John Waters

MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939) had a profound effect on Waters' 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 high-brow "art" films and sleazy exploitation films.

John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist.

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 to the United States from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada as a child, he is the great-great-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 Towson, Maryland, and Calvert Hall College High School in nearby Towson, 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 the kindness of patrons to slip him drinks.

Waters's first short film was Hag in a Black Leather Jacket.

In January 1966, Waters and some friends were caught smoking marijuana on the grounds of NYU, 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'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.

He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974).

Other films he has written and directed include Desperate Living (1977), Polyester (1981), Cry-Baby (1990), Serial Mom (1994), Pecker (1998), and Cecil B. Demented (2000).

His films contain elements of post-modern comedy and surrealism.

Waters wrote and directed the comedy film Hairspray (1988), which was later adapted into a hit Broadway musical and a 2007 musical film.

As an actor, Waters has appeared in Sweet and Lowdown (1999), Seed of Chucky (2004), 'Til Death Do Us Part (2007), Mangus! (2011), Excision (2012), and Suburban Gothic (2014).

He hosted and produced the television series John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You (2006).

Throughout his career, Waters has often collaborated with actor and drag queen Divine and his regular cast of the Dreamlanders.

More recently, he performs in his touring one-man show This Filthy World.

Waters also works as a visual artist and across different media, such as installations, photography, and sculpture.

The audiobooks he narrated for his books Carsick and Mr. Know-It-All were nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2015 and 2020, respectively.

In 2018, Waters was named an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France.

He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023.