Trivia: Episode 22, season 2 of the television show Married With Children is dedicated to the memory of Divine. Divine was set to act as both Peggy's mother and her uncle Otto in the show, but died the night before production. The producers sent flowers to the funeral along with a card that read "If you didn't want to do the show, you could have just SAID something!".

The tale, in few words, is that Divine once made a guest appearance at a Ft. Lauderdale nightclub, and was mordified to discover that the crowd had expected a performance, but there she was, empty-handed. She left, flustered and embarassed, and with a little help (a hell of a lot) of help from her friends, the single "Born to be Cheap" was released shortly thereafter. The rest is history. This is, of course, just one more case of qualified musicians and producers using a celebrity's notoriety to sell albums. How many horrifying incidents have there been where a movie star, sportscaster, supermodel, or ninja turtle has been approached and asked "So, would you like to cut an album?" It's a dirty shame. Not necessarily the case here, though. Divine is first and foremost known for her work in the earlier films of none other than John Waters, the sultan of bad taste, and while the characters have been trashy as all hell, they've always somehow been utterly charming and a total blast, however lurid. None of the actors were particularly all that good at it, including Divine, but they still had an incredible stage presence as well as big balls, even for Baltimore. It's this same kind of charm that made Divine what I'd consider a deserved success in her musical career. Not the best singer, but a beautiful voice would have been doubly inappropriate for the whole package. Throaty and sleazy worked much better. She was intense and unmistakeable by any means, and one hell of a performer. You'd never think that a 300-pound woman could move like that. You might guess that a great deal of Divine's demographic was homosexual, and you'd be right, but Divine was also a formidable success on a broader level than the gay disco scene of the 80's, with more than 10 international gold records under her belt. Europe and and Australia were remarkably receptive to her talents. The single "You Think You're a Man" was the biggest hit of her career, ending up in the U.K.'s Top 20 and granting her the opportunity to perform her hit on 'Top of the Pops', which led to a flood of phonecalls from outraged and deeply horrified viewers. She was banned from making any future appearances. She was simply too much to handle, and that's what still sets her apart. The music itself is not revolutionary, the lyrics less than profound, but anyone who would judge these tracks according to those factors would be missing the point. It was all about Divine. It was the unquestionable attitude and personality of someone so exotic and bizarre that drove her to stardom and made these otherwise lackluster disco anthems into hits. You don't have to be gay to be entertained by this stuff. You don't even have to be European. Even to the most skeptical of listeners, there's no reason not to get a kick out of listening to this, even if only for the novelty of it. Long live the hog princess.
Glenn Milstead (1945-1988)