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Dreamlander
Dreamlanders are the cast and crew of regulars whom John Waters has used in his films. The term comes from the name of Waters' production company, Dreamland Productions. Many of the original Dreamlanders were friends of Waters from his native Baltimore, Maryland. They included the "bad suburban kids" he knew from Towson and Lutherville: Bob Skidmore, Mark Isherwood, and Mary Vivian Pearce. This crowd was drawn to downtown Baltimore by the gay scene, where Divine introduced Waters to David Lochary. History The original Dreamlanders also included denizens of the Fells Point neighborhood where Waters' art director, Vincent Peranio, a recent graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art, had rented an industrial space that once housed a commercial bakery with seven other Maryland Institute graduates, to use as cheap studio and living space. They called it the Hollywood Bakery. In Fells Point, the Dreamlanders were regular customers at Pete's Hotel, Bertha's, and Jimmy's. In addition t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Female Trouble
''Female Trouble'' is a 1974 American dark comedy film co-composed, photographed, co-edited, written, produced, and directed by John Waters and starring Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, Michael Potter, Cookie Mueller, and Susan Walsh. The film is about a delinquent high school student who runs away from home, gets pregnant while hitchhiking, and becomes entangled in a criminal scheme to prove "crime equals beauty". The film is dedicated to Manson Family member Charles "Tex" Watson. Waters' prison visits to Watson inspired the "crime is beauty" theme of the film and in the film's opening credits, Waters includes a wooden toy helicopter that Watson made for him. Plot Spoiled delinquent high-school student Dawn Davenport goes berserk when her parents refuse to buy her the shoes she wants for Christmas because "nice girls don't wear cha-cha heels": she destroys presents, topples a Christmas tree on her mother, and flees the house. Dawn hitch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Koper
Peter Koper (January 1947 – May 21, 2022) was an American journalist, professor, screenwriter, and producer. He numbers among the original Dreamlanders, the group of actors and artists who worked with independent filmmaker John Waters on his early films. He wrote for the United Feature Syndicate, Associated Press, ''Baltimore Sun'', ''American Film'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''People'' and the website ''Splice Today''. He worked as a staff writer and producer for ''America's Most Wanted'', and has written television for Discovery Channel, Learning Channel, Paramount Television and Lorimar Television. Koper wrote and co-produced the cult movie ''Headless Body in Topless Bar'', and wrote the screenplay for '' Island of the Dead''. He has taught at the University of the District of Columbia, and Hofstra University. Early life and influences Koper was born in 1947 in British-occupied Quakenbrück, Germany, to Polish resistance fighter Antoni Koper and Holocaust survivor and nurse Soph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Vivian Pearce
Mary Vivian Pearce (born November 9, 1947) is an American actress. She has worked primarily in the films of John Waters. Life and career Pearce is a childhood best friend of Waters and has appeared as an actress in all of his films. Because of her work with Waters, she is considered one of the Dreamlanders, Waters' ensemble of regular cast and crew members. Along with Mink Stole, she is one of only two actors to appear in all of his films to date. Pearce is always credited by her real name, but in her personal life, she is known as Bonnie. Her first film with Waters, in 1964, was a 17-minute independent short film called '' Hag in a Black Leather Jacket''. The film was never released. In the rest of Waters' films, she's played both main and bit parts. Her most famous roles were in Waters' ''Mondo Trasho'', ''Multiple Maniacs'', ''Pink Flamingos'', ''Female Trouble'' and ''Desperate Living''. However, as the years progressed, Pearce appeared less and less in Waters' films, usua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multiple Maniacs
''Multiple Maniacs'' is a 1970 independent American black comedy horror film composed, shot, edited, written, produced, and directed by John Waters, as his second feature film and first "talkie". It features several actors who were part of the Dreamland acting troupe for Waters' films, including Divine, Mary Vivian Pearce, David Lochary, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, George Figgs, and Cookie Mueller. The plot follows a traveling troupe of sideshow freaks who rob their unsuspecting audience members. In 2016, American art house film distributor Janus Films and video distribution company The Criterion Collection undertook a new restoration of the film, with its preview for the restored print released June 17, 2016 at the Provincetown Film Festival, and its national exhibition began August 5, 2016. Plot Lady Divine is the owner and operator of The Cavalcade of Perversion, a free exhibit of various perversions and fetish acts and obscenities, such as the "Puke Eater". The show is fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divine (performer)
Harris Glenn Milstead (October 19, 1945 – March 7, 1988), better known by his stage name Divine, was an American actor, singer, and drag queen. Closely associated with independent filmmaker John Waters, Divine was a character actor, usually performing female roles in cinematic and theatrical productions, and adopted a female drag persona for his music career. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, to a conservative middle-class family, Milstead developed an early interest in drag while working as a women's hairdresser. By the mid-1960s he had embraced the city's counterculture of the 1960s, countercultural scene and befriended Waters, who gave him the name "Divine" and the tagline of "the most beautiful woman in the world, almost". Along with his friend David Lochary, Milstead joined Waters' acting troupe, the Dreamlanders, and adopted female roles for their experimental short films ''Roman Candles (1966 film), Roman Candles'' (1966), ''Eat Your Makeup'' (1968), and ''The Diane Linklet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Waters
