John Waters, 'Pope of Trash,' turns 80!
4/17/202647 min
We celebrate the 80th birthday of the filmmaker known as ‘The Pope of Trash’ and ‘The Prince of Puke,’ John Waters. He's spent a career violating taboos and pushing boundaries. His films include the cult classic ‘Pink Flamingos’ and the relatively mainstream ‘Hairspray,’ which was adapted into a hit Broadway musical. He spoke with Terry Gross in 2014 and 2019.
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David Bianculli· Host0:18
This is Fresh Air. I'm David Bianculli. The multimedia artist John Waters has spent his life being a champion of outsiders, redefining norms, and celebrating individuality and eccentricity. His career path has gone from outrageously standards-defying filmmaker to popular avuncular TV host and elder statesman of bizarre pop culture. His eightieth birthday is next week on Earth Day, April twenty-second, and we're taking time today to celebrate John Waters. Waters was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in nineteen forty-six and filmed most of his movies there. As a teenager, one of his best friends was Glenn Milstead, an actor, singer, and drag queen who, in his drag persona, went by the name Divine. Waters cast Divine in his early underground films Mondo Trasho in nineteen sixty-nine and Multiple Maniacs in nineteen seventy, and cast Divine again as the star of their big breakthrough film, Pink Flamingos, in nineteen seventy-two. The plot of that film had people competing for the title of Filthiest Person Alive, and it was a robust, sometimes