I had the honor of chatting with the legendary Mink Stole and Peaches Christ (aka Joshua Grannell), who are about to bless the Northeast with their show IDOL WORSHIP starting on Valentine’s Day in Salem, then heading to Providence, New York, Philadelphia, and wrapping up in Washington DC on February 20th. Here’s a little taste of the delightful duo and their twisted world.
Tanya O’Debra: Mink Stole and Peaches Christ! I hear you’ve packed up your bindles and you’re touring a few cities with your show, IDOL WORSHIP. Tell me all about it.
Mink Stole: It’s a really intimate evening with Peaches and me. It’s film clips, and we sing, we talk, there’s no fourth wall—we talk to each other and the audience. It’s unscripted—it’s structured, but unscripted. Every show is always a little bit different.
Peaches Christ: Yeah, there have definitely been a few shows where Mink has pulled out a story I’ve never heard before. So, if you see me acting surprised, it’s not always acting! We’ve done this show a number of times pre-pandemic, but this is us trying to be more organized about the way we’re doing it—in chunks. So, we’re doing a Northeast chunk. But yeah, it’s an intimate evening with the two of us. It’s basically, and I hate to say it, but it’s the kind of show that Mink wouldn’t create on her own, because so much of it is from a fan point of view. It’s about celebrating this icon’s work, you know, all these incredible movie characters that she’s created. And so, I get to go out there and be like “YOU’RE AMAZING AND LET’S TALK ABOUT WHY YOU’RE AMAZING!!!” And the audience, they jump in, and they’re like me—I’m channeling the love of the audience.
MS: And I’m just sitting there bathing in it.
PC: You’re basking in gay worship.
TO: Everybody’s favorite kind of worship. I feel like this show is geared directly towards me. Mink, and Peaches I think you will relate to this, when I saw Pink Flamingos for the first time as a teenager, I felt this deep sense of connection to you—
MS: I’m gonna go out and kidnap people! (laughing)
TO: I mean… (shrugs with possibility) But this is Mother right here. So, I just wonder who that artist was for you when you were coming up? Like, who is Mink Stole’s Mink Stole?
MS: Oh, I think I really didn’t have one. But over the years I realize that the people like Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck and even Claudette Colbert—I mean, the real meat and potatoes actresses. Bette Davis can absolutely do no wrong for me. All About Eve—I mean, we made All About Evil—but All About Eve is that movie that you just want to eat with a spoon. A big spoon. It is so yummy. Everything she does is just fabulous. She wasn’t actually a role model, but when I go back and I look at her, I go “I like that, that’s how I want to be able to do it.” I don’t even come close, but she was amazing.
TO: I can see the imprint of her on you now that you mention it. That amazing scenery-chewing. It’s so good.
MS: So yummy.
TO: In your show you talk about Mink’s filmography. What do you think are the hallmarks of an excellent cult movie?
PC: Because I have this cult movie podcast and I celebrate cult movies for a living, I get asked this a lot. I would say that my definition has changed a little bit over the years, and I think one thing has stayed the same. In looking at movies that have come out since the dawn of cinema, which [films] are able to be screened today—in this era of streaming and access to everything—and still draw an audience if it’s not a new release? A sizeable and loyal audience. On top of that—we know you could screen Harry Potter and there would be an audience—I think the other layer is that they did something transgressive, and they spoke to a niche group of people who really needed that thing and who uniquely share a love for that thing. So, it’s got to be popular enough that an audience will show up, but not so popular that everyone shows up. And there is nuance there. That’s part of what makes it cult—we love this thing that not everybody loves.
TO: That’s such a good answer—creating something for the weirdos and not in spite of them. Can you talk about the importance of creating spaces for weirdos to gather?
PC: I think for Mink, it’s been interesting being her friend and getting to know John [Waters] as well. Maybe John knew more about what his design was, is my sense. I think for Mink, and a lot of people who end up finding out that they are called icons, didn’t know that was the path they were on—
MS: —I didn’t—
PC: —you know, when it started. I’ve experienced that with Mink for sure, and I’ve gotten to work with the cast of Rocky Horror, you know, people who couldn’t imagine that these things they were doing would live on! And people would get tattoos of them, and they would have conventions, and all this insane stuff.
