Biography
Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, John Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore, both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends as his cast, he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid-'60s; he screened these in rented Baltimore church halls to underground audiences drawn by word of mouth and street leafleting campaigns. As his filmmaking grew more polished and his subject matter more shocking, his audiences grew bigger, and his write-ups in the Baltimore papers more outraged. By the early 1970s he was making features, which he managed to get shown in midnight screenings in art cinemas by sheer perseverance. Success came when Pink Flamingos (1972) - a deliberate exercise in ultra-bad taste - took off in 1973, helped no doubt by lead actor Divine's infamous dog-crap eating scene. Waters continued to make low-budget shocking movies with his Dreamland repertory company until Hollywood crossover success came with Hairspray (1988), and although his movies nowadays might now appear cleaned up and professional, they retain Waters' playfulness, and reflect his lifelong obsessions.
Filmography
all 183
Movies 144
self 108
TV Shows 39
Director 19
Voice 5
Writer 2
Narrator 2
Scala!!! (2024)
Lynch/Oz (2023)
Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023)
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)
Fragments of Paradise (2022)
Living with Chucky (2022)
The Book of Harth (2022)
Charles Band’s Full Moon Freakshow (2022)
Tell Me Iggy (2022)
The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022)
Blood, Guts and Sunshine: The History of Horror Made in Florida (2021)
The Velvet Underground (2021)
Pride (2021)
The Mystery of the Pink Flamingo (2020)
Time Warp Vol. 3: Comedy and Camp (2020)
Time Warp Vol. 2: Horror and Sci-Fi (2020)
Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All Time (2020)
Time Warp Vol. 1: Midnight Madness (2020)
Joel Calls Indie Film Type Dudes (2020)
30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing (2019)
At the Video Store (2019)
Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn (2019)
Sniffing Out ‘Polyester’ (2019)
Mugworth (2018)
Liverspots and Astronots (2018)
Crime and Beauty: Making ‘Female Trouble’ (2018)
Explained (2018)
Sickies Making Films (2018)
Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution (2017)
FEUD (2017)
Mansfield 66/67 (2017)
Hairspray Live! (2016)
Search Party (2016)
Weiner (2016)
In Conversation With Director John Waters, Actress Kathleen Turner and Actress Mink Stole (2016)
Whatever Happened to Gelitin (2016)
The New Yorker Presents (2016)
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015)
Sympathy For The Devil: The True Story of The Process Church of the Final Judgment (2015)
The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin (2015)
Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story (2015)
Tab Hunter Confidential (2015)
Kiddie Flamingos (2015)
Suburban Gothic (2014)
Clarence (2014)
Late Night with Seth Meyers (2014)
HitRECord on TV with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (2014)
Jingle Bell Rocks! (2013)
The Blacklist (2013)
RuPaul Drives... (2013)
Paul Bowles: The Cage Door Is Always Open (2013)
The Sarnos: A Life in Dirty Movies (2013)
I Am Divine (2013)
Frankenstein: A Modern Myth (2012)
Excision (2012)
Mansome (2012)
Of Dolls and Murder (2012)
Finding Your Roots (2012)
The Advocate for Fagdom (2011)
Blank City (2011)
Mangus! (2011)
These Amazing Shadows (2011)
William S. Burroughs: A Man Within (2010)
Fish Hooks (2010)
Offspring (2010)
Uncle Bob (2010)
Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (2010)
Beautiful Darling (2010)
Putty Hill (2010)
The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special - In 3D! On Ice! (2010)
It Came from Kuchar (2009)
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen (2009)
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism (2009)
RuPaul's Drag Race (2009)
The Wild World of Ted V. Mikels (2008)
Obscene (2008)
Starz Inside: In the Gutter (2008)
Sex: The Revolution (2008)
Guest of Cindy Sherman (2008)
New Line Cinema: The First Generation and the Next Generation (2008)
Coven of the Heathenites (2008)
Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story (2007)
The Junior Defenders (2007)
There's a Hippo in my House (2007)
Indie Sex (2007)
An American Crime (2007)
Hairspray (2007)
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2007)
Each Time I Kill (2007)
'Til Death Do Us Part (2007)
The Graham Norton Show (2007)
Here’s Looking at You, Boy (2007)
This Filthy World (2006)
Treasures Untold: The Making of Disney's 'The Little Mermaid' (2006)
Jackass Number Two (2006)
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players: Off & On Broadway (2006)
I Love the '70s: Volume 2 (2006)
Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream (2006)
Mommie Dearest: Joan Lives On (2006)
The Henry Rollins Show (2006)
Footlight Parade: Music for the Decades (2006)
(buz'be bur'kle) n. A Study in Style (2006)
Busby Berkeley's Kaleidoscopic Eyes (2006)
42nd Street: From Book to Screen to Stage (2006)
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea (2006)
Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema (2006)
This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)
That Man: Peter Berlin (2006)
I, of the Cyclops (2006)
Meet The Kuchar Brothers (2006)
It Came from... Baltimore!! (2005)
All the Dirt on 'A Dirty Shame' (2005)
Chucky's Family Vacation (2005)
Inside Deep Throat (2005)
Seed of Chucky (2004)
Thinking XXX (2004)
A Dirty Shame (2004)
Blondie - Live by Request (2004)
Abby Singer (2003)
Real Time with Bill Maher (2003)
A History of Sex (2003)
Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002)
The Cockettes (2002)
Memories of Oz (2001)
Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story (2000)
Cecil B. Demented (2000)
Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999)
In Bad Taste (1999)
Yesterday's Tomorrows (1999)
Forever Hollywood (1999)
Little Castles (1998)
Welcome to Hollywood (1998)
Pecker (1998)
So Graham Norton (1998)
Anarchy TV (1998)
Divine Trash (1998)
Anthem (1997)
E! True Hollywood Story (1996)
Ballyhoo: The Hollywood Sideshow! (1996)
The Daily Show (1996)
God Save the Queens (1995)
Serial Mom (1994)
Frasier (1993)
Homicide: Life on the Street (1993)
Growing Up with John Waters (1993)
HBO First Look (1992)
Gastronomic Getaway (1991)
Cry-Baby (1990)
The Simpsons (1989)
Homer and Eddie (1989)
The Incredibly Strange Film Show: Herschell Gordon Lewis (1988)
The Incredibly Strange Film Show (1988)
The Incredibly Strange Film Show: John Waters (1988)
Hairspray (1988)
Way USA! (1988)
21 Jump Street (1987)
Something Wild (1986)
Divine Waters (1985)
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1985)
No Smoking in This Theater (1982)
Polyester (1981)
Desperate Living (1977)
Edith's Shopping Bag (1976)
Love Letter to Edie (1975)
Female Trouble (1974)
Pink Flamingos (1972)
The Diane Linkletter Story (1970)
Multiple Maniacs (1970)
Mondo Trasho (1969)
Eat Your Makeup (1968)
Roman Candles (1967)
Hag in a Black Leather Jacket (1964)
Tony Awards (1956)
The Brandon Novak Story
Mary Woronov: Cult Queen
L’estate di Joe, Liz e Richard
Dorothy, the Kansas City Pot Head
Liarmouth
Blondie: Live by Request
My Life with the Waters
TURA!
John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You
Ratings
Gallery
Information
Known ForDirecting
GenderMale
Birthday1946-04-22 (77 years old)
Birth NameJohn Samuel Waters Jr.
Birth PlaceBaltimore, United States of America
Height
FatherJohn Samuel Waters
MotherPatricia Ann Whitaker
CitizenshipsUnited States of America
Also Known AsJohn S. Waters
AwardsOfficer of Arts and Letters
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