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With the release of Multiple Maniacs (1970), John Waters was only one film away from Pink Flamingos, the subversive classic that would put his star into permanent orbit, much to the dismay of middle-class parents everywhere, but to the sheer delight of their pot-smoking children. MM was the shocking tale of Lady Divine's Cavalcade of Perversions, a traveling sideshow that's really a front for a band of psychotic kidnappers, Divine being the most depraved of them. In this movie, the 300-pound star is sexually assaulted by rosary beads and a 15-foot lobster. Multiple Maniacs introduced another Waters' favorite, Edith (The Egg Lady) Massey.

John Waters exploded into international notoriety with 1972's Pink Flamingos, a darkly-comic, deeply perverse story about a degenerate couple, the Marbles, trying to take away from the Babs Johnson (Divine) family, the coveted title of Filthiest People Alive. Costing a scant $12,000, Waters' first color movie grossed in excess of $15 million, and made headlines internationally. At the movie's finale, Babs insures the dubious title is hers in perpetuity with the previously mentioned puppy poop consumption.

With Divine at his side, John Waters and his shocking films (Flamingos, Female Trouble, Desperate Living) reigned supreme at experimental cinemas and Midnight Movies until dethroned in by The Rocky Horror Picture Show, first released in 1975, but not a midnight phenomenon until the decade's end. By then, he'd shattered every movie taboo, shattered middle-class mores beyond his own immodest expectations, and Hollywood was calling.

Decidedly above ground for the last 25 years, John Waters' mainstream motion pictures have reflected Hollywood homogenization, as well as the belief that, short of a snuff film, there was nothing more he could do on screen to shock an audience.

Following Divine's passing, one week after Hairspray's February 1988 release; Waters' more recent movies also mirror how important Divine had been to his success. Seventeen years and five motion pictures later, he has still not had a Hairspray-sized motion picture success.

John Waters' 1990 Cry-Baby, starring Johnny Depp, actually received a PG-13 rating. Oh, the pain. The John Waters of Pink Flamingos infamy would have been horrified, outraged by the MPAA's tepid response to his work. That was then.

Today, entering his Golden Years, cinema's once-upon-a-time underground underdog simply savors his highly improbable mainstream success.

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