MS: We had no idea. John may have known something that I didn’t know. I had no way of knowing. None of us had any way of knowing what the future would bring, but I wasn’t in these movies to be subversive. I was in these movies because they were fun! They were funny! It was fun to do. I knew that a lot of people disapproved of them and I knew that they made people crazy, but that wasn’t the point for me. The point for me was “wow, I get to wear a nice hat and be on screen and say these ridiculous lines!” But it was fun! The idea that something I did that was really fun—I mean, I worked hard. I wanted to do a good job. I wasn’t just slacking off and it wasn’t a party, but I wasn’t doing it to make a major cultural statement. And the fact that it actually did that, and then fifty years later it’s still doing that, staggers me. It really does. I am amazed by it.
PC: I feel like there’s two ways that this works for people. I think Mink has had a really positive trajectory. There’s the other way that I’ve seen it work where you actually start with a big career, and you’re in the unfortunate position to be like Elizabeth Berkely and Showgirls comes out. You think this is gonna be the hit of the world and critically acclaimed and it’s at Cannes, and then because of misogyny the response to the movie is that it’s your fault. That actor was trashed for that performance. And now, decades later she’s starting to come around to the idea that some of us that love it, it’s not that we’re making fun of it. We earnestly love it and we respect her, and we respect the scene-chewing performance she gave. I earnestly love Faye Dunaway in Mommy Dearest. I LOVE her. She refuses to talk about that movie. But I think Mink and the Rocky Horror people—the people who really were a part of these queer, weirdo communities who made crazy art—that art has just exploded and spoke to people all over the world.
MS: It staggers me. I mean, movies come and movies go. A movie opens up and then it disappears. So the idea that these films, Pink Flamingos in particular, [are in the] National Film Registry. This is shocking. I mean, I get it for Hairspray. I almost get it for Hairspray. But Pink Flamingos is like—the fact that it was on AMC!
PC: I—wha—how? (laughing)
MS: How can this movie be on television? Where anybody could have watched it? We never, ever, even John with all of his ambition and his drive, I don’t think we ever though that Pink Flamingos would be on television. So, it is shocking. And it’s incredibly gratifying, but at the same time my mind boggles. I really don’t get it. You know, looking at it from the inside is different from looking at it from the outside.
PC: It’s different for me. We’re both people who grew up in Maryland, and I’m the legacy of a warped mind that got to absorb their movies. I mean, talk about grooming. I was groomed by John Waters and Mink Stole! I’m realizing it!
TO: What an honor!
PC: It was. But I don’t think that they knew it for a while. Or at least Mink didn’t, because when [Mink] came to Midnight Mass [in] San Francisco in that first year 2000, I remember her earnest response, which surprised me that [Mink] was surprised. You can tell when someone’s having a moment. I brought her out on stage, you know, we gave her a big build-up, and there was a banner that said “Hail Mink” on the curtain, and we had an effigy of Peggy Gravel stirring a vat of rabies—a robotic Peggy Gravel—and we brought her down the aisle and we gave her flowers, and San Francisco did not stop cheering. It was a standing ovation that went on and on and on, and I could tell that you were overwhelmed—
MS: —I was—
PC: —and it surprised me. Because to me it’s like, the way I grew up, you’re fucking Meryl Streep in our world!
MS: It was astonishing for me, and part of the reason is I live under some very large shadows. The shadow of Divine and the shadow of John. Most of the attention, when the movies were getting all of the attention that they got back when they opened, most of the attention went to Divine and went to John. There was a little bit of a spillover, but Divine was such a phenomenon. Divine came on the scene and was immediately a huge, huge—and I don’t mean that literally—but huge. People just went crazy. And I was a real woman—
PC: —That’s what makes it even more extraordinary! I’m sorry, but anyone who—we watched Pink Flamingos, and yes Divine’s larger than life, but I’m like, who is Connie Marble? Because you held your own—
MS: —I could hold my own—
PC: —battling Divine! It’s amazing!
MS: But the idea of drag, the man playing the woman, was an extraordinary thing. Whereas a woman playing a woman, not so much.
TO: But a woman doing what you were doing was unheard of!
