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 Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, John Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore, both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends as his cast, he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid-'60s; he screened these in rented Baltimore church halls to underground audiences drawn by word of mouth and street leafleting campaigns. As his filmmaking grew more polished and his subject matter more shocking, his audiences grew bigger, and his write-ups in the Baltimore papers more outraged. By the early 1970s he was making features, which he managed to get shown in midnight screenings in art cinemas by sheer perseverance. Success came when Pink Flamingos (1972) - a deliberate exercise in ultra-bad taste - took off in 1973, helped no doubt by lead actor Divine's infamous dog-crap eating scene.Waters continued to make low-budget shocking movies with his Dreamland repertory company until Hollywood crossover success came with Hairspray (1988), and although his movies nowadays might now appear cleaned up and professional, they retain Waters' playfulness, and reflect his lifelong obsessions.
Bio:
Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, John Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore, both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends as his cast, he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid-'60s; he screened these in rented Baltimore church halls to underground audiences drawn by word of mouth and street leafleting campaigns. As his filmmaking grew more polished and his subject matter more shocking, his audiences grew bigger, and his write-ups in the Baltimore papers more outraged. By the early 1970s he was making features, which he managed to get shown in midnight screenings in art cinemas by sheer perseverance. Success came when Pink Flamingos (1972) - a deliberate exercise in ultra-bad taste - took off in 1973, helped no doubt by lead actor Divine's infamous dog-crap eating scene.Waters continued to make low-budget shocking movies with his Dreamland repertory company until Hollywood crossover success came with Hairspray (1988), and although his movies nowadays might now appear cleaned up and professional, they retain Waters' playfulness, and reflect his lifelong obsessions.
Tivia:
Has taught classes at the Patuxent Institution, a correctional facility located halfway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The classes are meant as rehabilitation therapy for convicted killers, in which they learn to write about their violent fantasies rather than act them out.Grew his thin pencil-line mustache in honor of Little Richard.Bears such a strong resemblance to actor Steve Buscemi that as a joke, John Waters sent out cards with a photo of Buscemi made up to look like Waters.Subscribes to more than 80 magazines. Also goes to see just about every movie that comes out and hardly ever rents movies.His favorite childhood memory was seeing real blood on the seat of a wrecked car when visiting a scrap yard and fantasizing about lethal car crashes.He is obsessed with true-crime and used to regularly attend gory trials all over the US, where he often saw the same faces in the public galleries.Waters originally wanted a man named "Mr. Ray" to be the narrator of Pink Flamingos (1972). Mr. Ray was famous for his hair-weave radio ads and for his Baltimore accent. Mr. Ray refused, so Waters recorded the voice-over himself, imitating Mr. Ray's voice as "Mr. J."As a youth he would watch adult-only films at the local drive-in, with binoculars.In 2008, Waters was planning to make a children's Christmas film called Fruitcake, starring Johnny Knoxville and Parker Posey. Filming was planned for November 2008, but it was shelved in January 2009. 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".Is a well known bibliophile and owns over 8,000 books.Favorite movies are The Wizard of Oz (1939), Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), Boom! (1968), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Sal��, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), I Stand Alone (1998), and Maps to the Stars (2014).Waters has always been very gracious in acknowledging his creative influences, such as Russ Meyer, Otto Preminger, Liberace, William Castle, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Jayne Mansfield, Robert Bresson, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.As a youth, he made as much as $50 a week doing puppet shows for the neighborhood children, and was often hired to entertain at birthday parties. He stated that many of his puppet shows were inspired by the gimmick-heavy films of William Castle.There is a special section of his immense book collection devoted to Liberace.Maintains a home in north Baltimore, Maryland.Was considered for the role of Det. John Munch on Homicide: Life on the Street (1993).Owns a house in San Francisco. (January 2009)His husband Jacob is 29 years his junior.Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 48th Cannes International Film Festival in 1995.Big fan of 1950s director Douglas Sirk and actually got to meet him while in Europe.Older brother of Steve Waters.Son of John Waters Sr. and Pat Waters.His musical, "Hairspray" at the Marriott Theatre in Chicago, Illinois was nominated for a 2010 Joseph Jefferson Award for Production of a Musical (Large).He lives in Baltimore and owns homes in New York City and San Francisco.He has directed two films that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Pink Flamingos (1972) and Hairspray (1988).One of his closest friends is Baltimore based casting director Pat Moran.Was supposed to have a cameo in American Splendor (2003), as the David Letterman guest holding a alligator.Brother-in-law of Sharon Waters.Was good friends with Russ Meyer, the sexploitation filmmaker. As a fan of his work he would often go see his films in the theatre with Divine.Has released a collection of his scripts called Hairspray, Female Trouble, and Multiple Maniacs (Thunder's Mouth Press). (September 2005)Attended Calvert Hall College High School in Towson, Maryland.Through Richard Owings and his wife Rachel, he is a sixth cousin once removed to Maria Shriver.Was member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002.He is the son of Patricia Ann (Whitaker) and John Samuel Waters, and is of mostly Irish and English descent. Through his mother, he is the great-great-great-grandson of prominent businessman George Price Whitaker, of the Whitaker iron family of Pennsylvania.Fan in some way of Charles Manson and his cult, who are a constant reference in his movies. Attended sessions of Manson's judicial process and even dedicated the movie Pink Flamingos (1972) to Manson's girls Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, and the movie Female Trouble (1974) to Charles 'Tex' Watson. Even befriended Van Houten after her incarceration and was a defender of her release from prison. |
