''I Am Divine'' is a 2013 American

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

produced and directed by

Jeffrey Schwarz Jeffrey Schwarz is an American Emmy Award-winning film producer, director, and editor. He is known for an extensive body of documentary work including ''Commitment to Life'', '' Boulevard! A Hollywood Story'', '' The Fabulous Allan Carr'', '' Ta ...

of the Los Angeles-based production company

Automat Pictures Automat Pictures is an American film and television production company based in Los Angeles, focusing on the production of independent films, original television programming, EPK, and Blu-ray and DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digita ...

. The documentary focuses on the American actor, singer, and

drag performer Drag is a performance of exaggerated femininity, masculinity, or other forms of gender expression, usually for entertainment purposes. Drag usually involves cross-dressing. A drag queen is someone (usually male) who performs femininely and a drag ...

Divine Divinity (from Latin ) refers to the quality, presence, or nature of that which is divine—a term that, before the rise of monotheism, evoked a broad and dynamic field of sacred power. In the ancient world, divinity was not limited to a singl ...

(October 19, 1945 – March 7, 1988), born Harris Glenn Milstead, a lifelong friend and collaborator of filmmaker

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

. The film features extensive contemporary interviews with Waters, as well as Divine's mother Frances Milstead, and surviving members of the Dreamlanders.

Participants

Tab Hunter Tab Hunter (born Arthur Andrew Kelm; July 11, 1931 – July 8, 2018) was an American actor, singer, film producer, and author. Known for his blond hair and clean-cut good looks, Hunter starred in more than forty films. During the 1950s and 1960s ...

Ricki Lake Ricki Pamela Lake (born September 21, 1968) is an American television host and actress. She is known for her lead role as Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film '' Hairspray'', for which she received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for ...

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 distin ...

* George Figgs *

Bruce Vilanch Bruce Gerald Vilanch (born November 23, 1947) is an American comedy writer, songwriter, and actor. He is a two-time Emmy Award-winner. Vilanch is best known to the public for his four-year stint on ''Hollywood Squares'', as a celebrity participa ...

Lisa Jane Persky Lisa Jane Persky (born May 5, 1955) is an American actress, journalist, author, artist, and photographer. She played supporting roles in the films '' The Great Santini'' (1979), '' Peggy Sue Got Married'' (1986) and '' When Harry Met Sally...'' ...

David DeCoteau David DeCoteau (born January 5, 1962) is an American film director and producer. Early life David DeCoteau was born on January 5, 1962, in Portland, Oregon, where he was raised. DeCoteau was an only child and was adopted at birth. His father ...

* Susan Lowe *

Mary Vivian Pearce Mary Vivian Pearce (born November 9, 1947) is an American actress. She has worked primarily in the films of John Waters (filmmaker), John Waters. Life and career Pearce is a childhood best friend of Waters and has appeared as an actress in al ...

Jackie Beat Jackie Beat (born July 24, 1963) is the drag persona of actor, singer, songwriter and screenwriter Kent Fuher. Beat has appeared in a number of independent feature films both in and out of drag, including '' Wigstock: The Movie'', '' Flawless'', ...

* Peaches Christ *

Tammie Brown Tammie Brown is the stage name of Keith Glen Schubert (born September 15, 1980), an American drag queen, drag performer, reality television personality, and recording artist. Brown was a fixture in the Southern California drag scene before appear ...

Michael Musto Michael Musto (born December 3, 1955) is an American journalist who has long been a prevalent presence in entertainment-related publications, as well as on websites and television shows. He is best known as a columnist for ''The Village Voice'', ...

Holly Woodlawn Holly Woodlawn (October 26, 1946 – December 6, 2015) was an American actress and Warhol superstar who appeared in the films '' Trash'' (1970) and '' Women in Revolt'' (1971). She is also known as the Holly in Lou Reed's hit glam rock song " Wal ...

;Archive footage * Harris Glenn Milstead/Divine * Edith Massey *

David Lochary David Crawford Lochary (August 21, 1944 – July 29, 1977) was an American actor, one of the regular "Dreamlanders, Dreamlander" actors in early films of the controversial "trash" film director John Waters (filmmaker), John Waters. He starred in ...

* Leo Ford * George Masters * Tally Brown * Van Smith

Release

''I Am Divine'' premiered at

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

2013, and had its premiere in Divine's hometown of

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

, Maryland as part of the

Maryland Film Festival The Maryland Film Festival is an annual five-day international film festival taking place each March in Baltimore, Maryland. The festival was launched in 1999, and presents international film and video work of all lengths and genres. The festiv ...

2013.

Reception

The film garnered critical acclaim, holding a 96% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

based on 53 reviews; the general consensus states: "With warmth and affection, ''I Am Divine'' offers an engaging portrait of the complex personality behind a trailblazing cinematic figure." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a 70 out of 100 rating, based on 13 critics.

References

External links

* * * * * 2013 films 2013 documentary films American LGBTQ-related documentary films Documentary films about actors Documentary films about singers Films shot in Baltimore Kickstarter-funded documentaries Documentary films about LGBTQ film LGBTQ culture in Baltimore Films directed by Jeffrey Schwarz Drag (entertainment)-related documentary films 2013 LGBTQ-related films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language documentary films {{LGBT-documentary-film-stub