A stunning image of David Bowie as Pierrot with makeup by Australian artist Richard Sharah.
 
There are few images in rock and roll as recognizable as David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane look. With his hair quaffed in a red mullet and a lightning bolt slashed across his face, it is hard to conceive how anyone would not be at least somewhat aware of Bowie in this context. Bowie’s constantly changing personae are, of course, some of his crowning achievements but as we all know, even the greatest artists didn’t become great without a little help from their friends. David Bowie had many incredible collaborators. Here are two which had the great honor of using his face as a canvas.

Bowie’s secret weapons in the makeup department during the 70s were Algerian-born Pierre La Roche, and legendary Australian makeup artist Richard Sharah. La Roche is the man responsible for creating Bowie’s iconic lightning bolt, and the far-out gold sphere Bowie sported on his forehead as Ziggy. Sharah gets the credit for bringing the Pierrot look used for the cover of Scary Monsters and the “Ashes to Ashes” video to life. However, both men have made other impactful contributions to the world of makeup. Let’s start with the late Richard Sharah.

Richard Sharah’s unique makeup style helped inspire the looks of the New Romantic movement. Sharah’s working relationship with designer Zandra Rhodes (who dressed Freddie Mercury and Queen during the 1970s) lasted for decades. Sharah was slightly color blind—something his fans and students believed only enhanced his artistic ability. Taking things a step further, Sharah also made his own products, therefore, creating truly singular work for his clients which in addition to Bowie included Visage’s Steve Strange and a makeup icon in his own right, Divine (pictured below).
 

Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead) in makeup done by Richard Sharah.
 
Pierre La Roche left his native Algiers and made his way to France while still in his teens, though he wouldn’t stay long. His next move was to England, where he worked for cosmetics giant Elizabeth Arden. While with EA, David Bowie would hire La Roche to do his makeup for his 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars, keeping him around to take care of business for the 1973 live concert film where Bowie retired Ziggy. Here’s more from LaRoche on Bowie’s “perfect” face:

He had the perfect face for makeup, even features, high cheekbones, and a very good mouth.

And boy, the man should know, as he spent the better part of the 1970s working on Bowie’s beloved mug. In 1971, he painted Bowie’s eyelids blue to compliment the famous turquoise suit worn in the “Life on Mars” video. In 1973 for the album Pin Ups, La Roche made both Bowie and supermodel Twiggy look gorgeously futuristic. In 1975 La Roche would work on the influential cult film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where he was given the opportunity to create Dr. Frank N. Furter’s diabolical, sweet transvestite face, famous tattoos, as well as other characters for the film. As history has proven, this and the other images he concocted for RHPS are indelible, as are his other contributions, which strongly influenced the look of glam rock.
 
Much more make-up, after the jump…

 
In some parallel universe, Oliver Reed replaced Sean Connery as James Bond for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Frank Sinatra was Dirty Harry, John Travolta played Forrest Gump and Emma Watson won the Oscar for her performance in La La Land.

Meanwhile...Grace Jones and Divine co-starred in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.

Jones famously ‘fessed up to nixing a lead role in Blade Runner on the advice of her then-boyfriend graphic designer/photographer Jean-Paul Goude, as she explained in her autobiography I’ll Never Write My Memoirs:

Jean-Paul wanted me only to work with him. Especially if I was going to do a film. He wanted me to do a film only with him, before anyone else. I knew he would be adamant that it was a bad move to appear in Blade Runner. I immediately said no, before I had even read the script and before I had even asked him. When he heard about the film, he said what I thought he would say — it would be too commercial, and I would become too Hollywood. I would be a sellout.

I still had the script, though, and the night after I had passed on the part, I was flying to Paris. I decided to read it on the plane. I absolutely loved it. It was set in a universe I visited a lot in my work and play. As soon as I landed I decided I would call them back and reverse my decision. I was too late. Overnight they had cast someone else. I should have made that decision myself, rather than being caught up in Jean-Paul’s rivalry with Ridley Scott in the world of commercials… If I had seen the film Ridley had made a couple of years before, The Duellists, which was fabulous, I wouldn’t have thought for a moment about accepting. I said no without reading the script, which was very stupid of me…

 

 
As for Divine, well, he was invited by Ridley Scott to audition for a role in the film as Bernard Jay recalled in his biography/memoir Not Simply Divine:

I was discussing with an important casting agency the possibility of Divine playing a role in an upcoming movie, Blade Runner, to be directed by Ridley Scott, one of Hollywood’s new ‘darlings’ since his success with Alien. Divi was invited to give a private reading for the director at his Hollywood office. We flew to the West Coast—at Divine’s expense—and worked solidly together for many hours on the brief pages of filmscript provided. Divi was terrified. It was the first time he had ever had to audition and, although it had been arranged in privacy and with great courtesy by Ridley Scott’s office, he was a nervous wreck.

