Something About Mary


Crackers, Divine and Cotton in Pink Flamingos

Mary Vivian Pearce isn't your typical film star. As John Waters' childhood friend in Baltimore, she appeared in every single film he made as either the main character (such as Cotton in Pink Flamingos) or an extra (homophobe in Pecker). My fascination with her started with seeing Pink Flamingos. As a more feminine dead-ringer for Jean Harlow, Mary exhibits a bit of class and style that only the Golden Era of actresses have been able to pull off on the screen.

I still think the resemblance between Mary and Jean Harlow are incredible.

I even tried to copy the beautiful, yet trashy blonde look for awhile, but found it too difficult to maintain. One needs a certain personality to be like Mary, and I didn't even come close. In fact, the only thing we really have in common is the same first birth name - Bonnie.

First-time fans of Mary and the weird characters she plays may want to visit the films section to see what she's done in the past. Her first film with Waters, in 1964, was a 17-minute film called Hag In A Black Leather Jacket. She played a sexy dancer. The last movie she appeared in was Serial Mom, as a woman who asks Kathleen Turner to sign her book, "To a future serial mom."

Since then, rumor has it that Mary went back to college to get a graduate degree in Creative Writing at Johns Hopkins University (or was it Goucher College?). She also works as a bicycle messenger. Mary has brown hair now as opposed to the angelic blonde most fans know her as.

Maybe in future Waters' projects, we'll see her again on film. HINT HINT.

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