Baltimore writer and filmmaker John Waters got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday, the capstone to a week of West Coast parties and tributes that he called “the ultimate Dreamland reunion.”
Hundreds crowded onto the narrow sidewalk in front of Larry Edmunds Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard—and behind barriers across the street—to watch the newest Walk of Famer get his star and hear accolades from actresses Mink Stole and Ricki Lake, as well as photographer Greg Gorman.
Women wore cat eye glasses and leopard-skin leggings. Men came in Camp John Waters T-shirts and Pink Flamingo-print pants. One fan held up a poster of the famous Hollywood sign, except that the letters read “Filthywood.” Emcee Steve Nissen, president and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, proclaimed September 18 “John Waters Day” and gave a shoutout to fans back in Baltimore, watching live-streams of the ceremony at the Charles and Senator theaters.
“Here I am! Closer to the gutter than ever!” Waters told the crowd. “The Hollywood Walk of Fame, the first place I ever came to in Los Angeles, after driving across the country with [Dreamlander] David Lochary. I got out of my vehicle in 1970 at Hollywood and Vine, darted across the street, and got a jaywalking ticket—the first one, and I never looked back.”
Nominated in the Motion Pictures category, Waters received the 2,763rd star on the famous walk. His films range from his early “trash trilogy” of Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, and Desperate Living to more mainstream works such as Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and Serial Mom. He was nominated by Outfest of Los Angeles, and his terrazzo and brass star at 6644 Hollywood Boulevard is next to those of Gene Autry and Ray Bradbury. The Los Angeles City Council voted 11 to 0 on August 4, with four members absent, to approve its installation.
Waters held up a framed photo of his parents, Pat and John Waters, dedicating his star to them.
“Despite being horrified by my early films, and some of the late ones too,” he said, they “encouraged me to continue because I guess they just thought, ‘What else could I possibly do except be in show business?’”
Family members at the Walk of Fame ceremony included John Waters’ sisters Trish Waters and Kathy Marshall; nephew John Marshall; brother-in-law John Neer; sister-in-law Sharon Waters; and others.
During the ceremony, Baltimore native Mink Stole, born Nancy Paine Stoll, recalled how she met Waters in Provincetown in the 1960s, when she was a “clueless 19-year-old” and he was “an as-yet un-mustached 20.” The actress said she was drawn to Waters because he was “so smart, so funny, so confident, and so totally unlike anyone that I had ever met. What I didn’t realize is that he was totally unlike anyone that anybody had ever met—or how lucky that meeting would be for me.”
As Waters’ films grew better technologically, she said, the audiences grew with them—in size, diversity, and devotion.
“I don’t know how John’s brain works,” she said. “I don’t know how he comes up with characters like the Egg Lady, who lives in a crib in her underwear, or Serial Mom, who murders to avenge society’s missteps. But I don’t care. What I do know is that John is brilliant, he is decent—unfailingly decent—and he is the hardest working man in show business.”
Lake, who got her start as Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 version of Hairspray, read from a letter she wrote to Waters after filming ended, thanking him for treating her like an adult and teaching her that “it’s what’s on the inside” that counts.
“So what if 1. I had to remain fat for two months straight. 2. Wear live roaches on my back, not to mention rats. 3. Be smashed in the face with a huge ball. 4. Be hoisted in the air like an immobile Mack truck. 5. Lick a TV screen as if it was licking me back. And 6. Respond to the name Orca. So what? I’m me!” she said.
The ceremony came one day after the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened John Waters: Pope of Trash, a blockbuster exhibit that explores Waters’ six decades as a filmmaker and his impact on cinema, which runs through August 4, 2024.
For four days, Waters, 77, was the center of previews, press events, and parties that brought out much of Hollywood and beyond. He signed copies of a new coffee table book that accompanies the museum exhibit and led tours of the show, pointing out details such as the “non-functioning glory hole” near the Cecil B. Demented gallery and a montage of Foot Stomper scenes from Polyester. On Sunday night, after signing 250-plus books and posing for selfies, Waters gave 1,000 fans a taste of one of his off-color spoken-word shows, when he took part in an unfiltered “conversation” with drag performer Peaches Christ before a sold-out screening of Serial Mom.
Peaches Christ is the stage name of Joshua Grannell, who is also a filmmaker and actor based in San Francisco. He called Waters his “idol of all idols.”
“As a young queen growing up in Maryland, the discovery of his films changed my life, and I know that I speak for probably everyone in this audience who went through their John Waters immersion period—they were forever changed,” Grannell said. “He changed us. He changed culture.”
In addition to the eclectic roster of celebrities and dignitaries who attended the events honoring Waters (including fashion designer Jeremy Scott, director Gus Van Sant, and actor Tom Felton of Harry Potter fame), Baltimore was well represented, too, with travelers including casting director and Dreamlander Pat Moran and her family; Jesse Salazar, one half of the couple that commissioned Gaia to paint a mural of Divine on their Preston Street rowhouse; and Atomic Books founder Scott Huffines and his wife Kristin Miller.
Huffines, who started the tradition of collecting John Waters fan mail at Atomic Books, said it was “surreal” to him to see people in Hollywood responding so passionately to Waters and to his movies that are so closely associated with Baltimore.
“In John’s movies, Baltimore is always one of the major characters,” Huffines said after the ceremony. “‘Polyester’ is my favorite, and when Jean Hill is riding the MTA bus, you see the old Harborplace and scenes of Baltimore in the eighties. Even up to ‘Cecil B. Demented,’ you see the montage of all the closed-down movie theaters…It’s a Baltimore travelogue.”
Huffines, who owned Atomic Books from 1992 until around 2000, said he and Waters met because they both loved books, and then they became bar buddies. “He showed up at my store the weekend I opened. Then fans started sending fan mail to the store and so John would come in. And we both have the same love of biker dive bars. I’ve known him over 30 years…He’s the same guy.”
After giving his prepared remarks, which he read from the same yellow legal pad he uses to write almost everything, Waters showed that normal side when he returned to the podium to thank the fans across the street for supporting his work over the years.
“They won’t let me come across the street because there’s a fire down the street, and I hope none of you set it,” he said. “But anyway…if it wasn’t for you, I’d never be up here.”
Waters said he hopes his star will inspire others who come to Hollywood seeking fame and fortune.
“I hope the most desperate showbiz rejects walk over me here and feel some sort of respect and strength,” he said. “The drains on this magic boulevard will never wash away the gutter of my gratitude, the flotsam of my film career, or the waste of Waters’ appreciation.”
Waters thanked film industry honchos such as Robert Shaye of New Line Cinema for supporting his work, and saluted Outfest for thinking he was “gay enough” to nominate for the Walk of Fame. He also put in a plug for another Baltimorean and LGBTQ legend he’d like to see get a star: “Next year, maybe Divine!”