He spent the best part of an hour alone with the director. I waited outside and became as nervous as my client. Divi wasn’t offered the role, but told me Ridley Scott had spent most of their time together talking of the John Waters movies and how great a fan of Divine’s he was. He also asked him to read from a completely different filmscript than the one we had prepared from. Divine was immensely flattered to have been approached and humbled by this experience. Once again, I was impressed and proud of the way he had dealt with it—and delighted to note that he was beginning to be taken seriously within in his own industry.

The casting for Blade Runner proved difficult. According to production notes, screenwriter Hampton Fancher envisioned Robert Mitchum as playing the lead role of Rick Deckard and wrote the dialog accordingly. Ridley Scott, meanwhile, was attempting to woo Dustin Hoffman into playing the role. He eventually said no. The role of Deckard was touted to a variety of actors including Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Tommy Lee Jones before Harrison Ford was offered the part. One can only surmise that Grace Jones would have been offered the role of one of the replicants—either Pris (which went to Daryl Hannah) or Zhora (Joanna Cassidy). While Divine may have possibly been considered as a possible choice for the replicant Leon (Brion James) or maybe J. F. Sebastian (William Sanderson) or perhaps more intriguingly the evil mogul Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel).

Grace Jones went on to co-star with Christopher Walken in the James Bond movie A View to a Kill, while Divine eventually got the chance to show his “straight” acting skills on the big screen as the sinister mob boss Hilly Blue in Alan Rudolph’s Trouble in Mind in 1985. I’d trade one of those movies (the Bond) to see what Jones and Divine would have been like in Blade Runner.

Below Divine in the trailer for Trouble in Mind.
 

 
H/T Afterglow.
 

“WHO WANTS TO DIE FOR ART?”

 
I’m not one for the whole “ugly Christmas sweater” thing. I think it’s stupid and I think Christmas is stupid, too. Last year I didn’t even get those cha-cha heels I wanted…

That said, this nifty new Divine ugly Christmas sweater—selling for CHEAP—is something that I can get behind.

I was born to be helpless, I was born to be cold
I was born to never do what I’m told
I was to be shallow, wasn’t born to be deep
Of all the things I was born to be CHEAP!

Now you don’t have to be cold (or die for art) and you can still be totally cheap, too. This divine Divine ugly Christmas sweater from the fine folks at Blizzard Bay can be yours for the CHEAP CHEAP price of only $29. It’s CHEAP, but still made of 100% cotton with a cool design of Divine in character as the immortal Babs Johnson from Pink Flamingos.

But Christ on a skateboard, Xmas sweaters already and Halloween’s not even in the rear view mirror yet? Take a gander at Kobe Kai’s divine Divine DIY Halloween costume at her Horror Kitsch Bitch blog. It’s pretty elaborate, with details down to the dogshit.
 

 

 
See more pics and shit at the Horror Kitsch Bitch blog.
 

Divine sings “Born to Be Cheap” on Late Night with David Letterman in 1982.

A limited edition picture disc for Blondie’s 1978 record ‘Parallel Lines.’
 
The first thing I learned while pulling this post together is this—there are entirely TOO many Madonna-related picture discs. The flip side of that dated news flash is the fact that an astonishing number of rare, collectible picture discs exist, many of which I’m sure you will want to get your hands on, if you can. The other thing I learned about picture discs today is that there is a shit-ton of pretty looking vinyl that features nudity. For instance, a few soundtracks from the films of titty-titan Russ Meyer such as Mudhoney, Supervixens and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! have all gotten special, topless picture disc pressings.

