Miss Edie: Q&A with Edith Massey, John Waters Egg Lady
April 28th, 2008 by Scott Marks
While dining at a friend’s house last night I reclaimed a box of old audio cassettes left there during a move. It was loaded with everything from pre-recorded music tapes to the complete Sam Kinison audio collection to recordings of the Sig Sakowicz radio show, something that I am not equipped transfer to the internet or else today’s blog would contain an endless loop of “Thanks for taking da’ time” and”All Right!!!”
There at the bottom of the pile sat an ancient Certion 60 minute cassette containing a 1976 interview I conducted with Edith Massey. (Who knew that a Certion would last over 30 years? Come to think of it, what the hell is a Certion?) Edie was making a personal appearance at Northwestern University in conjunction with a screening of Female Trouble. After graduating from Mad Magazine and moving on to the National Lampoon, John Waters was the next (scata)logical rung in my ascension of the fecal pop culture food chain.
I was twenty at the time and writing for the Illinois Entertainer, a small monthly newspaper that specialized in rock music. When it comes to midnight movies, Pink Flamingos is my Rocky Horror Picture Show. (The only things audience members hurled at the screen was there dinner.) I was at the Devon Theatre for Chicago’s first screening of the film (at midnight, of course) and almost every weekend thereafter for the year or so it played.
It screened every Friday and Saturday night and the first month drew negligible crowds. Once word spread, hundreds packed the small, unadorned north side theatre to see if what they’d heard about the ending was true. It was and is, and not a week passed where at least one, sometimes several patrons puked up their beer during the film’s notorious curtain shot. After more than a hundred viewing of the film my gag reflex still kicks in when Divine flashes her quite literal s–t eating grin.
As much as I love Divine and Mink Stole, it was Miss Edie who kept me coming back for more. Did Waters actually have the audacity to convince an addled, overweight, snaggle-toothed senior to strip down to her underthings and play her role in a playpen or was Edith Massey deep into the Stanislavski method?
The interview was taped the afternoon of the show in Northwestern’s Norris Center and Joel Rothman, a high school cronie and Edie-aholic xame along for the ride. Edie was a delight and pretty much an accurate representation of the characters she played on screen, minus Queen Carlotta’s nasty streak. To paraphrase Martin Balsam in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, she was a kook, but a real one.
Edie talks about everything from being a madame to crying over Little House on the Prairie to the reason she didn’t name her cat Muffy.
Scott Marks: Tell me about the new film, Desperate Living.
Edith Massey: I play a queen, Queen Carlotta, and I have ten soldiers, five on each side of me. And I have a fire gun, you know, when anybody gets in the way. Would you like me to give you some of my part?
SM: Oh, sure.
EM: I’ll say one part. Alright…umm…umm…”Welcome to Mortsville (sic), ladies. I read in the big city newspaper that you are wanted for murder.” Uhh… “Murder of a certain mister Brasley Gravel.’ Then I say, “Your are interrupting my flow of power.” Only I say it a lot louder, you know. “Lieutenant Wilson give these two…give these peasants something to…” (She pauses.) You see, I’m just learning it now. “Give these peasants something to eat. They must be hungry after their long day of breaking the law.” Now I say this real loud, of course. And so they feed him cockroaches.
SM: How do you deal with the publics’ reaction if they walk out of Pink Flamingos outraged and very offended? Do you find the film offensive?
EM: No, but can I tell you one thing? I have never gone through that. No one has ever treated me like that. But the honest truth is everybody is nice and friendly with me. I don’t actually do anything really bad. Yet. (She laughs.)
SM: John’s just starting with you.
EM: Oh, I don’t know. In this (new) movie I have a sex scene, but I ain’t gonna’ say no more. I play more mean. Then they’re going to have like, uhh…the part Divine (normally) plays, well Susan Lowe is going to play that. There are two lesbians, you know, and they win a lottery and they kind of take over the town when they win the lottery and start buying stuff. Then we have a revolution and I get killed. I have a backwards day, see, everybody dresses backwards, walks backwards and those that don’t do it get shot.