MS: Well, yes, but the movies were unheard of. It wasn’t me that was unheard of. It wasn’t the actors. Anyway, I’m not trying to—
PC: —No, we’re gonna force you to agree that you were phenomenal! (laughing)
TO: I won’t rest!
MS: But anyway, I wasn’t accustomed to being the center of attention. I was accustomed to being the supporter.
TO: And so, you feel like this attention has risen through the years?
MS: Well, I think over the years I have been granted more respect for the work that I did that sometimes I did feel was—I don’t want to say completely unappreciated, but it wasn’t in the forefront. I wasn’t the star. So, I am always a big supporter of the supporting player, because you need the support to hold up the star. There are a lot of unappreciated—I’m kind of the Eve Arden of the movies.
PC: Yeah, I don’t know though, because if you think about it, with the movies themselves getting in the Academy Museum, I think Divine would continue to be lauded if she were still alive. If he were still around he would have been a big part of that, but I think there is a deeper analysis that’s happening, especially with the success of drag popularity. And so, when you go back and you look at a movie like Pink Flamingos, I think the world has a better understanding now of you being extraordinary. Because we can look at it like, wow, that woman went toe-to-toe with that queen in this cult movie. And then you did Desperate Living where there wasn’t the drag queen and you’re on this epic journey. I think you sell yourself short. But that’s my job to point all that out.
TO: I’m in full agreement with you. So, that show in 2000 is the first time you met?
MS: That’s when we met. I didn’t meet Joshua. I met Peaches. And I met Peaches actually on the stage. That was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on Peaches.
PC: It was unusual. In subsequent shows I would make a point of meeting the person out of drag and then doing the show. But this was our first [show], we didn’t know what we were doing, and [Mink] flew in from LA, and they brought her to her hotel room, and I was getting into drag. She came in from the back of the house so that she could watch the preshow. And then she was brought in and she and I met on stage for the first time while she was getting that massive standing ovation.
MS: It was a very overwhelming experience for me.
TO: I am so jealous I did not get to see this in person. It sounds incredible. And so, the two of you have become friends over the years. I love when friends make art together. Like the Dreamlanders, just friends making things together. And now here you two are, friends making things. Can you talk about the experience of collaborating with friends?
MS: It’s so much easier! Well, in some ways it isn’t. It depends on the friends.
PC: Yeah, that’s true.
MS: I mean, I have friends that I would never want to work with. But Joshua writes, Joshua’s a writer. Joshua is an empresario par excellence, I mean, he writes these wonderful plays.
PC: Oh—
MS: Oh, honey. Talk about false modesty. He writes these wonderful stage productions, these film parody productions, that are hilarious. At least, they could be if you worked a little harder at it.
PC: (laughs) Exactly.
MS: But he’s really, really talented and he writes these wonderful things, so I’m in good hands. I’m not a writer. You know, I can come out with a line here or there.
PC: I don’t know, there’s a parody song that you’ve been working on for the new show. We have new content for this version of IDOL WORSHIP. She’s been writing some and it’s very good.
MS: But I have never written a show in my life. I’ve never written a script. But I’m in good hands. You know, you wrote a movie! I agreed to do [All About Evil] before I ever read the script. It was a mistake. (laughing)
PC: (laughs) Yeah, I was surprised that she was surprised when she found out that she had to be sent in Baltimore to have a full face-cast made. She was like, why? It’s like, well how are we gonna sew your mouth shut?
MS: I never thought about it.
TO: Unless you’re down for us to sew your real mouth shut, which I hope you’re not.
PC: Right?
MS: I mean, we’re doing what? Huh?
TO: I was actually worried about you as an actor when I watched that scene. I was like, oh my god, how are they doing this?
MS: I have to tell you, Natasha [Lyonne] was fabulous. She never touched my actual lips once with the needle. And it would have been really easy, because the prosthetic was tiny!