The vast majority of picture discs in this post contain interviews with the artist or band, though in some cases they do actually play music like a record should. Now before you remind me that music doesn’t sound all that great on a picture disc, I’m already well aware of this. I do however love collecting vinyl of this nature not just for their novelty appeal but because I also view them as a form of art that is still a vital part of vinyl culture today. When I called this a “mega-post,” I was not kidding as there are over 25 images below for you to check out, many of which are NSFW thanks to Russ Meyer of course. You have been warned!
 

Side A of a picture disc featuring music from the Russ Meyer films, ‘Good Morning…And Goodbye!,’ ‘Cherry, Harry & Raquel,’ and ‘Mondo Topless.’
 

Side A of a picture disc featuring music from the Russ Meyer films, ‘Up!’ ‘Beneath The Valley Of The Ultra Vixens,’ and ‘Supervixens.’
 

Side B of the Russ Meyer album above.
 
More after the jump…

Divine as “Dawn Davenport” doll
 
Opening today at La MaMa Galleria at 47 Great Jones Street in Manhattan (and there until June 24) is “Lost Merchandise of the Dreamlanders” a show featuring shouldabeen toys and other fake retro “merchandise” based on characters and situations from the films of John Waters:

Do you remember eating Divine breakfast cereal or sleeping on Pink Flamingos bed sheets when you were a kid? Neither do we, but you just might upon viewing this oddball array of rare collectibles. Lost Merchandise of the Dreamlanders is a showcase of kitschy and ironic retail items based on the early films of Baltimore director John Waters. Discover forgotten toys, home decor, and seasonal artifacts featuring familiar Dreamlander movie personalities. Presented in the spirit of a Sunday morning garage sale, the exhibit revels in the strange, nostalgic appeal of the 70s and 80s.

The Dreamlander exhibition is the brainchild of Tyson Tabbert, a sculptor at New York’s Asher Levine fashion house, who looked into officially licensing some of John Waters characters for the toy market a few years ago, but found that this probably wasn’t in the cards:

“I was initially able to contact someone at Warner Brothers to discuss the possibility of making the figures legit. But the possibility of licensing them was, as I interpreted it, slim at best.”

Undeterred, Tabbert got some artist friends together to create some of the products he had in mind for an art show. Everything in the show is a period piece (ahem) designed to look like vintage toys. There’s even a bedspread! Tabbert self-financed much of the work, which also includes plastic Halloween masks of Connie and Raymond Marble from Pink Flamingos, a Desperate Living tea service and a metal ashtray inspired by Lobstora, the giant lobster that rapes Divine in Multiple Maniacs.

If you are looking for some officially licensed Divine swag, there’s an online Divine shop that sells T-shirts, tote bags, pins and other stuff.

 
The final scene from ‘Female Trouble’
 

Taffy’s parents, Dawn and Earl (both played by Divine) meet cute in a tableau inspired by a scene in ‘Female Trouble’
 

Metal Lobstora ashtray
 
More after the jump…

‘Multiple Maniacs’ poster on sale at Westgate Gallery
 
I wonder how many film snobs are out there who buy every single new Blu-Ray released by the Criterion Collection as a kind of Cliff Notes subscription to “Impeccable Taste in Cinema.” You know the type—if you suggest seeing a movie, they rush straight to Meta-Critic before committing to anything. I relish their reaction to Multiple Maniacs, John Waters’ self-described “celluloid atrocity,” a riveting, rancid, rollickingly funny B&W snapshot of everything we now cherish from his greatest work, of which MM absolutely must be included. It’s all here, all for the first time: corpulent diva Divine starring as a dominant, foul-mouthed, white-trash bitch goddess, narcissistic and deliciously cruel, yet oddly endearing and cloaked in charisma; the equally talented Mink Stole, creating the first of her many deeply disturbed fabulous underdog characters for Waters; Cookie Mueller (“a mean hippie who was recently released from a mental hospital”) and Edith Massey, (playing herself, a wacky barmaid at Dreamland Studios’ favorite dive, Pete’s Hotel); reams of overwrought, razor-sharp, quotable dialogue; vicious satire unleashed equally upon the Peace & Love generation and Nixon voters; striking jolts of surrealism which both pay homage to and parody experimental and art films; and plenty of scabrous, black-comedy shocks. It’s even better than amyl nitrate.

