Edith Massey (actress)
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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 ...
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Massey Sisters
Edith Ellen Henrietta Massey (1863-1946) and Gwenddolen Elizabeth Evileen Massey (1864-1960), known as the Massey Sisters, were two Welsh artists and botanists who created a unique record of the plant-life of Anglesey in the late 19th and early 20th century. Life and career Edith and Gwenddolen Massey were born on the island of Anglesey, off the coast of North Wales. They lived at Cornelyn Manor, near Llangoed, a country house built in 1861 by their father William Massey (1817-1897), who was Deputy Lieutenant and later High Sheriff of Anglesey (1864). Historian John Smith has written that the sisters had a "remarkable" talent for making detailed and exceptional botanical studies despite the fact that it appears they had little training. Edith gathered the flower and plant specimens while her younger sister Gwenddolen painted them in watercolours. They are known to have painted more than 500 studies, annotated with the species names in Welsh, English and Latin. Gwenddolen die ...
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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 transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Female Trouble'' (1974). He wrote and directed the comedy film '' Hairspray'' (1988), which was an international success and was later adapted into a hit Broadway musical. He has written and directed other films, including '' 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. As an actor, Waters has appeared in '' Sweet and Lowdown'' (1999), '' Seed of Chucky'' (2004), '' 'Til Death Do Us Part'' (2007), '' Excision'' (2012), and ''Suburban Gothic'' (2014). More recently, he performs in his touring one-man show '' This Filthy World''. He often worked with actor and drag queen Divine and his regular cast of t ...
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The Four Seasons (band)
The Four Seasons are an American rock and pop band formed in 1960 in Newark, New Jersey. Since 1970, they have also been known at times as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The band evolved out of a previous band called The Four Lovers, with Frankie Valli as the lead singer, Bob Gaudio on keyboards and tenor vocals, Tommy DeVito on lead guitar and baritone vocals, and Nick Massi on bass guitar and bass vocals. On nearly all of their 1960s hits, they were credited as The 4 Seasons. The legal name of the organization is the Four Seasons Partnership, formed by Gaudio and Valli, and was taken after a failed audition in 1960. While band members have come and gone, Gaudio and Valli remain the band's constants, with each owning 50% of the act and its assets, including virtually all of its recording catalog. Gaudio no longer plays live, leaving Valli as the only original member of the band who still tours . The band's original line-up was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ...
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Nothin' Matters And What If It Did
''Nothin' Matters and What If It Did'' is John Mellencamp's fourth studio album, under his pseudonym of John Cougar. Produced by soul pioneer Steve Cropper, the album includes the Top 40 hits "Ain't Even Done with the Night", which reached No. 17 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 as the album's second single, and "This Time", which peaked at No. 27 as the album's lead single. The woman pictured on the album's cover and seen in the music video for "This Time" is actress Edith Massey, a member of the Dreamlanders troupe who often appeared in the films of John Waters. Massey was chosen because, as Mellencamp told '' Rolling Stone'' in late 1980, "I was looking for a typical heavy woman to convey a lower-middle-class way of living." A remastered version of ''Nothin' Matters and What If It Did'' was released on Mercury/Island/UMe on March 29, 2005; it includes one bonus track, "Latest Game", which, according to the liner notes, was taken from the sessions for Mellencamp's 1982 album ' ...
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John Mellencamp
John J. Mellencamp (born October 7, 1951), previously known as Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for his catchy brand of heartland rock, which emphasizes traditional instrumentation. Mellencamp rose to fame in the 1980s while "honing an almost startlingly plainspoken writing style" that, starting in 1982, yielded a string of Top 10 singles, including " Hurts So Good", " Jack & Diane", " Crumblin' Down", " Pink Houses", " Lonely Ol' Night", " Small Town", " R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.", "Paper in Fire", and " Cherry Bomb". He has amassed 22 Top 40 hits in the United States. In addition, he holds the record for the most tracks by a solo artist to hit number one on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, with seven. Mellencamp has been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards, winning one. His latest album of original songs, '' Strictly a One-Eyed Jack'', was released on January 21, 2022. Mellencamp has sold over 30 million alb ...