As Queen Carlotta in DESPERATE LIVING
SM: Is (John) going to try to offend the audience again like he did in Flamingos?
EM: I don’t think John actually goes to hurt anybody. I don’t think it’s anything personal with John. He just thinks of goofy thing to make because he knows the public likes it. I know him and I know he’s not that way.
SM: How did you feel when you first read the script for Pink Flamingos and saw that at the end (Divine) was going to eat dog s–t?
EM: I didn’t feel nothing because I thought it was going to be a prop. What Divine does (laughing) ain’t my problem. I have to worry what Edie does, right? If I don’t like it I tell him.
SM: Is it difficult watching yourself on the screen?
EM: I’m alright, I guess. (She laughs.) I don’t know. I want the people to like me. That matters to me. If the people like me then I’ll be alright on the screen. I think the people are important when it comes to that.
SM: Does John work with an open or closed set?
EM: Open and closed. It depends.
SM: Can anybody walk in off the street and watch the filming?
EM: Oh, no, no. I see what you mean. And everybody has to be sober! Which is right…If…he’ll tell you to go. He’s strictly business and a hard worker. I’m not taking up for him or anything, that’s the way he really is. And so is Bob Maier, he’s nice, too, the sound man.
SM: Does anything that happens in John’s films that parallel your personal life?
EM: Some of it is fact, but a lot of it is colored. I mean colored up like the madame scene. It was a true story-like.
SM: You actually were a madame?
EM: Yeah, in a way. It was like a hot dog place like Coney Island. I’ll tell you the real truth. It was at a Coney Island place where they have hamburgers and hot dogs and coffee and that, and girls were there. Guys would come in and chose a girl they wanted and take them upstairs, you know. It was just a plain restaurant, small, and they’d call me Edith and throw the money down. That’s all it was to it. I did it for a couple of months (and it got raided) just so I could buy a bar. I wanted to get a bar in Oklahoma where I could get a bar pretty cheap.
SM: Where were you born?
EM: New York, but I was raised in Denver, Colorado then I kind of migrated to California.
SM: Then you wound up in Baltimore?
EM: Yeah. Some girl…I never have heard of Baltimore. I’ve been there off and on for almost eighteen years.
SM: Do you like it there?
EM: I do now. It’s like my home. I worked almost twenty years as a bar maid.
SM: It must be great after only being in a couple of films to have someone ask to make a movie (Edith’s Shopping Bag) about your life.
EM: I dunno. This guy knew me from working with John. He was the sound guy at UMPC. He worked with films and he’s with (John) now. He’s on Channel 67 now working on TV. I feel flattered. I’m flattered and honored that you alls wanted to talk to me here! I really mean it. If it wasn’t for all of you I’d be sitting behind my little thrift job, I guess.
SM: Is it true that Divine employs a make-up man wherever she goes?
EM: Well, this make-up man is going to do our costumes so they got somebody else. They make up her face and the guy follows her. But now they got a new guy gonna’ do it. This Stan Smith which is very great. He does the costumes. I wish you could see the costumes. Very great. He made up his mind and told Divine that he’d rather work with me and John, so he taught another guy how to fix Divine’s face. I think that’s good. Divine is doing good.
SM: Have you seen (Divine’s off-Broadway) play (Women Behind Bars)?
EM: Yeah. I got in free. (Laughs) By accident, though. Some photographer taking pictures of me for his book got me in. I think he’s using another woman, too, cause first I was the only woman in his book. A lot of the guys are not dressed. He has his art and it’s very beautiful, not like pornography or anything. And he’s gonna’ put out a book, you know, and it’s really nice.
SM: What’s it like working in a John Waters’ film. It seems like everything would be very wild and outrageous on the set.
EM: No. Not at all. It’s sorta’ like working with a nice family. Mink (Stole) works a couple of doors down from me and another lady runs a thrift shop. (Mink’s) real name is Nancy Stole, so it’s not that much difference and she goes by (the name) Mink Stole. My real name is Edith Massey. That’s my husband’s name, of years back, you know, so I use that. Marian Vivian Pierce…they just call her Bonnie and she just lives upstairs of the same place Mink has her store.