In Multiple Maniacs, the surreal and the shocking reach their mutual pinnacle in a jaw-dropping sequence in the second half of the movie:  Lady Divine’s mission of vengeance against her cheating boyfriend (David Lochary) and his brainless blonde chatterbox lover (Mary Vivian Pearce) is waylaid when a “religious whore” (Mink) lures Divine into a church to perform a rectal “rosary-job” accompanied by Divine’s orgasmic visions of the life of Jesus Christ (George Figgs), complete with miracles (the “fishes & loaves” here represented by canned cat food and Wonder Bread), Edie as the Virgin Mary and a positively Gibsonian crucifixion, all played for very queasy laughs, of course. 
 

‘Divine Saves the World’ stageplay/‘Multiple Maniacs’ poster from 1972

Historically the most difficult Waters film to see that’s actually worth seeing, Multiple Maniacs’ most successful cinematic run was as a pre-Pink Flamingos midnight show at San Francisco’s Palace Theatre circa 1971, where it became a deeply offensive sensation, often accompanied by live stage shows written and directed by Sebastian of The Cockettes, with titles like “The Heartbreak of Psoriasis” and “Divine Saves The World.”  Never blown up to 35mm when New Line Cinema began distributing it post-smash-Pink Flamingos, it got an “okay” VHS release in 1987, but never made it to DVD.  Anyone familiar with battered 16mm repertory prints or the shrill, tinny videotape may think they’re experiencing their own rosary-job hallucination—Multiple Maniacs looks amazing in HD (Waters himself remarked “Finally, Multiple Maniacs looks like a bad John Cassavetes film!”) and sounds even better. With one rather key caveat: due to music licensing rights- and cost issues, the entire brilliant, bootleg soundtrack of dozens of inspired songs from multiple decades has been replaced by a new score by composer George S. Clinton. Which is a truly tragic loss. This devil’s bargain does yield some choice extras: a Waters audio commentary, interviews with surviving cast and crew, and more.
 

Italian ‘Desperate Living’ poster
 
So as far as Golden Age John Waters in HD, this package is as good as it gets for now: Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble have yet to surface anywhere in HD, and while a gorgeous-looking HD Polyester is available for rental and purchase via Amazon Video, they used a version WITHOUT the flashing Odorama numbers… that stupidly retains the intro with “Dr Arnold Quackenshaw” explaining how to use the Odorama scratch ‘n’ sniff card (not hard to locate them even now if you try) which is essential to fully enjoying the film.  However, iTunes currently has Desperate Living in HD, so that could possibly mean a Criterion edition of this fucked-up masterpiece might be in the works. The sharp transfer brought tears to these perverted eyes—turns out it IS very pretty, what a town without pity can do.
 
More after the jump…

 
There are many days while I’m doing my “job” here at Dangerous Minds when I think I’ve pretty much seen it all. Then there are days that I stumble across something on the Internet that reminds me that there is still plenty of fantastic trash out there for all of us, specifically those of us who are connoisseurs of filth and all thing low brow. Which is exactly what I have for you today—a sixteen-inch doll in the image of John Waters’ greatest muse, the legendary Divine.

Made by My Best Fiendz based in Rockland, Maine, little Divine was made by a horror-movie-loving husband and wife duo who used a standard baby doll as the base then transformed it into a pretty spot-on “Babs Johnson” who looks like she’s dying to tell you to “eat shit” in full makeup, custom-dyed flaming-hot hair and a pistol. There are also a few other strange items in the Fiendz’s Etsy store that might also be of interest to our sleazier/horror-inclined readers such as a bizarre “jumpin’ jack” of GG Allin that would keep everyone (including dogs and rats mind you) off your lawn, an utterly fantastic jumper of Swedish pro-wrestler/actor Tor Johnson, and that nasty murderous clown “Captain Spaulding” aka “Johnny Lee Johns” as portrayed by actor Sid Haig in the films House of 1000 Corpsess and The Devil’s Rejects. The Divine doll will run you $130 and the wooden jumpers are about $40. I’ve posted images of the oddities below. If any of this is your thing (because filth really is your life), more details on ordering and other items in the shop can be found here.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
Seventy-one years ago today, Harris Glenn Milstead was born at the (appropriately named?) Women’s Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Decades later, after a potent handful of John Waters movies and who knows how many disco singles, we celebrate perhaps the greatest diva the world has ever known—as Divine.