John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his Cinema of Transgression, transgressive cult films, including ''Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), ''Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and ''Female Trouble'' (1974). He wrote and directed the comedy film ''Hairspray (1988 film), Hairspray'' (1988), which was an international success and was later adapted into a Hairspray (musical), hit Broadway musical. He has written and directed other films, including ''Polyester (film), Polyester'' (1981), ''Cry-Baby'' (1990), ''Serial Mom'' (1994), ''Pecker (film), Pecker'' (1998), and ''Cecil B. Demented'' (2000). His films contain elements of Postmodern art, post-modern comedy and Surrealism and film, surrealism. As an actor, Waters has appeared in ''Sweet and Lowdown'' (1999), ''Seed of Chucky'' (2004), '''Til Death Do Us Part (American TV series), 'Til Death Do Us Part'' (2007), ''Excision (film), Excision'' (2012), a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Susan Lowe
Susan Lowe (born Laura Susan Lowe on January 19, 1948 in Reidsville, North Carolina) is an American actress, educator and painter. She has appeared exclusively in the works of John Waters for most of her career, starring in ten of his films. About Lowe was born in Reidsville, North Carolina on January 19, 1948. She was a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in the 1960s, when she became friends with Divine and other Dreamlanders. Her first role with Waters was playing an asylum inmate in ''Mondo Trasho''. She continued to play small parts in many of his films, but played the lead role of Mole McHenry, the ultra-butch bleach blonde lesbian, in ''Desperate Living''. She has taught art history classes at MICA, Catonsville Community College, and University of Maryland. Personal life Lowe has been married twice, and has two children. Her first husband, surnamed McLean, was a drawing teacher at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where Lowe had worked as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mink Stole
Nancy Paine Stoll (born August 25, 1947), known professionally as Mink Stole, is an American actress from Baltimore, Maryland. She began her career working for director John Waters, and has appeared in all of his feature films to date (a distinction shared only with Mary Vivian Pearce). Her extensive work with Waters has made her one of the Dreamlanders, Waters' ensemble of regular cast and crew members. Biography She was born into a large Roman Catholic family, and has nine siblings, including children's-book author Ellen Stoll Walsh and sculptor George Stoll. Her father, Joseph A. Stoll, died in 1955, and her mother, Nell, remarried twice, resulting in an extensive step-family. Stole has performed in most of the films by close friend John Waters. Her film career began as a party guest in Waters' film '' Roman Candles''. Since then, she has appeared in all of his feature films up to and including 2004's ''A Dirty Shame''. The only Waters films in which she does not appear are t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Hill (actress)
Jean Elizabeth Hill (November 15, 1946 – August 21, 2013) was an American model and actress most notable for the role of Grizelda Brown in the 1977 film ''Desperate Living''. Hill is considered a Dreamlander (John Waters' regular ensemble of cast members). Biography Jean Hill was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of a city sanitation supervisor and a nurse and raised on Druid Hill Avenue in the city's Druid Heights neighborhood. She was a 1965 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School. Following high school, she earned an associate degree from Baltimore City Community College and earned a bachelor's degree in special education from what is now Coppin State University. Hill tutored special education students at School 181 in Baltimore. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Lochary
David Crawford Lochary (August 21, 1944 – July 29, 1977) was an American actor, one of the regular "Dreamlander" actors in early films of the controversial "trash" film director John Waters. He starred in such films as ''Pink Flamingos'', ''Female Trouble'', and ''Multiple Maniacs'', in which he typically played exotically-dressed, sophisticated perverts. Lochary co-wrote ''The Diane Linkletter Story'' with Divine, and worked as an uncredited hair and makeup artist on many of Waters' films. Lochary met Divine at beauty school and used to style his wigs and makeup for parties. Divine later commented that he had "never even heard the word 'drag' before David." Personal life Lochary was the son of Dean and Mary Eileen (nee McMahan) Lochary; his mother Mary was featured on two of Waters' films: "Multiple Maniacs" and "Female Trouble". Donald Lochary, David's elder brother, died in July 2019; he also played a small, uncredited role on ''Female Trouble''. Lochary was gay; in the 70 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Figgs
George Figgs (born 1947, Baltimore, Maryland) is an American actor and projectionist. He began his career portraying characters in the early films of John Waters. Because of his work with Waters, he is considered one of the Dreamlanders, Waters' ensemble of regular cast and crew members. Figgs is a film historian interested in film noir and independent films. From 1991 to 1999 Figgs was the owner/operator of the Orpheum Cinema in the Fell's Point section of Baltimore. Filmography Film roles *''Mondo Trasho'' (1969) as Asylum Inmate/Man in Waiting Room *''Multiple Maniacs'' (1970) as Jesus Christ *''Pink Flamingos'' (1972) as Bongo player *''Female Trouble'' (1974) as Dribbles *''Desperate Living'' (1977) as Herbert *'' Polyester'' (1981) as Abortion Picketer *'' Divine Trash'' (1998) as himself *''A Dirty Shame'' (2004) as Neuter (uncredited) *'' I Am Divine'' (2013) as himself Crew *''Serial Mom'' (1994) (projectionist) *''Major League II ''Major League II'' is a 1994 A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edith Massey (actress)
Edith Massey (born Edith Dornfield; May 28, 1918 – October 24, 1984) was an American actress and singer. Massey was best known for her appearances in a series of movies by director John Waters. She was one of the Dreamlanders, Waters's stable of regular cast and crew members. Early life Born Edith Dornfield on May 28, 1918, in New York City, she was the daughter of Samuel and Bessie (Lansnek) Dornfield. Samuel, who was born in Austria or Ukraine, died about five months after Massey's birth. The 1920 United States Federal Census recorded Edith, age one, living on Lewis Street in Manhattan, New York, with her three-year-old sister, Etta, and their widowed mother, Bessie, who was 22 years old. The following year, on March 9, 1921, Bessie married her second husband, Max Grodsky, in Denver, Colorado. According to Massey's half-brother, Morris Grodsky, their parents "just threw up their hands one day, dropped off those who couldn't fend for themselves at a local orphanage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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