Divine

Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead, 1945–1988) was an American actor, singer, and drag performer who became one of the most transgressive and beloved figures in cult cinema history through her long collaboration with director John Waters. Born and raised in Baltimore, she 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 she played both the mother Edna Turnblad and the racist 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 her influence on queer aesthetics, camp, and drag culture — including RuPaul's Drag Race — is incalculable. She died of an enlarged heart six months after Hairspray's release, at age 42.