| Name: |
John Waters |
Type: |
Actor,Writer,Director (IMDB) |
| Area: |
All World |
Platform: |
IMDB |
| Category: |
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Business scope: |
Actor,Writer,Director |
| Products for sale: |
Actor,Writer,Director |
| Model rank: |
483 |
| Last update: |
2024-07-01 04:55:02 |
| Height: |
6' 2' (1.88 m) |
| Biography: |
Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, John Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore, both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends as his cast, he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid |
| Trivia: |
Has taught classes at the Patuxent Institution, a correctional facility located halfway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The classes are meant as rehabilitation therapy for convicted killers, in which they learn to write about their violent fantasies rather than act them out.Grew his thin pencil-line mustache in honor of Little Richard.Bears such a strong resemblance to actor Steve Buscemi that as a joke, John Waters sent out cards with a photo of Buscemi made up to look like Waters.Subscribes to more than 80 magazines. Also goes to see just about every movie that comes out and hardly ever rents movies.His favorite childhood memory was seeing real blood on the seat of a wrecked car when visiting a scrap yard and fantasizing about lethal car crashes.He is obsessed with true-crime and used to regularly attend gory trials all over the US, where he often saw the same faces in the public galleries.Waters originally wanted a man named "Mr. Ray" to be the narrator of Pink Flamingos (1972). Mr. Ray was famous for his hair-weave radio ads and for his Baltimore accent. Mr. Ray refused, so Waters recorded the voice-over himself, imitating Mr. Ray's voice as "Mr. J."As a youth he would watch adult-only films at the local drive-in, with binoculars.In 2008, Waters was planning to make a children's Christmas film called Fruitcake, starring Johnny Knoxville and Parker Posey. Filming was planned for November 2008, but it was shelved in January 2009. 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".Is a well known bibliophile and owns over 8,000 books.Favorite movies are The Wizard of Oz (1939), Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), Boom! (1968), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Sal��, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), I Stand Alone (1998), and Maps to the Stars (2014).Waters has always been very gracious in acknowledging his creative influences, such as Russ Meyer, Otto Preminger, Liberace, William Castle, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Jayne Mansfield, Robert Bresson, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.As a youth, he made as much as $50 a week doing puppet shows for the neighborhood children, and was often hired to entertain at birthday parties. He stated that many of his puppet shows were inspired by the gimmick-heavy films of William Castle.There is a special section of his immense book collection devoted to Liberace.Maintains a home in north Baltimore, Maryland.Was considered for the role of Det. John Munch on Homicide: Life on the Street (1993).Owns a house in San Francisco. (January 2009)His husband Jacob is 29 years his junior.Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 48th Cannes International Film Festival in 1995.Big fan of 1950s director Douglas Sirk and actually got to meet him while in Europe.Older brother of Steve Waters.Son of John Waters Sr. and Pat Waters.His musical, "Hairspray" at the Marriott Theatre in Chicago, Illinois was nominated for a 2010 Joseph Jefferson Award for Production of a Musical (Large).He lives in Baltimore and owns homes in New York City and San Francisco.He has directed two films that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Pink Flamingos (1972) and Hairspray (1988).One of his closest friends is Baltimore based casting director Pat Moran.Was supposed to have a cameo in American Splendor (2003), as the David Letterman guest holding a alligator.Brother-in-law of Sharon Waters.Was good friends with Russ Meyer, the sexploitation filmmaker. As a fan of his work he would often go see his films in the theatre with Divine.Has released a collection of his scripts called Hairspray, Female Trouble, and Multiple Maniacs (Thunder's Mouth Press). (September 2005)Attended Calvert Hall College High School in Towson, Maryland.Through Richard Owings and his wife Rachel, he is a sixth cousin once removed to Maria Shriver.Was member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002.He is the son of Patricia Ann (Whitaker) and John Samuel Waters, and is of mostly Irish and English descent. Through his mother, he is the great-great-great-grandson of prominent businessman George Price Whitaker, of the Whitaker iron family of Pennsylvania.Fan in some way of Charles Manson and his cult, who are a constant reference in his movies. Attended sessions of Manson's judicial process and even dedicated the movie Pink Flamingos (1972) to Manson's girls Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, and the movie Female Trouble (1974) to Charles 'Tex' Watson. Even befriended Van Houten after her incarceration and was a defender of her release from prison. |
| Trademarks: |
All his movies are set in Baltimore
Frequently casts Patricia Hearst
Casts Mink Stole and Mary Vivian Pearce in nearly all of his films
Transgressive films that combine outrageous subject matter with a sense of bad taste
Many of his characters have alliterated names (Dawn Davenport, Francine Fishpaw, Tracy Turnblad, Penny Pingleton, Sylvia Stickles). |
| Quotes: |
"My hobby is extreme Catholic behavior -- BEFORE the Reformation." (2000)
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"If you can make someone laugh who's dead set against you, that's the first step to winning them over to your side." (2000)
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Some call me director, producer, filmmaker. I prefer to call myself pube-king.
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Strive for art in reverse.
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To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. If someone vomits watching one of my films, it's like getting a standing ovation. But one must remember that there is such a thing as good bad taste and bad bad taste. |
| Job title: |
Actor,Writer,Director |
| Others works: |
Public service announcement to the effect that smoking is not allowed in the movie theatre features John exhaling smoke through his mouth, inhaling this smoke through his nose, and looking pleased.
(1981) Book: "Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Ba |
| Relatives: |
Steve Waters (Sibling) |
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