Divine

Divine (born Harris Glenn Milstead) was an American actor, singer, and drag performer who became one of the most transgressive and beloved figures in cult cinema history through his long collaboration with director John Waters. Born and raised in Baltimore, he befriended Waters as a teenager and went on to play the lead in his provocateur shockers Pink Flamingos (1972), Female Trouble (1974), Polyester (1981), and Hairspray (1988) — in which he played both the mother Edna Turnblad and the villain Arvin Hodgepile. Off-screen, Milstead identified as a gay man; on-screen, he inhabited over-the-top female characters with ferocious commitment. Though primarily identified with drag and gay culture, Divine's performances blurred every available category of gender, identity, and respectability, and his influence on queer aesthetics, camp, and drag culture is incalculable. He died of a heart attack three weeks after Hairspray's release, at age 42.