It’s amazing to think that Divine appeared in only thirteen movies in all those years. Thirteen! At least that’s how IMDb has it. I find that absolutely amazing. You could easily argue that on a per-minute basis, Divine had the biggest impact on audiences in movie history. Who would rate higher, Rob Reiner’s mother?

Much like Groucho Marx, Divine’s characters always had the best names, from Francine Fishpaw (Polyester) and Dawn Davenport (Female Trouble) to Babs Johnson (Pink Flamingos) and Edna Turnblad (Hairspray).

In 1983 Van Smith, who did make-up and costume design for most of Waters’ movies, released The Simply Divine Cut-Out Doll Book. Today it’s out of print, and is listed on Amazon for more than $300, although a typical asking price is closer to $125. However, you don’t need the book to soak in the bumptious appeal of Divine, we’ve got several pics from it right on this page.
 

 
More pics after the jump…...

 
I have to say this is one of the many times I’ve been proud to call my transplanted home of the last seventeen-years quite possibly the greatest place on earth. One of my favorite Seattle landmarks (which I drive by on nearly a daily basis) is a home with a giant mural of Bettie Page painted on it. She’s been joined by an equally humongous portrait of Divine all decked out in the famous red dress worn by the great Harris Glenn Milstead in 1972’s Pink Flamingos.
 

“FILTH IS MY LIFE!” The giant mural of Divine that now resides alongside Bettie Page on a house in Northeast Seattle.
 
The mural of a nearly two-story topless Bettie Page (whose naughty bits are obscured by the home’s rain gutters) has been visible from traffic on I-5 in Northeast Seattle for a decade. Then a few months ago some morons who just don’t get it vandalized the much loved mural with gray paint and even took the time to leave a nasty note on the home where the mural resides saying the following: 

AUTONOMOUS SEXUALITY IS EMPOWERMENT. TELLING A WOMAN TO COVER UP IS OPPRESSION.

—SOME FEMINISTS

The message was written entirely in capital letters so I guess the roving gang of confused “feminists” wanted to be sure they knew how angry they were. The good news is that the owner of the house, Jessica Baxter didn’t let the incident get under her skin. And even when donations came piling in so that Baxter didn’t have to take on the expense of having the mural (and her house, mind you) restored, she declined and instead asked that people wanting to donate send their money to RAINN (the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network). So why did Baxter pick Divine to keep Bettie Page company for the long foreseeable future? Here’s one of my favorite residents of Northeast Seattle on that:

Really it’s just people who inspire me and make me happy that they existed, and were individuals who didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought, and who were just themselves. I’m going to feel inspired every time I look at it.

The mural was just finished this past Tuesday by Two Thangs (aka Seattle artist Matthew Brennan IV) and it is nothing short of fucking glorious. Brennan, a self-professed John Waters devotee felt very strongly that the Page and Divine belonged together especially since the vandals who tried to ruin Bettie felt that the image was “exploitive.” According to Brennan (via Two Thangs FB page) the addition of Divine makes a clear statement about choice—specifically making a decision to present yourself “how you choose.” 

I love you Seattle. Never change.
 

The famous Bettie Page mural on the side of a house in Northeast Seattle. 
 
See the defaced Bettie Page mural—and the note left by ‘SOME FEMINISTS’ after the jump…

 
“The filthiest gym shoe alive”! 

Divine on Facebook alerted me to these custom-made Divine Vans by Sink or Swim Custom Kicks! I visited the Sink or Swim Custom Kicks! website and couldn’t find any pricing information. If you’re interested, I’d reach out to them via their “contact” which is at the bottom of their homepage. I’d also message them on Facebook about ordering, pricing and shipping.

I wish I had more information, but I simply don’t. Interestingly, Divine’s look was created by Divine, John Waters and a fellow named Van Smith. Smith, who died in 2006, designed all the costumes and did the makeup for every John Waters film from 1972 to 2004. Vans need to do a Van Smith Vans tribute next.

 
John Belushi’s connection to music, as far as most of the world is concerned, is his famous labor of love for R&B, the Blues Brothers. That album and film were exercises in rock-star wish fulfillment gone spectacularly right, and both remain justly exalted to this day. But Belushi was also an ardent supporter of the punk scene whose rise coincided with his heyday as a Saturday Night Live star.