PC: There’s a story here that we will probably talk about in the show because we often tell this story, because as a director, it was one of the most memorable moments. There’s a lot about making a movie that you forget because it’s so much work and long days, but there are things that you will never forget. And what I will never forget is the special effects people taking Mink and Natasha aside and rehearsing with them and explaining that this is a one-take thing hopefully, because if Natasha even goes even the slightest bit this way with the needle, she’ll puncture Mink’s lip. And then we’ll have to reset, and it could be an injury. And Natasha’s going, “really? What? You want me to do it like this?” And they’re like, “well, Joshua wants an extreme closeup.” And I didn’t want any CGI. So, I’m watching the monitor, right, and I am SWEATING BULLETS, because here’s my idol, and then my lead actor who was carrying the movie and needed to be taken care of, being put in this position! Ironically, Natasha was really just taking revenge on Mink, because Mink sent her to make-you-straight camp in But I’m a Cheerleader. That’s what we realized later. Oh, that was revenge!
TO: Yes, I love this universe continuing.
MS: But she actually didn’t hurt me.
PC: She was great.
MS: She was great. And then, did she do it the second time? Because it had to get redone.
PC: So, she did the sewing for the shot, but they had a few [extra prosthetics] that they would put on you for the attic stuff. But then that was actually the harder part, because when we’re shooting in the attic—this is assuming people know the movie—there’s long sequence where Mink has her mouth sewn shut. And that day of course, poor Mink, that’s no talking, no drinking water, no eating.
MS: My mouth was sewn shut.
TO: How long was your mouth sewn shut?
MS & PC: HOURS! (laughing)
PC: In IDOL WORSHIP, in this show, I found a photo that we’re gonna put up on the screen of Mink with her mouth sewn shut and me kind of pushing her back up so she can rest. So, she’s leaning on my back and she has a legal pad that she’s written “hurry” on, and she’s giving me the finger. (laughing) And that is a real behind the scenes photo of the making of the movie that’s a good example of our friendship.
TO: Yeah, that is a close friendship. To create a facial prisoner for the day.
MS: It was a good moment on film, though.
TO: You were both actually raised Catholic, right? I don’t know if the punishment aspect is leading me here, but can you talk about the influence of your Catholic upbringing on your work?
MS: Well, Peaches Christ. Midnight Mass.
PC: And also, I think I was inspired by [the Dreamlanders’] sacrilege. Because I was growing up Catholic, and I was coming to terms with my—I mean, I was so Catholic that I would pray as a child that I wasn’t gay. You know what I mean? Like, that was something I prayed every night, that God would stop making me gay as a kid. And when I think back on that I’m like, oh, that’s real. I really bought into all that bullshit. And how sad it is that kids go through that. But when I saw something like Multiple Maniacs and what they did in that movie, and I’m like a freshman in high school—Catholic high school—going oh my god! They reenacted the stations of the cross while Divine’s getting a rosary job from Mink Stole! When I say it was life-changing, I am not exaggerating! So, I was inspired by their sacrilege. And then I really embraced it and ran with it.
MS: And I didn’t have to pray that I wasn’t gay, because I wasn’t gay, so I didn’t have to pray for that. But I was a pious little child. I bought in. I totally bought in. I am the fifth of ten kids.
PC: Out of ten kids. That’s very Catholic.
MS: We are very Catholic. So, I was a very pious child. Somewhere in my world I have a picture of my first communion outfit, you know, with the rosary draped around my hands and the prayer book. When I was about fourteen, through a series of circumstances, the smoke and mirrors all fell away. The mirror broke, the smoke cleared, and I went “what the fuck.” And I was so angry about it. Because I had been brought up to fear hell. If I ate a piece of bacon on a Friday and got hit by a bus before I got to confess it, I would go to hell forever! Forever! For eternity! I mean, they were so mean. For five years I went to Catholic school and I had the meanest nuns. I had the stereotypical nuns. I had the nuns in full medieval garb. You know, the black robes to the floor with the veils and the crucifixes—
PC: —It is a flawless look.
MS: You know, Catholicism today is different. Back when I was growing up, it was really strict. You couldn’t eat before communion. If you had a sip of water before communion, because you forgot and took communion, and you got hit by that bus—I lived in such fear of buses—you went to hell forever! When, finally, that veil opened up and I saw what that was, I was so angry. Nobody has the right to make children feel that scared. Nobody has that right. And that really pissed me off. So, when I got a chance to be sacrilegious in Multiple Maniacs, I loved every second of that! It fed something in me that really was deep and personal.
PC: That’s amazing. It’s punk rock! The stuff that you guys did in Baltimore in 1969!