SM: Do all of them live in the same area?
EM: No, not all, but most do. And the Egg Man lives down there. And you wouldn’t know it. The reason a lot of people don’t recognize him is that he has his hair tied and he had the hat. Now his hair is short like yours and he looks a little different.
SM: He looked a lot different in Female Trouble.
EM: He was Butterfly. In fact, one scene there he was drunk when they shot him. He showed too much of what he was and John had a fit. He’s gay. I mean it’s alright to be gay, (John) didn’t want him to put it on the screen.
SM: How does Divine act with all her notoriety. She’s been in People Magazine with Rudolf Nureyev. Has it gone to her head?
EM: I don’t think so. But they’re all more sophisticated than I am. I’m just me, you know. I don’t know how to put it. Is that the word, sophisticated? They’re not like me. I’m more open.
SM: Is it easy for someone to get in one of John’s films?
EM: Right now he wants all kinds of stars, you know. Then he needs people walking in and out the town. There’s gonna’ be a nudist colony, there’s gonna’ be a bar, there’s gonna’ be a…I don’t know. It’s just gonna’ be good.
SM: Divine is not going to be in Desperate Living. Do you think that will hurt the film?
EM: You going to be surprised. The girl playing Divine’s part is very good.
SM: And no David Lochary, either?
EM: No. David’s got some kind of productions going on and I think he wants to try something different.
As Aunt Ida in FEMALE TROUBLE
SM: Have your or John received any offers from major studios?
EM: I just had somebody offer me television things, but I don’t know if it’s major or what. I turned it down because I really am busy. This I took because it was only one night.
SM: Do you like Chicago?
EM: Sure. I’ve been here before. I was a “21″ girl around twenty years ago near State Street or Clark Street, I don’t remember, but it was around that neighborhood. Then I worked in Calumet City for the syndicate. That’s how I became to run that house. I was a barmaid at the daytime, see, and I would take in — I don’t know why, maybe charm or something — I would take in more during the daytime than the dancers would at night. And the syndicate was watching me and that’s why they asked me to run their place for them. At first I refused them before I met the people, you know. I didn’t really want to, but then I thought, well, I could at least get some money together to buy my own bar, which I did. It got raided, so I got out of it sooner than I expected. But I didn’t like it. I just did it ot get a few dollars.
SM: Do you see a lot of movies?
EM: No, not lately. I just ain’t got the time. I sit in front of my television and try to see them and fall asleep. It’s the truth. I hate to tell that to someone who likes movies as much as you do. I like Susan Hayward and Bette Davis…Joan Crawford. Tallulah Bankhead. They used to call me Tallulah in the bar. I use to say, “Hello, dahling.” I’d say, “Hi, honey,” and they’d say, “You’re not my honey,” and I’d say, “Thank God!” I used to be like that. But I liked them all, you know. I love Elvis.
SM: He’s going to be (in Chicago) tomorrow.
EM: Elvis is coming here? Presley?
SM: That’s the only one I know of.
EM: Aww, ain’t that wonderful?
SM: Have you ever seen him perform in person?
EM: No. I like him, though. I don’t care if he gets like a butterball. Everybody worries about how fat he got. As good as he’s been they’re worrying about his weight. I used to like Rock Hudson and Don Ameche.
SM (Joking): Are you related to Raymond Massey?
EM (Dead serious): Oh, no.
SM: Did you really see one of Don Ameche’s films fifty-two times?
EM: Yes I did. I’m going to tell you…The only reason I told it in the story of my life is because this fan of mine from Philadelphia, an Italian boy, writes to me and he told me about a year or so ago that he had seen Pink Flamingos thirty-one times. So I says, oh hell, I might as well tell the people how goofy I was. I was about fifteen or sixteen and I would go in the early morning and stay till the very end at night. And I’d go to every show. And then I’d go out to the suburbs and any show that was playing it around town from when the doors opened and then stay all night. That’s when I counted. And I cried fifty-two times. I was crying cause it’s very sad, and I’m very emotional anyway. I play these movies and yet I could sit and watch The (Little) House on the Prairie, and if it’s sad I start crying. I’m very tender-hearted. I’ll tell you what kind of movies I like. I like, like, you ever see The Music Lovers?
