributor to Artforum magazine and author of its year-end Top Ten Films list. Waters hosts an annual performance, "A John Waters Christmas", which was launched in 1996 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, and in 2018 toured 17 cities over 23 days. In 2017, Waters began hosting an annual "Camp John Waters" event in Kent, Connecticut. Adult fans from as far away as Australia and Chile "relive their sleepaway camping days" with an "extra-campy theme weekend". Notable guests have included Debbie Harry, Patricia Hearst, Kathleen Turner, Mink Stole and Randy Harrison. In 2019, the Film Society of Lincoln Center celebrated its 50th anniversary at a gala where John Waters spoke in tribute to the Center along with Martin Scorsese, Dee Rees, Pedro Almodóvar, Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Moore, Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan.

Since the early 1990s, Waters has been making photo-based artwork and installations that have been internationally exhibited in galleries and museums. Waters was offered his first art show by Colin de Land with American Fine Art gallery in 1992. In 2004, the New Museum in New York City presented a retrospective of his artwork curated by Marvin Heiferman and Lisa Phillips. His most recent exhibition John Waters: Indecent Exposure was exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art from October 2018 to January 2019 and later traveled to the Wexner Center for the Arts. Prior to that, Waters exhibited Rear Projection in April 2009, at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York and the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles. Waters has been represented by C. Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland, since 2002 and by Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York since 2006. Waters's pieces are often comical, such as Rush (2009), a super-sized, tipped-over bottle of poppers (nitrite inhalants), and Hardy Har (2006), a photograph of flowers that squirts water at anyone who traverses a taped line on the floor. Waters has characterized his art as conceptual: "The craft is not the issue here. The idea is. And the presentation." In November 2020, Waters promised to donate 372 artworks from his personal collection, including some of his own work as well as pieces by 125 artists, including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Cy Twombly, Cindy Sherman and more, to the Baltimore Museum of Art. In recognition of the donation, the museum named its rotunda after Waters, but Waters also insisted the museum name an all-gender bathroom after him. Both the rotunda and the bathroom were renamed for Waters in time for the opening of the first exhibition of his bequeathed collection, Coming Attractions: The John Waters Collection on November 20, 2022. Waters, who serves on the museum's board of directors, has stated the museum will acquire all of his art after his death.

With the motif "My life is so over-scheduled, what will happen if I give up control?", Waters completed a hitchhiking journey across the United States from Baltimore to San Francisco, turning his adventures into a book titled Carsick. On May 15, 2012, while on the hitchhiking trip, Waters was picked up by 20-year-old Myersville, Maryland, councilman Brett Bidle, who thought Waters was a homeless hitchhiker standing in the pouring rain. Feeling bad for Waters, he agreed to drive him four hours to Ohio. The next day, indie rock band Here We Go Magic tweeted that they had picked John Waters up hitchhiking in Ohio. He was wearing a hat with the text "Scum of the Earth". In Denver, Colorado, Waters reconnected with Bidle (who had made an effort to catch up with him); Bidle then drove him another 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to Reno, Nevada. Before parting ways, Waters arranged for Bidle to stay at his San Francisco apartment: "I thought, you know what, he wanted an adventure, too... He's the first Republican I'd ever vote for." Bidle later said: "We are polar opposites when it comes to our politics, religious beliefs. But that's what I loved about the whole trip. It was two people able to agree to disagree and still move on and have a great time. I think that's what America's all about."

Although he has maintained apartments in New York City and San Francisco's Nob Hill, as well as a summer home in Provincetown, Waters mainly resides in Baltimore. All his films are set and shot there. A gay man himself, Waters is an avid supporter of gay rights and gay pride. In a 2019 interview, he said that he dislikes publicly discussing his personal life, adding that he had a partner but that they both preferred to keep the relationship private. Waters was a great fan of the music of Little Richard when growing up. He has said that, ever since he shoplifted a copy of the Little Richard song "Lucille" in 1957, at the age of 11, "I've wished I could somehow climb into Little Richard's body, hook up his heart and vocal cords to my own, and switch identities." In 1987, Playboy magazine employed Waters, then aged 41, to interview his idol, but the interview did not go well, with Waters later remarking: "It turned into kind of a disaster." Waters's signature pencil moustache is an homage to him. Waters advocated for the parole of former Manson family member Leslie Van Houten, writing in his 2010 book Role Models, "Her crime was a long, long time ago and she has paid her dues to society". After Van Houten was paroled in 2023, Waters said he would not speak further about her, in deference to her privacy. Throughout his life, Waters has been open about his recreational drug use, including marijuana and LSD, particularly with regard to his creative process. Waters began using LSD as a teenager, "tak[ing] LSD and see[ing]... movies all the time". Waters was often on LSD while making his early films, claiming in a 2016 interview "I was on LSD [during Multiple Maniacs], I don't remember [how long it took to shoot the film]!" He tried LSD again in his 70s, and documented the experience in his 2019 book Mr. Know-It-All. Waters was a smoker before quitting around 2004, saying "the only thing I've ever regretted in my whole life [was] smoking cigarettes. Because it was a nightmare giving up. It's the only thing the government ever told me that was true: It does kill you!" In 2022, Waters said that if he were to write his younger self a letter, he would say, "Quit smoking [cigarettes] and do everything else exactly the way you did."

Waters continues to be involved in various creative ventures. In 2025, Waters narrated several different projects including an audiobook collection where he voiced every character from his early movies and screenplays which included Hairspray and Pink Flamingos.

Documentary appearances

This Filthy World – Waters's touring one-man show, made into a feature film directed by Jeff Garlin Mommie Dearest (1981) – Audio commentary on film's "Hollywood Royalty Edition" DVD release (2006) The Little Mermaid Special Edition DVD (2006) – Interview on 'making of' documentary about Howard Ashman, the theatre (i.e. Little Shop of Horrors), and the inspiration behind the character Ursula: Divine A Date with John Waters (2007), a CD collection of songs Waters finds romantic Christmas Evil DVD release (2006) – Audio commentary Breaking Up with John Waters – Waters's third CD compilation rumored as "currently in the works" in 2004 The Other Hollywood – Commentary and opinions about pornography throughout the book "The Creep" (featuring Nicki Minaj) – Appeared on a television set in The Lonely Island's music video "The Creep", which made its debut on Saturday Night Live. Waters gives the introduction to the song and he is credited as a featured artist on the album. Art:21 – Introducing Host for Season Two, "Stories" episode – PBS DVD series