Surely Belushi’s most famous expression of punk fandom was when he arranged for the notorious L.A. band Fear—reprobate contrarian dicks even by punk rock standards—to appear as SNL’s musical guest. Utter chaos ensued. The story’s been retold often, including on this very blog, so I won’t flog that dead horse here. But what’s less widely known, and really shouldn’t be, is that Belushi played drums with the Dead Boys at CBGB in 1978.

This was not a particularly happy event—Dead Boys drummer Johnny Blitz had been stabbed, almost fatally, and CBGB was holding a series of benefit concerts for his medical costs. Over 30 bands performed over the course of four days, and naturally the Dead Boys performed, with New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan filling in for the waylaid Blitz. But during the band’s signature song, “Sonic Reducer,” a song plundered from Blitz and guitarist Cheetah Chrome’s previous band, the Cleveland proto-punks Rocket From the Tombs, John Belushi played drums. And he did really well. Divine and the Neon Women—her dancers from her stage production The Neon Woman, which was running at the Hurrah Discotheque at the time—joined the band that night as well, as go-go dancers.
 

This pristine Arturo Vega shirt from the benefit sold on eBay for $749 in 2014.

Pat Ivers, who shot the footage below, related the story of that night to the New York Times a few years ago, and included the details of how Belushi came to be in the Dead Boys’ orbit:

Everyone from Blondie to Belushi showed up when we brought our camera down for the fourth and final night. But first, a few words about John Belushi. Four months earlier, at a party in the West Village, we met him and Dan Aykroyd while having a smoke on the balcony. We began needling them, because that weekend Saturday Night Live had booked the Sex Pistols (a gig that never happened: Elvis Costello ultimately performed instead). “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night? Where’s the New York bands; have you ever seen any play?” We invited them down to CBGBs that weekend. Belushi came, he saw, he fell in love with the Dead Boys. Billy Blitz [Johnny’s brother] remembered, “He used to call our house looking for my brother. My parents had no idea who he was, it killed me!” It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The Blitz Benefit was everything that was best in the CBGB scene: it was wild, unpredictable and small-town in its own peculiar way. We remember Cheetah Chrome as MC, taking on a leadership role… he was the glue that held those nights together. And who could forget Kathy Kurls, friend of the band, who stripped to “Sonic Reducer” right down to her pasties. Among so many others, Syl Sylvain and Arthur Kane, formerly of the New York Dolls, performed with their bands, the Criminals and the Corpse Grinders. Jeff Magnum, Dead Boys bassist, recalled using different drummers every night to fill in for Johnny. “It was cool to play with [ex-Doll] Jerry Nolan – he was a great drummer and Belushi was a lot of fun. To the tons of our friends who played for the benefit, we are eternally grateful.”

After the jump, the video evidence!

Pink Flamingos
 
Man, how I LOVE this Pink Flamingos nesting doll set by BoBo Babushka. The details are impeccable and really well done. From what I understand, BoBo Babushka isn’t making this particular set currently, but since there’s been some interest on the Internet BoBo Babushka is considering retailing them again.

As for the Polyester and Female Trouble sets, it appears they are available. If you’re interested, you can ask about pricing here at BoBo Babushka’s website.

Polyester
 

Female Trouble
 
via Divine on Facebook

 
The dictionary defines the word “legend” as:

1. a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated.

2. an extremely famous or notorious person, especially in a particular field.

It would be fair to say this word fits rather snugly with the performance artist, designer, would-be pop star, icon, artist’s model and “work of art” Leigh Bowery.

When asked recently, “Who was Leigh Bowery?” I was briefly flummoxed as where to begin in any attempt to describe this wonderfully extravagant yet self-indulgent character. There were so many facets to his life—so many fictions, so many facts—it seemed rather unsporting to choose only one.

Leigh Bowery was born on March 26th, 1961, in the small working class suburb of Sunshine in Melbourne, Australia. He was was the eldest of two children born to Tom and Evelyn Bowery. His mother had lived her entire life in Sunshine and raised Leigh and his younger sister Bronwyn in a house opposite her own childhood home. Sunshine was that kind of community. People lived and died there—they knew their place and rarely ventured beyond its boundaries.

Leigh was a large beefy child with a head of golden curls. Because of his build, his father hoped Leigh would become an Australian rules football player or at the very least something sporty. Yet Leigh showed no inclination for such physical activities. He preferred gardening and later needlework—something he first learnt while convalescing in hospital after an operation to help his testicles descend.