SM: Ken Russell?
EM: No, it’s about the life of Tchaikovsky.
SM: Yeah, it’s a Ken Russell film.
EM: Is that what it was?
SM: Yes.
EM: Yeah. I like that picture a lot. I like the backgrounds and the story. I really like the way it was done. That’s the kind of stuff I like.
SM: Do you have a feel for the types of films John likes other than Mandingo and Baby Doll?
EM: Oh, I can’t answer that. He’ll go to a lot of goofy shows and then he’ll end up going to a lot of others. Like he took me to Frankenstein by Andy Warhol. You know, I met Andy Warhol twice.
SM: What did you think of him?
EM: He’s alright. We went up there and he wanted to see Pink Flamingos and he only took mine and John’s autograph. Then when he came down to the museum I got his autograph, but I thought that he didn’t know me or that he’d ever remember me, but he did and I was surprised. I got it in the shop, you know, and he drew a can of soup and signed it and stuff like that.
SM: When people stop you in the street do they know you as Edith Massey or for playing the Egg Lady?
EM: They call me Edie. They know me. I’ll tell you what I get fun out of. Friday and Saturday we got big crowds in the street and they’ll stand outside my window and say, “Oh, that’s her!” And then the person they’re with will say, “No, that’s not her. It can’t be.” Most of the times they come in, but a lot of times they stand outside and fight over whether it’s me or not.
SM: What was your reaction after seeing Pink Flamingos for the first time?
EM: (Laughing) I don’t know. I don’t see every scene that’s made, just the ones that I have to do. When I get done doing what I have to do I’m worn out. Like tomorrow I gotta’ go to rehearsals when I get back. And we gotta’ know all this by November 14th when we start to film. I think we’ll be done he said by New Year’s. Andy Warhol made John an offer to come work for him, but John refused to.
SM: How come?
EM: Cause John’s gonna’ be as big as Andy Warhol some day. I don’t say I’m gonna’ be, but John will.
SM: If you stick with John, I don’t see how you can miss.
EM: John’s good to me. Why should I go elsewhere?
Edith Massey and John Waters
SM: Where did he find you?
EM: In Baltimore on Broadway at Pete’s Hotel. I was a barmaid there. First some of the kids came in there four or five at a time and soon I was gettin’ seventy-five to a hundred a night. I don’t know what it is that drew them in anyway. It made more work for me. (Laughs) It wore me out, you know. One day (John) asked me if I’d like to play Jesus’ mother. And I said alright and kind of laughed. He said, “did you know I make movies?” and I didn’t. Then he liked what I did and offered me the part of acting for him. Did you see Multiple Maniacs?
SM: Several times.
EM: Like I called on the phone, remember? Remember I told Divine that her old man was out with another woman. Well, that was a real operator on their and she said to me, “Lady, lady, miss, miss, this is the operator,” but I had to keep saying my part. It’s hard cause then she called her supervisor and I thought she must think I’m a real ding-a-ling, you know. I got it through, but I should have called a friend and told them to just listen.
SM: You get a kick out of making personal appearances, don’t you?
EM: Yeah, I like it.
SM: You like meeting a lot of people?
EM: Yeah. I like people and I like animals. And if there’s anybody I don’t like I tell ‘em. I fight with them. I think the majority of people are nice. I mean it. I think so. (Turning to Joel Rothman.) Like him. Did I ever meet you before?
Joel Rothman: I don’t think so.
EM: You look like somebody. Well, I guess everybody looks like somebody. A lot of people come (into her store) and talk to me. I got a lot of friends. A lot of people come in from Philly and New York and stop in and I had a friend, some guy from here, Chicago came in, but at the time I didn’t know I was going to be here. And there was an Oriental fella, too, who came to see me from Chicago. A lot of people come from all over and somehow find my store.
SM: Has your business increased since you started working in the movies?
