John Waters: Interviews

Chronology

xix Chronology 1946 John Samuel Waters, Jr. born April 22 in Baltimore, Maryland , to Patricia Ann and John Samuel Waters. 1963 Receives 8mm camera from grandmother for seventeenth birthday. 1964 Barely graduates from Calvert Hall College High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, starring Mona Montgomery and Mary Vivian Pearce. 1965 Travels with Mona Montgomery to Provincetown for the first time; meets Mink Stole. Attends the University of Baltimore for one semester. 1966 Before completing his first semester at NYU, Waters is asked to leave the university after being involved in the first big marijuana scandal on any college campus. Campus police advise him to keep the incident a secret, so the next day Waters calls the New York Daily News, who interviews him for their story “Pot Bust at NYU.” Roman Candles, Divine’s first appearance in a John Waters film. 1966–67 Works at Molly Malone Cook & Mary Oliver’s East End Books in Provincetown, Massachusetts. 1968 Gets job at Provincetown Book Shop. Eat Your Makeup, Waters ’ first 16mm film. 1969 Mondo Trasho, Waters’ first feature-length film. Cast and crew are arrested on the campus of Johns Hopkins University for “conspiracy to commit indecent exposure” after filming the nude hitchhiker scene. 1970 Multiple Maniacs released, his first film with dialogue. 1971 Pink Flamingos is made on a budget of $10,000. 1972–74 Travels the country with Pink Flamingos, four-walling it at various midnight venues. xx chronology 1973–74 Makes deal with New Line Cinema to distribute Pink Flamingos . It becomes an instant smash hit as the midnight show at New York’s Elgin Theater, and New Line books the film all over the country. 1974 New Line releases Waters’ Female Trouble, which stars Divine both as a psychotic woman, Dawn Davenport, bent on the mantra that “crime is beauty,” and also as Earl Peterson, the father of her child, Taffy. 1977 New Line releases Desperate Living, Waters’ first feature film without Divine, which features two new stars: author/stripper Liz Renay, and Jean Hill. 1981 Release of Polyester, starring Divine and Tab Hunter, and featuring Odorama scratch-and-sniff cards. Distributed by New Line Cinema, it is Waters’ first film to break out of the midnight circuit. Waters’ autobiography, Shock Value, is published by Delta Books. 1983 Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters is published in hardback by Macmillan Publishing. 1986 Appears in Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild as a used car salesman. 1988 Hairspray, a hit which earns $8 million at the box office, becomes the highest-grossing Waters film to date. 1989 Appears as Robber #1 in Andrey Konchalovskiy’s film Homer and Eddie, starring James Belushi and Whoopi Goldberg. 1990 Plays the role of Mr. Bean in episode “Awomp-Bomp-Aloobomb , Aloop Bamboom” of 21 Jump Street, which stars teen idol Johnny Depp. Cry-Baby, Waters’ first Hollywood film, stars Johnny Depp, and is produced by Imagine Films and distributed by Universal. 1994 Serial Mom released, starring Kathleen Turner as a psychotic housewife and Sam Waterston as her husband. Appears as Vincent in the TV movie Danielle Steel’s Family Album, based on the novel by Danielle Steel. 1995 Waters’ first solo photography exhibition, titled My Little Movies, at the American Fine Arts Company in New York. 1997 Lends his voice to The Simpsons episode, “Homer’s Phobia.” He plays a gay antiques dealer and family friend to the Simpsons . 1998 Pecker released, starring Edward Furlong as an amateur photographer who shoots to fame in Baltimore. Appears in Divine chronology xxi Trash, a documentary directed by Steve Yeager about the life and work of John Waters. 1999 Plays Mr. Haynes in Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown. 2000 Cecil B. Demented released, starring Stephen Dorff in the title role and Melanie Griffith as a movie star brainwashed into acting in an underground film. 2002 Plays a pedophile priest in film Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat, directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. Hairspray, the Broadway musical, opens in New York on August 15. It is based on John Waters’ 1988 film of the same title. The show goes on to win eight Tony Awards in 2003. 2004 A Dirty Shame released, an NC-17 rated sex comedy, starring Tracey Ullman and Johnny Knoxville. Waters plays the role of paparazzi Pete Peters in Seed of Chucky, directed by Don Mancini . Waters creates a holiday album, A John Waters...