At school he was a very bright pupil. He had a keen and enquiring mind, was constantly reading books and showed great aptitude for classical music—in particular playing the piano. His life changed after he won a scholarship to Melbourne High School.

Leigh later claimed that he had known he was gay from the age of twelve. During his time at Melbourne High, he began his sexual adventures. On his way home from school, Leigh cruised the public toilets at the central railway station. He discovered wearing a school uniform made him highly attractive to the older men.  By his own estimate—which may or may not be true—he claimed he had sex with about one thousand men before he left school.
 

 
His parents had hoped Leigh would study music at university. Instead, he chose to study fashion design at the Melbourne Institute of Technology. Leigh was one of only two boys in his year. He quickly learnt how to machine sew and began making some of his early flamboyant designs. These were not exactly appreciated by his teachers who wanted him to design ladies’ underwear and children’s clothes.

But Leigh had moved ahead of such small ambitions and wanted to create his own designs. He was eighteen and had fallen under the influence of punk—as he later explained in an interview.

The thing which made everything click for me was the punk movement where people used themselves and their appearance to describe so much and I just loved Busby Berkeley movies—all those sequins and feathers—and I would always have my nose in a National Geographic, gazing at women with stretched necks and rings going in strange places.

Leigh was also very enamored with the club scene in London, which he read about in all the imported pop and fashion magazines he got his hands on.

I wanted to hang out with the art and fashion people. I wanted to go to nightclubs and look at the clothes in the shops. I loved the idea of punk and the New Romantics. England seemed the only place to go, I considered New York but that just seemed full of cheap copies of London. I don’t think I made a mistake.

He quit college and worked in a department store to raise the funds for the London move. When he arrived in the city of his dreams, Leigh lived with a friend. When this friend moved out, Leigh decided to change his life and become more involved with the city around him. According to his friend and biographer Sue Tilley, Leigh made a list of four resolutions on New Year’s Eve 1980:

1) Get his weight down to twelve stone.
2) Learn as much as possible.
3) Establish himself in either fashion, art or writing.
4) Wear make-up every day.

Leigh managed to meet three of these resolutions over the next decade.

Read more about Leigh Bowery, plus a documentary about him hosted by Hugh Laurie, after the jump…

Grace Jones with Jimmy Baio, Divine, Julie Budd, Nona Hendryx and a few unnamed dancers
 

In the ‘70s and ‘80s we all had our fun, and now and then we went really too far. But, ultimately, it required a certain amount of clear thinking, a lot of hard work and good make-up to be accepted as a freak.—Grace Jones

If a single photo series could encapsulate ‘70s disco dust debauchery and fun… this document of Grace Jones’ 30th birthday party held at LaFarfelle Disco in New York on June 12, 1978 would be IT. Famous guests included Elton John, Divine, Andy Warhol, Jerry Hall, Jimmy Baio (Scott Baio’s cousin, of course), Julie Budd and Nona Hendryx.

To have been a fly on the wall for this birthday party. Can you imagine all the shit people were up to when the cameras weren’t flashing?!

Divine
 

 

Elton John, Andy Warhol and Jerry Hall
 

 
More after the jump…
 

“Mr. Wineberger, Dawn Davenport is eating a meatball sandwich right out in CLAESS!”
 
Divine’s official social media guru directed my attention, yesterday, to the work of sculptor Tyson Tabbert, who recently created a batch of “action figures” for John Waters’ masterpiece Female Trouble.

In Female Trouble, perhaps Waters’ best film, Divine plays Dawn Davenport, career criminal and fame seeker. An addiction to injected liquid eyeliner sends her on a berserk crime spree, ending in art/murder. In one of its most famous scenes, Dawn destroys the family Christmas when she doesn’t receive the gift of “cha cha heels” she is expecting. “Nice girls,” it turns out, “don’t wear cha cha heels.”

Tabbert has created an entire playset devoted to this iconic cinematic scene.

Unfortunately, according to Tabbert’s Instagram, the figures are not for sale. But maybe if enough people beg him? I know I’d throw down for the “Female Trouble Christmas Morning Playset.” It would have a place of honor every year, right next to the Nativity and Christmas shit log.
 

 

 
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