Original subtitles

The one thing I knew about Divine personally when I was living in Provincetown...

...was when Divine came back to town to do The Neon Woman. It was one summer.

And it was kind of a big deal because Divine had left town...

...under very criminal circumstances and couldn't come back to town or they'd--

She'd be sued and oh, the whole thing. S0 they had to pay off, I think, a few people...

...to get Divine to perform.

S0 it was a great summer. They performed at the Madeira Club...

...and did The Neon Woman. I think it was the Madeira Club.

It was a great show.

And the one story that we remembered the best was that Divine was driving...

...down one of the little streets and I think fell asleep at the wheel...

...and drove through the window of the hardware store.

It was the local hardware store. If you came down this little street, there it was.

And we were sitting in Front Street and somebody came in and said:

“Divine just drove through the window of the hardware store." Everybody started laughing.

And then Howard Gruber came out of the kitchen and said:

“Dove or drove?"

I just remember that vividly. But what was funnier...

...was that nobody charged Divine with anything.

And the police actually asked Divine for autographs.

That was the story we heard. Ha-ha-ha. It was pretty wonderful.

Here's me and Divvie...

...at an art opening I had in 1976 or something.

In the end, after Hairspray...

...Divine and I hadn't really connected for a long time and we started to connect again.

This was like a year before he died.

And, um...

...we had a ritual where, because he didn't drive, I would pick him up.

We would g0 to the Lexington Market...

[DOG BARKING]

...and eat like 5 pounds of chicken livers...

...and then g0 to the movies. He would fall asleep because he had that, um...

What do you call it?

MAN: Sleep apnea. -Yes, sleep apnea.

And... But he would know everything that happened in the movie.

Even though he would just-- He was gone, you know. It was really weird.

And we became really close in that time before he died.

And he really showed me...

...how to have some self-esteem.

He adored me, and I adored him, and he told me not to worry.

And he was very spiritual at that time, I think.

And ljust felt so completely, um...

...timeless when I was with him. It was-- He--

It just spread. It felt really good to be around him. He was very spiritual.

And had seemed like-- Happier than I'd ever seen him ever.

And I think that people will agree with me in that.

Um, you know, he had made it, he had gotten some interesting, like...

...different acting things that he'd done and he was gonna do.

I was gonna do his portrait.

And he died the weekend before I was gonna do his portrait.

I wanted to do his portrait so bad.

I was gonna stay with him in New York and do his portrait.

But I did his portrait from a photograph anyway.

And Pat Moran has that picture right now.

I did it from the photograph that I think is very popular of him...

...where he's like this: And it's very...

...Buddha-istic, you know.

We-- There were some really funny stories that Cookie talks about in Provincetown...

...with Divine in the really old days. Um...

We were-- We were horrible. We stole stuff. We were terrible. We--

We caused scenes. Um...

Cookie lived with Divine for a while in that big house on Commercial Street.

Oh, it was just, you know, um...

Divine never let anything get on his nerves.

He never let anything get on his nerves.

And that taught me a lot. He would let things just go.

If somebody was irritable...

...he would just ignore it. He wouldn't play into any--

He was just on this-- You know, he was like total acceptance.

And, um...

In closing this little eulogy, I'll say that...

...um...

...l'm really happy that Divine died happy, because he was very happy at that time.

And I'm jealous.

MAN: That's a good point. A lot of people die, I'm sure, with a lot of regrets.

Yeah, I think that's the real hell in life and death, is dying unhappy.

And I'm really jealous. And he died quick, he died happy.

And very spiritual.

And he's my mentor in that. S0 there you go.

He's one of my guardian angels. Divine is with me a lot.

You know, he's one of those kind of people that...

Or I'm one of those kind of people, rather, that will just talk to him when I'm at home.

MAN: Are you serious? -Absolutely. Yeah.

I have a huge picture of Divine. It's probably 6 feet tall, 7 feet tall in my room.

And, uh, I-- Oh, yeah, every day. Yeah. And Christmas is still hard.

[CAR HORN BLARES]

You know, when Divine was on tour and everything, doing his record promotion...

...he would come into town and just shower us with gifts...

...and, you know, just be Divine. It was a good time.

There was always laughter and everything like that.

S0 now at Christmas, Divine always comes up in one of the first conversations we have...

...about how much we miss him and what he'd be doing.

And, uh, it'll always be a hole at Christmastime...

...because he was Santa. Auntie Mame.

MAN: What do you think are some of the most common misperceptions of Divine?

YEATON: That he was, um...

Well, his character is very different from his personal life.

Um, the characters that he played were bigger than life...

...and flamboyant and crazy and wild.

Divine behind closed doors was, to me...

...a very-- A family man.

A very loving person.

Of course, he had the wild side, but, um...

You know, he liked to-- Good conversations with the family.

Hanging around, of course eating all night long. Um...

Watching television. Things like that. You know, just very...

I think a lot of people look at him as...

...a party animal. And he really wasn't. He truly wasn't. He was a down-to-earth person.

And when he left us, it was...

At that point in my life, it was by far the worst thing that ever happened to me.

By far. But he, along with my grandmother, Ashley, are the two dates I just--

I don't want to really remember that.

I remember his life and not his death at all.

I think that's the way he'd want it. I don't remember his death day.

I don't get depressed on his death day at all. But his birthday, I celebrate it. So...

You know, and that's Divine. He was a very spiritual person as well.

And he wouldn't want people moping around.

You know, if Divine was here and I only had 3O seconds...

...l wouldn't say one thing. I'd just hug him.

Um...

Because when I-- lt was a very safe place as a child.

Extremely safe.

No one could ever get to me with Divine. And I felt--

I don't know, it was just-- It's amazing.

And it's something that can never be replaced.

I don't think I'd say anything. I'd just have to get up and hug him.

And kiss on him for a while.

You know, just be his godson.

Divine took that title very, very, very seriously.

He told me that he didn't think he would ever have a son.

That I was the closest thing to it. And he treated me that way.

And I treated him that way as well.

Divine was basically the person in my life who taught me how to love someone...

...because he treated me the way I will treat people who I love now.

Because he defined that for me.

He treated me better than any person in the world.