I Am Divine (2013)

I Am Divine: Directed by Jeffrey Schwarz. With Divine, Michael Musto, Mark Payne, Greg Gorman. How Divine, aka Harris Glenn Milstead, became John Waters’ cinematic muse and an international drag icon.

“Now, I would never, ever say that Harris Glenn Milstead (aka. Divine) was my kind of people – But after watching this bio-documentary, I was relieved to find out that there was more to this particular character besides being an outrageous, 350 lb., drag queen who once actually ate a real dog turd (on screen) as an obvious ploy to gain worldwide, cult-status recognition.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn u0026quot;I Am Divineu0026quot; – It sure seemed to me that just about everyone (and their dog) who ever met Divine came out of the closet to gush over him and paint an almost unrealistic picture of this entertainer who (though he had a real foul mouth) was, in reality, as adorable (and harmless) as a Care Bear.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTo say that Milstead (born 1945) played the Divine character to the absolute hilt would be a total understatement. But one could easily tell that as he matured into his 30u0026#39;s, the thrill of constantly reinventing this in-your-face persona clearly began to wane.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI think itu0026#39;s the ultimate irony-of-ironies that, as an actor, Glenn really only played the role of a man once in his lifetime (as Hilly Blue in 1985u0026#39;s Trouble In Mind). And when he finally did achieve respectability as an actor, he up and died, at 42, from a massive heart attack.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAll-in-all – Iu0026#39;d say that under all of that mascara and over-the-top behaviour, Glenn Milstead was probably an alright guy with irritating idiosyncrasies just like everyone else.”