John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. Born and raised in Baltimore, Waters rose to prominence in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972), and Female Trouble (1974). He wrote and directed the 1988 film Hairspray which became an international success and turned into a hit Broadway musical which has remained in almost continuous production. Waters has written and directed other successful films, including Polyester (1981), Cry-Baby (1990), Serial Mom (1994), Pecker (1998), and Cecil B. Demented (2000).
In 2015, the British Film Institute celebrated Waters’ films with a retrospective in honor of his 50-year filmmaking career. Later that year, he was nominated for a Grammy Award for the spoken word version of his book Carsick.