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Venice, Los Angeles, California
Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside (Los Angeles County), Westside region of Los Angeles County, California. Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it was annexed by Los Angeles. Venice is known for its canals, a beach, and Ocean Front Walk, a pedestrian promenade that features Street performance, performers, Fortune-telling, fortune-tellers, and Hawker (trade)#North America, vendors. History 19th century In 1839, a region called La Ballona that included the southern parts of Venice, was granted by the Mexican government to Ygnacio and Augustin Machado and Felipe and Tomas Talamantes, giving them title to Rancho La Ballona. Later this became part of Port Ballona. Founding Venice, originally called "Venice of America", was founded by wealthy developer Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a beach resort town, west of Los Angeles. He and his partner Francis Ryan had bought of oce ...
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Edie And The Eggs
Edie and the Eggs were a punk/celebrity-exploitation band featuring Edith Massey, known for acting in several films by John Waters. The band's name referred to Massey's character in ''Pink Flamingos'', who had an obsession with eating eggs and romanced an egg delivery man. Massey sometimes wore her bizarre leather costume from the film ''Female Trouble'' during gigs. Edie and the Eggs included future Go-Go's drummer Gina Schock and Ann Collier, guitar player of Rhumboogie, a well-known all-female rock and roll band during 1974-78 from Baltimore. Ann Collier is the person who put the group Edith and the Eggs together after being asked to do so by John Waters. They performed at CBGB and Max's Kansas City in New York City along with a few other engagements. Ann was asked by the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles to bring the act out there for a number of shows. At that time Ann asked Edith, Gina Schock and Suzan Wirth (bass player) if they would like to go to California. The shows were m ...
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Polyester (film)
''Polyester'' is a 1981 American comedy film directed, produced, and written by John Waters, and starring Divine, Tab Hunter, Edith Massey, and Mink Stole. It satirizes the melodramatic genre of women's pictures, particularly those directed by Douglas Sirk, whose work directly influenced this film, as well as a satire of suburban life in the early 1980s involving divorce, abortion, adultery, alcoholism, foot fetishism, and the religious right. ''Polyester'' was filmed in Waters' native Baltimore, Maryland, as with many of his other films, and features a gimmick called Odorama, whereby viewers can smell what they see on screen using scratch and sniff cards, in a stylistic tribute to the work of William Castle, whose films typically featured attention-grabbing gimmicks. Following '' Stunts'', it was one of the first films that New Line Cinema produced. Plot Early 1980s housewife Francine Fishpaw watches her upper-middle-class family's life crumble in their suburban Baltimore ho ...
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Desperate Living
''Desperate Living'' is a 1977 American comedy film directed, produced, and written by John Waters. The film stars Liz Renay, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, Susan Lowe, Mary Vivian Pearce, and Jean Hill. It is the third installment of what Waters has labelled the "Trash Trilogy", which also includes ''Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and ''Female Trouble'' (1974), and the only one to not feature Divine. The film generated a cult following around Renay, who appeared in at least two dozen other films. Plot Neurotic and delusional suburban housewife Peggy Gravel and her overweight nurse, Grizelda Brown, go on the lam after Grizelda smothers Peggy's husband Bosley to death. A cross-dressing policeman arrests the pair and gives them an ultimatum: go to jail or be exiled to Mortville, a filthy shantytown ruled by the evil Queen Carlotta and her treasonous daughter, Princess Coo-Coo. Peggy and Grizelda choose Mortville, and engage in lesbian prison sex. They become associates of self-hating ...
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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 hitchh ...
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Pink Flamingos
''Pink Flamingos'' is a 1972 American film directed, written, produced, narrated, filmed, and edited by John Waters. It is part of what Waters has labelled the "Trash Trilogy", which also includes ''Female Trouble'' (1974) and '' Desperate Living'' (1977). The film stars the countercultural drag queen Divine as a criminal living under the name of Babs Johnson, who is proud to be "the filthiest person alive". While living in a trailer with her mother Edie ( Edith Massey), son Crackers (Danny Mills), and companion Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce), Divine is confronted by the Marbles ( David Lochary and Mink Stole), a pair of criminals envious of her reputation who try to outdo her in filth. The characters engage in several grotesque, bizarre, and explicitly crude situations, and upon the film's re-release in 1997 it was rated NC-17 by the MPAA "for a wide range of perversions in explicit detail". It was filmed in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, where Waters and most of the cast and ...
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