Peaches Christ (stage name for Joshua Grannell) is an American underground drag performer, emcee, filmmaker, and actor. Peaches currently resides in San Francisco where her Backlash Production Company and Midnight Mass movie series are based. Grannell studied film at Penn State University, where his senior thesis film ''Jizzmopper: A Love Story'', about a janitor at an adult video store, won the audience award at the annual Penn State Student Film Festival. Grannell developed the Peaches Christ character during the production of this film. Her Midnight Mass road-show and Short Film Retrospective have been on tour and appeared in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Berkeley,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, Brussels, Belgium, and

Lausanne, Switzerland Lausanne ( , , , ) ; it, Losanna; rm, Losanna. is the capital and largest city of the Swiss French speaking canton of Vaud. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and fac ...

. On September 7, 2007, the San Francisco

de Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the California Pala ...

hosted a "Decade of Peaches Christ Retrospective" called ''Cattychism'' featuring artistic contributions inspired by Peaches. The event included ten years of costume design by long-time collaborator Tria Connell and ten years of graphic design by artist Chris Hatfield.

Early life

Joshua Grannell was born and raised in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

in a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

family. He attended St. Mary's High School in Annapolis, and subsequently studied at Pennsylvania State University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in filmmaking.

''Midnight Mass''

''Midnight Mass'' is a popular San Francisco midnight movie event series begun in the summer of 1998 at the movie theater that Joshua Grannell/Peaches Christ managed, The

Landmark Theatres Landmark Theatres is a movie theatre chain in the United States. It was formerly dedicated to exhibiting and marketing independent and foreign films. Since its founding in 1974, Landmark has grown to 35 theaters with 178 screens in 24 marke ...

Bridge Theater in San Francisco, California. The elaborate pre-show stage productions, guest stars, and drag spectacles continue to draw sell-out crowds. Special guest stars have included

Mink Stole Nancy Paine Stoll (born August 25, 1947), known professionally as Mink Stole, is an American actress from Baltimore, Maryland. She began her career working for director John Waters, and has appeared in all of his feature films to date (a distinc ...

Tura Satana Tura Satana (July 10, 1938Some sources give her birth year as 1935, i.e. Dave Itzkoff"Tura Satana, Cult Actress, Is Dead" ''New York Times'', February 5, 2011; accessed January 8, 2014. – February 4, 2011) was a Japanese American actress, v ...

Mary Woronov Mary Woronov (born December 8, 1943) is an American actress, published author and figurative painter. She is primarily known as a " cult star" because of her work with Andy Warhol and her roles in Roger Corman's cult films. Woronov has appeared ...

, RuPaul, Erica Gavin,

Patrick Bristow Patrick Bristow (born September 26, 1962) is an American actor, comedian and director. He is best known for playing Peter Barnes on ''Ellen'' (1994-1998), and Patrick on ''The Suite Life of Zack and Cody'' (2005-2008), and for the film ''Pain ...

, Cassandra Peterson (''Elvira, Mistress of the Dark''),

John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Fe ...

, and more. The summer of 2009 marked the 12th and final season of Midnight Mass showing at The Bridge.

Stage and screen

The 10th-Annual Season of Peaches Christ's Midnight Mass stage-show was filmed for a national television show airing on the ''HDnet Movie Channel'' executive produced by

Mark Cuban Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor whose net worth is an estimated $4.8 billion, according to ''Forbes'', and ranked No. 177 on the 2020 ''Forbes'' 400 list ...

. The six-part series is titled ''Midnight Mass with your Hostess Peaches Christ''. The thirty-minute episodes centered around Peaches and Midnight Mass preceding televised film screenings. Peaches has appeared on other television productions, including VH1’s ''

Totally Gay! ''Totally Gay!'' is an American television special broadcast by VH1. The special premiered on August 18, 2003. It centrally focused on gay pop culture in the United States. The content of the show included sitcoms (''Will & Grace''), gay icons ( ...

, AMC’s Movies That Shook the World:

Pink Flamingos ''Pink Flamingos'' is a 1972 American film directed, written, produced, narrated, filmed, and edited by John Waters. It is part of what Waters has labelled the "Trash Trilogy", which also includes '' Female Trouble'' (1974) and '' Desperate Liv ...

'', and IFC’s ''Cult Movies'' pilot. Peaches is prominently featured as a protesting drag queen in Gus Van Sant's feature film ''

Milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...

''. Peaches tours with her short film collection and presents it as part of "An Evening With Peaches Christ". It is a multi-media show that includes live singing, and the screening of her short films. Peaches appears in numerous other films as well, including ''Spin the Bottle'', a "drag-umentary" send-up of ''Madonna: Truth or Dare'' chronicling life behind the scenes at Midnight Mass. The film was written by Grannell and directed by San Francisco filmmaker

Scott Boswell Scott Anthony John Boswell (born 11 September 1974 in Fulford, York, North Yorkshire, England) is an English cricketer, who until his retirement specialised as a medium-fast bowler. In his youth, Boswell played both cricket and rugby for the f ...

. Peaches Christ co-produced the San Francisco Underground Short Film Festival with performance artist and musician Vinsantos. The fest is designed to showcase talented and overlooked Bay Area Filmmakers. In 2005, Peaches released her debut CD single "Idol Worship". Peaches continues to appear on the

Trannyshack Trannyshack is a San Francisco drag club started by drag queen Heklina in 1996 as an offshoot of Klubstitute, and was a weekly fixture at The Stud bar in San Francisco for 12 years, drawing large crowds on a regular basis. The Tuesday night ...

stage where she got her start in 1996. Christ regularly guest emcees the show, substituting for hostess

Heklina Heklina is the stage name of Stefan Grygelko, an American actor, drag queen, and entrepreneur in San Francisco. Grygelko's mother is Icelandic, and having been born in the U.S., he lived in Iceland in the 1980s; he named his drag character after ...

. He also directed the Indie horror flick '' All About Evil'', which stars

Natasha Lyonne Natasha Bianca Lyonne Braunstein ( ; born April 4, 1979) is an American actress, director, writer, and producer. She is known for playing Nicky Nichols on the Netflix comedy-drama series ''Orange Is the New Black'' (2013–2019), for which she ...

, Thomas Dekker, Cassandra Peterson,

Noah Segan Noah Gideon Segan (born October 5, 1983) is an American actor. He is best known for his work in the films '' Looper'', ''Brick'', and ''Deadgirl''. He is known for his many collaborations with filmmaker Rian Johnson. Early life Segan was born i ...

, Jack Donner, Julie Caitlin Brown and

Personal life

Grannell is

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

Filmography

* ''Season of the Troll'' (2001) * ''A Nightmare on Castro Street'' (2002) * ''Whatever Happened to Peaches Christ'' (2004) *'' All About Evil'' (2010)

References

External links

*
Interview with Joshua Grannell on movies.insidepulse.com Part 1

Interview with Joshua Grannell on movies.insidepulse.com Part 2

Interview with Joshua Grannell on movies.insidepulse.com Part 3

{{DEFAULTSORT:Christ, Peaches American male comedians American drag queens American gay actors Culture of San Francisco Living people LGBT comedians LGBT male actors Year of birth missing (living people) Comedians from California Comedians from Maryland Film directors from Maryland LGBT film directors Pennsylvania State University alumni People from Annapolis, Maryland