• Name: Divine
  • Date of Birth: October 19, 1945
  • Place of Birth: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Mini-bio: Drag-queen and cult-movie star Divine, born Harris Glenn Milstead, was a high-school acquaintance of John Waters in the early '60s. Waters indulged his chubby friend's penchant for crossdressing, and ... read moreDivine's acting career was launched with Water's first films in the mid '60s, Roman Candles and Eat Your Makeup both filmed while Divine still worked as a hairdresser. As Waters' work became more funny and outrageous with Mondo Trasho(1969) and Multiple Maniacs(1970), Divine's performances became richer and wilder; the two achieved immortality with the outrageously raunchy cult classic Pink Flamingos(1972) in which Divine competes to become the "World's Filthiest Person." They continued working together during the late '70s and into the '80s making two of their best films, Female Trouble(1974) and Polyester(1981). Divine also began appearing for other filmmakers, playing a woman in Paul Bartel's Lust in the Dust(1985) and shedding his feminine garb to play a man in Alan Rudolph's Trouble in Mind(1986). In his/her last appearance for Waters's, Hairspray(1988), Divine played a dual role, one male, one female, and was quite effective in both parts.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. In 1989 Divine died suddenly of an enlarged heart at the age of 42 while preparing for a guest appearance on Fox TV's Married...With Children. ~ Rovi
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Replace this image with an actor photoDivine mini-bio: Originally born Harris Glen Milstead just after the end of WWII, Baltimore's most outrageous resident eventually became the international icon of bad taste cinema, as the always shocking and highly entertaining transvestite performer, Divine.

Milstead met maverick film director & good friend, John Waters, at high school in Baltimore, and the two combined to star in and direct several ultra low budget, taboo breaking cult films of the early 1970s. Their first efforts included Roman Candles (1966), Eat Your Makeup (1968) and Mondo Trasho (1969)....however, their most infamous work together was the amazing Pink Flamingos (1972), in which Divine starred as "Babs Johnson", the "filthiest person alive" living in a pink trailer with her egg-eating grandmother, chicken-loving son and voyeuristic daughter.

Divine also starred as career criminal Dawn Davenport in Female Trouble (1974), as bored housewife Francine Fishpaw in Polyester (1981), as outlaw gal Rosie Velez with half a treasure map tattooed on her butt in Lust in the Dust (1985) and in Waters' loving (but still slightly bizarre) salute to teen dance TV shows as Rikki Lake's mother in the superb Hairspray (1988).

Milstead's health deteriorated due to to his obese frame, and he passed away in his sleep from a combination of heart attack and apnea in 1988.

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  • In Pulp Fiction, after being shot at directly and not getting shot dead, Jules thinks it is_______.  Answer »
  • Name the character Sandra Bullock played in "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood:  Answer »
  • Which actress played in "Kiss The Girls", "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" and "De-Lovely"?  Answer »
  • In Disney's "The Little Mermaid", who was the villain "Ursula" patterned after?  Answer »

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