EM: Well, I started the shop when I was in Multiple Maniacs. And then I’d do a lot of little things like for that television show I told you about. The fans and people would ask me to be on stage and I’d go. People would ask me to go to parties, you know, and I like to go every now and then. I went to a lot of parties, but I’m kind of toning down. It’s too hard. And then I’ve been doing, you know, stage acts all summer. I went to Provincetown and I’ve been at Max’s Kansas City for two performances. And I’m gonna’ try to do some more. And I’m gonna’ do — I forgot to tell you — on Valentine’s Day where the guy has the sweets convention in Wilmington, Delaware, they’re putting on a stage show, a variety show called Cabaret and I’m gonna’ be in it. That’s my next one after the movie.
SM: I wish you’d play closer to Chicago so at least we can drive there on the weekends. Tell John to come, too. There’s a lot of sleaze in Chicago.
EM: Yeah, but this ain’t John that does this. It’s a guy name Tom Watkins. (John) had ideas for horror pictures and this guy Tom Watkins can build monsters.
SM: Isn’t there talk of a line of postcards?
EM: Bill Lynch is making postal cards of me that they’re selling now in Philadelphia. There’s a poster that has one of the pictures from my postal card on it.
SM: Tell us something about Divine that we need to know.
EM: She’s very, very nice. I met a lot of nice friends through John.
SM: Do you socialize with Divine when away from the set?
EM: I just see Divine in the movies. I’ve never been to where he lives. I may have been where he lives on a party or something, but I never stayed to see what he does. If he wants to be gay, I don’t care. The only problem is that we need more men for the ladies. We ain’t got enough men for the ladies.
SM: Did you quit the bar after you made Multiple Maniacs?
EM: No, I quit the bar cause the owner was always over my shoulder saying I was giving away free drinks and he got on my nerves. I just got tired of it, that’s all. I was crowded every night. I’m not thin and it was hard on my legs.
SM: Tell us about the cat you have.
EM: I have one cat in the thrift shop and one dog.
SM: What are their names?
EM: The one in the thrift shop is called Lovey and my dog is Woof. And the ones at home is called Tiger, Little One and the new one I got I call her Calico cause it’s a calico one. I was gonna’ change it to Muffy, that’s one of the girl’s names in the movie, but it means something else I found out, so I decided no to change it.
SM: Perhaps the most important question one can ask Edith Massey is how can a person be an egg?
EM: Oh, you’d have to ask John that. I can recite it for you. Let’s see if I can do it. “How can a person be an egg, Cotton? How can a person be an egg?”
Standing ovation.
EM: “Bye, bye, Babs. Bye, bye, Babs.” (Pretends to cry.) It looked like I was crying, didn’t it? (Continues crying.) No tears came.
It was here that the 30 minute tape dumped out.
After her tour de force in Desperate Living, Edie only appeared in one more John Waters production, Polyester. Edith Massey died in October of 1984.
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In their infinite wisdom, the Academy finally decided to award Martin Scorsese one of their precious statuettes for his worst film.
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Great, great interview. John Waters is the best and so was Edie. It is too bad that we don’t have the kind of mentality anymore for underground films like “Pink Flamingos”, “Female Trouble” and “Desperate Living”. Nowadays, we get “Zombie Strippers”. Save me.
By the way, your gag reflex goes up during Divine’s dog poop eating scene? Seriously? You send me a clip of “two girls one cup”, and Divine eating dog sh*t bothers you? I love “Pink Flamingos”! Why can’t John turn that into a Broadway musical?
Scott - Certron was a company specializing in audio & video cassettes that went the way of the 8-track and Betamax. (Standing offer - I can turn that cassette interview into a podcast!)
John - Doesn’t Broadway have its fair share of sh*t right now?
John, just because it bothers me doesn’t mean I won’t watch.
Rob, the audio is horrible. I had to keep going back while transcribing. Don’t worry, you’ll be getting a couple of cassettes to transfer soon. And I’ll be thanking you for taking the time, if you catch my drift. There might even be an interview with Kup on the Roy Leonard show. And you’ll also learn where the f**k Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis s**t.