Bio
Truly one of a kind, the wonderfully eccentric Edith Massey is best-known for her roles in the movies of maverick director John Waters.
Her early life was full of color; raised in an orphanage until the age of fifteen, when she was sent out to work as a maid, she traveled widely across America, working various jobs including a tap dancer and a b-girl and is even an uncredited extra in the 1940 Ray Milland/Claudette Colbert movie Arise, My Love. Eventually, she moved to Baltimore and was working as a barmaid in Pete's Hotel, a waterfront bar, where she met John Waters. So taken by her congenial manner and chattiness, he offered her a dual role in Multiple Maniacs; as a talkative barmaid and also as the Virgin Mary!
After the opening of Multiple Maniacs, Edith stopped working as a barmaid and opened up her thrift store, called Edith’s Shopping Bag, in the Fells Point area of Baltimore. She continued to work as an actress for Waters as well. In Pink Flamingos, Edith played Mama Edie, the mother of Divine’s character Babs. In a film full of insanity, Edith tops it all. Wearing just a bra and girdle, Mama Edie sleeps in a playpen and is obsessed with eggs; she is always waiting for the love of her life- the Egg Man- to come and see her.
Edith’s character in Female Trouble (1974) is a million miles away from the sweet-natured craziness of Mama Edie. She plays Aunt Ida, the vicious nemesis to Divine’s character Dawn Davenport. Clad in a skin-tight leather S&M catsuit with bleached blonde hair, Ida would be very happy if her nephew Gator turned out to be gay. Ida hideously scars Dawn’s face with acid and is then captured and forced to live in a giant birdcage with a hook in place of her hand, which gets chopped off by a vengeful Dawn!
There is yet another change of character in Desperate Living, where she played the despotic and tyrannical Queen Carlotta, the demented ruler of slum-town Mortville which she controls with a rod of iron and a pack of male goons. Slightly embarrassed by her sex scene with ‘goon’ Eddie Peranio, despite not having to strip off, she nonetheless shocked John Waters by her raunchy ad-libs as the soldier undressed!
Her final role for Waters was in Polyester, playing Cuddles, the maid-turned-millionaire who is best friends with Divine’s character Francine. Her attempts at airs and graces (as well as mangled French) are sweetly observed and it’s a lovely and quite natural performance, possibly the character that is most like the real-life woman.
Her final film role was in sci-fi B-movie Mutants In Paradise (1984) in which she bizarrely played a chief scientist! She passed away in October 1984 and is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Her early life was full of color; raised in an orphanage until the age of fifteen, when she was sent out to work as a maid, she traveled widely across America, working various jobs including a tap dancer and a b-girl and is even an uncredited extra in the 1940 Ray Milland/Claudette Colbert movie Arise, My Love. Eventually, she moved to Baltimore and was working as a barmaid in Pete's Hotel, a waterfront bar, where she met John Waters. So taken by her congenial manner and chattiness, he offered her a dual role in Multiple Maniacs; as a talkative barmaid and also as the Virgin Mary!
After the opening of Multiple Maniacs, Edith stopped working as a barmaid and opened up her thrift store, called Edith’s Shopping Bag, in the Fells Point area of Baltimore. She continued to work as an actress for Waters as well. In Pink Flamingos, Edith played Mama Edie, the mother of Divine’s character Babs. In a film full of insanity, Edith tops it all. Wearing just a bra and girdle, Mama Edie sleeps in a playpen and is obsessed with eggs; she is always waiting for the love of her life- the Egg Man- to come and see her.
Edith’s character in Female Trouble (1974) is a million miles away from the sweet-natured craziness of Mama Edie. She plays Aunt Ida, the vicious nemesis to Divine’s character Dawn Davenport. Clad in a skin-tight leather S&M catsuit with bleached blonde hair, Ida would be very happy if her nephew Gator turned out to be gay. Ida hideously scars Dawn’s face with acid and is then captured and forced to live in a giant birdcage with a hook in place of her hand, which gets chopped off by a vengeful Dawn!
There is yet another change of character in Desperate Living, where she played the despotic and tyrannical Queen Carlotta, the demented ruler of slum-town Mortville which she controls with a rod of iron and a pack of male goons. Slightly embarrassed by her sex scene with ‘goon’ Eddie Peranio, despite not having to strip off, she nonetheless shocked John Waters by her raunchy ad-libs as the soldier undressed!
Her final role for Waters was in Polyester, playing Cuddles, the maid-turned-millionaire who is best friends with Divine’s character Francine. Her attempts at airs and graces (as well as mangled French) are sweetly observed and it’s a lovely and quite natural performance, possibly the character that is most like the real-life woman.
Her final film role was in sci-fi B-movie Mutants In Paradise (1984) in which she bizarrely played a chief scientist! She passed away in October 1984 and is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
