![]() ![]() ![]() But although there were one or two significant relationships, Divine never had a traditional long-term partner. The film highlights his estrangement from his family, and hints at a series of romantic liaisons throughout his life. His life was pretty darned good! The last time I saw him, at the Baltimore premiere of Hairspray, he was as happy as I’d ever seen him.” Although he didn’t have everything he wanted, he was famous, he was working, he had had a varied and successful career and people loved him. “Isn’t everyone? He was as happy as anyone else I knew, and probably more. “Of course Divine was in pursuit of his own happiness,” says Mink, who starred with Divine in seven of Waters’ films. If the American Dream is defined by the pursuit of happiness, both Jeffrey and former co-star Mink Stole believe Divine threw himself headlong after it and succeeded. “He grew up wanting to be Elizabeth Taylor and a big, fat movie star, which is pretty much what happened,” says Jeffrey. And in doing so, he not only subverted the typical notion of the American Dream but also, paradoxically, achieved it. This transgressive transvestite transformed himself from small-town outcast to transcend expectations and transfix audiences. Making I Am Divine was a chance for Jeffrey to tell his story so that “the next generation get to know their Queen Mother and find inspiration to fulfil their own creative destiny.”Ĭrossing gender stereotypes and traversing boundaries, ‘trans’ is a prefix that crops up a lot when trying to describe Divine. In Schwarz’s words, Divine was a poster child for the misfit youth. Succeeding in becoming an internationally recognised screen icon and recording artist, Divine’s is “the ultimate ‘it gets better’ story”. He grew up wanting to be Elizabeth Taylor and a big, fat movie star, which is pretty much what happened… He threw everything that people made fun of him for back in their faces and empowered himself.” He was able to take all his teenage rage and channel it into the Divine character. When he met John Waters and his crew he found a group that accepted him, loved him, and encouraged him. “Growing up, Divine was picked on, teased and abused. The Baltimore-bred misfit began to thrive when he found a group of likeminded individuals borne of the 1960s counterculture that embraced him, says Schwarz. Jeffrey’s admiration for all that Divine achieved and the wider impact he had on American culture comes to the fore in his new film, I Am Divine – an examination of the life of the screen wonder, who rejected the round-hole society his square peg wouldn’t fit into, and whose life was tragically cut short at the age of 42. Documentary maker Jeffrey Schwarz is one of many around the world fascinated by the flamboyant film star, who was born Harris Glenn Milstead. ![]()
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