Having made headlines as a bombshell blonde with Jewish roots claiming to have danced with Adolf Hitler-not just once, but twice-Gabor’s name scattered across the tabloids until her death in 2016. Glamour, glitz and debauchery filled 1950s Hollywood and at the center of it all was the actress, Zsa Zsa Gabor. Singers, songwriters, novelists, actors, film-makers, drag queens, cartoonists, and many others…you can start with one artist and discover many others.Driving the discounted art of drag forward: Zsa Zsa Gabortion’s design details demonstrate divine artistry So many interconnected passions of mine have led me to other icons. It’s brilliantly barmy, a preposterous masterpiece. It’s filmed in black and white, but it doesn’t matter. It isn’t available here in the UK, but Multiple Maniacs is out. Let me believe it.įemale Trouble is available to buy in America as part of The Criterion Collection. I’m convinced the term ‘snatching wigs’ came from this episode. The Ricki Lake Show was The Wendy Williams Show of the day, except the host clearly cared about people. Heklina was there at the start of her career. Camp, ridiculous, sometimes hard-hitting, it was also a place that showcased drag queens in New York. The Ricki Lake Show was MUST SEE TV back in the 90s and I watched it religiously with my sister. I was obsessed with The Ricki Lake Show because Ricki started off as a John Waters muse. Watching Divine movies inevitably led me to Hairspray, which led me to another icon of mine Ricki Lake. Hi-NRG is the best.”īut it all connects because Kurt Cobain rated The Vaselines as probably his favourite band ever and he also adored a certain drag queen who came into the spotlight after Divine’s untimely death. In the booklet along with the lyrics, Eugene wrote “We always loved John Waters. I listened to it on the way home thanks to my crappy CD Walkman. On the tracklist was their cover of Divine’s class pop opus You Think You’re A Man, which of course made me snatch it up and buy it. A Scottish band on Sub Pop sold back to someone in Scotland. In terms of music, I discovered The Way Of The Vaselines, a compilation album of every song ever recorded (at that point) by The Vaselines. You would be lucky to get a repeat of it on Channel 4, but when it happened, I made sure I was up and watching. Not even Hairspray, which wasn’t the huge musical it is now. Demented and Cry Baby, but nothing with Divine. Video shops (yes, they were real) stocked Cecil B. It wasn’t easy to get John Waters movies back in the 90s. Trouble In Mind is a lost classic Divine plays the role out of drag, but there’s a real slimy evil about their character in the film, and every scene they’re in (not many) they conquer effortlessly. Can you get more subversive than standing in the middle of the stage, looking like the Michelin Man at the worst Stag Do ever, slapping away balloons?ĭivine as an actor was a brilliant talent, very underrated. Divine, a punk icon of underground cinema, actually made it onto Top of the Pops. You couldn’t actually call Divine a singer, but she had a great punk rasp. Divine hit notes too – only she battered fuck out of them, screeching, howling, snarling. Most contemporaneous popstars of the 80s used their voices to hit notes and sing songs. Later, when I discovered Divine had a side career as a popstar (!) I knew that I’d love her songs no matter what. You couldn’t deny the punk weirdness of a fat drag queen with painted eyebrows and a voice that could be turned on terrorists as a last resort. From the moment I saw her during a late-night broadcast of Female Trouble, I knew she was something different. Divine, a larger than life drag queen, was more bombed blondshell than blond bombshell.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |