Trailer
Plot summary
In 1962 Baltimore, Tracy Turnblad, who calls herself pleasantly plump, wants to dance on The Corny Collins Show, a local program where a council of teenagers performs to popular songs. She and her friend Penny Pingleton slip out one night to a record hop that Corny Collins hosts, and Tracy wins the dance contest there with her partner Fender. Corny invites Tracy to audition at the WZZT studio. Her dance moves and her performance in the mock interview earn her a place on the council, and her mother Edna, who had objected to the hairstyle and the obsession, takes her shopping at Hefty Hideaway, where the owner, Mr. Pinky, hires Tracy as his model. Tracy uses her fame to speak out for racial integration.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Hairspray (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- John Waters originally considered having Divine play both teenager Tracy Turnblad and her mother Edna, but distributor New Line Cinema discouraged the idea, so Divine instead played Edna and the racist station manager Arvin Hodgepile.
- Hairspray was Divine's last film released in his lifetime: he died on March 7, 1988, three weeks after its premiere and nine days after its release, and it was the only Waters film in which he did not play the lead.
- John Waters wrote the screenplay under the title White Lipstick, loosely basing it on real events. The Corny Collins Show is based on Baltimore's real Buddy Deane Show, which pre-empted Dick Clark's American Bandstand in the 1950s and early 1960s, and which Waters had already covered in his 1986 book Crackpot.
SPOILER
A deleted scene put cockroaches in Tracy's hair; traces remain in the finished film, including the songs "The Roach" and "The Bug" and her roach-painted gown. Waters cut it after New Line head Bob Shaye asked, "What is this, a Buñuel movie?"- Debbie Harry said John Waters wanted her to both act in Hairspray and perform music for it, but her record label Sire objected.
