Divine (performer)

Divine (performer)

Divine (October 19, 1945 – March 7, 1988), also known as Harris Glenn Milstead, was an American actor, singer and drag queen. A character actor who often performed female roles in both cinema and theater, Divine also adopted a female drag persona in his musical performances, leading People magazine to describe him as the "Drag Queen of the Century". He was often associated with independent filmmaker John Waters and starred in ten of Waters's films, usually in a leading role. Concurrent with his acting career, he also had a successful career as a disco singer during the 1980s, at one point being described as "the most successful and in-demand disco performer in the world."

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, into a conservative, upper-middle-class family, he became involved with John Waters and Waters's acting troupe, the Dreamlanders, in the mid-1960s and starred in a number of Waters's early films such as Mondo Trasho (1969), Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974). These films became hits on the midnight movie and underground cinema circuit in the U.S., and have since become cult classics, with Divine becoming particularly renowned for playing the role of Babs Johnson in Pink Flamingos, during which he had to perform a series of extreme acts including eating dog excrement.

In the 1970s, Milstead made the transition to theater and appeared in a number of productions, including Women Behind Bars and The Neon Woman, while continuing to star in such films as Polyester (1981), Lust in the Dust (1985) and Hairspray (1988). Meanwhile, in 1981 Divine had embarked on a disco career, producing Hi-NRG tracks, most of which had been written by Bobby Orlando, and went on to achieve chart success with hits like "You Think You're a Man", "I'm So Beautiful" and "Walk Like a Man". Divine died in Los Angeles from cardiomegaly in 1988.

The New York Times said of Milstead's '80s films: "Those who could get past the unremitting weirdness of Divine's performance discovered that the actor/actress had genuine talent, including a natural sense of comic timing and an uncanny gift for slapstick." He was also described as "one of the few truly radical and essential artists of the century… was an audacious symbol of man's quest for liberty and freedom." Since his death, Divine has remained a cult figure, particularly within in the LGBT community.