MS: And Baltimore was a very Catholic city.
PC: Oh my god! So, John was really tickled by this, because Multiple Maniacs was rereleased a few years ago by Criterion, and they did a theatrical [run]. And so, John and Mink both know my husband Nihat very well. He grew up in Turkey so, for him, a lot of this is all new exposure. I told John, “oh, we’re going to see Multiple Maniacs in the theater, and it’s Nihat’s first time seeing it.” And so John said, “I want a full report.” So, Nihat’s reaction was just to be blown away. And he’s going, “in 1969 they did that?” Like, he couldn’t believe it, because that’s the year of Stonewall. It’s amazing what you were doing. And it did groom me, and it showed me that there was this way to take your damage and create work out of it. And that’s what I think John and Mink and Divine showed me, not so much how to do it, but just that there was a power in entertaining people by also being political. And the political act is to say, “I don’t subscribe to this, I’m not taking this very seriously, and in fact I’m gonna laugh at it.” I mean, that was transformative.
TO: If you could work with any artist you have not yet worked with, living or dead, who would it be and why?
PC: Oh, wow.
MS: Oh, that’s a toughie. You know, I really wanted to work with Alfred Hitchcock. I heard he was a monster, but I think it would have been really interesting. I could have played Tony Perkins’s mother.
PC: Yes! Oh my god, yes!
TO: Remake!
MS: The corpse in the wheelchair?
PC: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MS: I would have been good as that.
PC: Living or dead really makes it tough. Oh god. I mean, I have an obsession with so many filmmakers that it really makes it hard. But I don’t know why, the person that keeps coming to mind for me is Vincent Price. Such an icon. For me, and this is gonna sound convenient to say, but I would have—just to have met Divine. You know, I got to know them after. They so generously have brought me into their lives. I’ve been so embraced by Mink, John, and the world that they—they still are all friends! You know, you go to the Christmas party and it’s all these original Dreamlanders. I would have to choose Divine.
TO: Excellent choice.
MS: Actually, I think if I were going to work with any director, I think maybe George Cukor.
PC: Really? Wow!
MS: He worked wonderfully with women. He did a great job with women. Actually, the movie that I would love to remake is The Women.
PC: Ugh, I love that movie. Who would you play?
MS: I would like to play the Countess.
PC: Of course!
MS: “L’amour, l’amour.” And I’m almost her size now.
PC: I have to be Rosalind Russell. I think she’s the best.
MS: She is fabulous.
TO: Now I want to see all these movies! Speaking of, the children need new cult classics! Are either of you working on a new film project?
MS: I’m not, but— (points to Peaches)
PC: Of course, Liarmouth is John’s new project, and everyone keeps asking Mink if she’s in it. And the truth of is that John even will say, “I don’t know if it’s gonna get made.” Who knows what’s gonna happen. But for me, I am working on a movie, and it’s the drag queen horror gore-fest that I’ve always wanted to make, but had to wait until I had a good enough idea to feel motivated to make it. And I had an idea during the pandemic, so I reached out to all my famous drag queen friends and they signed on to be in it. Because they’re playing themselves, I had to get them to sign on first so that I could write the script second.
TO: I can’t wait for it. It sounds incredible. Is there anything about the show that I didn’t ask you that you would like to share?
MS: We really want people just to come and enjoy spending time with us.
TO: As they should.
MS: We have a really fun time together and we put together a really fun show. The word share gets a little bit overused, but we really enjoy spending time with other people who are enjoying being with us. We like people who like us.
PC: Yeah, it’s intentionally intimate, because it’s about likeminded-ness. It’s about fellowship. We want you to come in there and introduce yourself to the people sitting next to you, because you share a philosophy. If you’re there at that show, you have something in common in this culture right now, and we want it to be an escape. Almost like Mink and I are inviting you to our living room and we’re entertaining you for the evening.
MS: Yeah, it’s very intimate. That’s why we’re doing smaller venues. It’s not a stadium show.
TO: WHAT??
MS: I know!
TO: I don’t know, do I want a world where a stadium full of this kind of person exists?
PC: No!
Edited for time and clarity.
For full ticketing information, visit peacheschrist.com.
