Who was the best-paid actor in John Waters’ movies?
Nobody signs up for a John Waters movie in the expectation of securing a lucrative payday, with the experience of working with the ‘Pope of Trash’ more than enough to compensate for the lack of remuneration on offer.
Very rarely have any of his features carried a production budget anywhere close to eight figures, and it’s not as if Waters is the type of auteur who’d thrive under the restrictive studio system. He’s a filmmaker who turned trash into art, thrives on pushing the limits of bad taste, and does his best work when given the autonomy to be as provocative and off-kilter as he sees fit.
Waters has become a mainstream favourite by existing on the fringes of the mainstream, as oxymoronic as it sounds. Some of the biggest and most beloved stars in the industry are massive fans of his output whether he’s collaborated with them or not, but even if he has, he was never going to back a truck full of cash up to their front door to convince them to partner up.
There are exceptions to every rule, though, even if the money on offer is relative to the scale Waters grew accustomed to working with. When he was on the hunt for an actor to play a pivotal role in the melodramatic satire Polyester, the auteur cast his eyes towards the ‘Golden Age’.
He sent the screenplay to a star who became a heartthrob in the 1950s and 1960s, a period where they shared the screen with John Wayne, Lana Turner, Robert Mitchum, Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth, and Sophia Loren. Still, there were no guarantees that Tab Hunter would be open to the prospect, even if Waters ended up pushing the boat out.
“I did talk to him on the phone and told him he’d be working with a drag queen named Divine, and he said, ‘What the hell, let me see the script,'” Waters recalled to the British Film Institute. “I probably told him it was in Odorama, which he thought was funny, and then I think I just sent him the script. He called back, and I shot all the scenes in one week.”
Even though he only had Hunter for seven days to shoot the entirety of his role as Todd Tomorrow, Waters revealed, “He got the most I’d ever paid anybody, and it was probably the least he ever got.” He even struck up a friendship with his co-star, as Hunter and Divine would reunite four years later in 1985’s comedy western Lust in the Dust, which the former also produced alongside partner and future husband, Allan Glaser.
That was the only occasion he worked with Waters, which might have something to do with the fact Hunter was paid more handsomely than anybody else had ever been the first time around.
