Hairspray, Female Trouble, and Multiple Maniacs Three More Screenplays

Here are three more of John Waters's most popular screenplays for the first time in print, including an original introduction by Waters and dozens of fun film stills. John Waters, the writer and director of these movies, is a legendary filmmaker whose films occupy their own niche in cinema history. His muse and leading lady was Divine a 300-pound transvestite who could eat dog shit in one scene and break your heart in the next. In "Hairspray," a "pleasantly plump" teenager, played by Ricki Lake, and her big-hearted hairdresser mother, played by Divine, teach 1962 Baltimore about race relations by integrating a local TV dance show. "Female Trouble" is a coming-of-age story gone terribly awry: Dawn Davenport (again, Divine), progresses from loving schoolgirl to crazed mass murderer destined for the electric chair all because her parents wouldn't buy her cha-cha heels for Christmas. In "Multiple Maniacs," dubbed by Waters a "celluloid atrocity," the traveling sideshow "Lady Divine's Cavalcade of Perversions" is actually a front for a group of psychotic kidnappers, with Lady Divine herself the most vicious and depraved of all but her life changes after she gets raped by a fifteen-foot lobster.

John Waters has written and directed twelve films, including "Pink Flamingos," "Polyester," "Hairspray," "Cecil B. DeMented," and the Fall '04 release "A Dirty Shame." He's also written four books and been referenced in countless others. The 2003 Broadway production of "Hairspray" was nominated for thirteen Tony Awards and won eight, sweeping the main musical categories with best musical, best actor, best actress, and best direction. The runaway success of "Hairspray" has put Waters squarely in mainstream American culture.