Women We Love: Mink Stole

We don't usually fall for uptight prudes or religious zealots, but when they're played by Mink Stole, we'll make an exception.

As all purveyors of queer cinema know, Stole gained fame (notoriety?) as one of the original members of John Waters' guerilla filmmaking ensemble. In fact, she was one of the cast members who were infamously arrested during the making of Mondo Trasho, wherein she also memorably tap-danced topless.

Stole frequently played more then one character in the early days, such as the "religious whore" who "seduces" Divine with a rosary in Multiple Maniacs. She and Divine often played adversaries onscreen, most notoriously in the midnight movie classic Pink Flamingos as two clannish matriarchs competing for the title of "The Filthiest Person Alive".

Female Trouble, Desperate Living and Polyester followed, but it was the original Hairspray that finally found Stole and Divine playing on the same side (ironically, it would turn out to be Divine's final film with Stole). In Cry-Baby, Stole spent much of her time in an iron lung, but she was back with a vengeance as the prudish neighbor Dottie Hinkle in Serial Mom. Her profanity-riddled telephone exchanges with Kathleen Turner have become legendary.

Through the years, Stole's roles in Water's films (Pecker, Cecil B. Demented, A Dirty Shame) grew smaller, but her own cult status earned her roles in such gay-themed movies as Leather Jacket Love Story, But I'm a Cheerleader and, most recently, Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds. But to us, she will always be Connie Marble. Or Taffy Davenport. Or Marge the Neuter. Or ...

Link via Imbd.com.