Cult movie director John Waters has some very strange role models. Lorne Jackson finds out who and why.

Most of us have a hero.

Some admire freedom fighters, like Martin Luther King or Gandhi.

Sport fans are easiest to please. They can’t get enough of footy stars, and their ball-booting prowess. (Not to mention their God-given talent for stifling gobby girlfriends with super injunctions.)

John Waters has heroes, too. Though they’re not your standard icons of song, screen, sport or politics.

The cult movie director has a yen for murderers and porn stars.

Now he’s written a book, Role Models, celebrating the dubious characters he admires so much.

He’ll be discussing the book at this year’s Hay Festival, in Hay-on-Wye, where he’s destined to be one of the most controversial guests.

Such notoriety won’t concern him too much. He’s never shied away from shocking an audience, embracing his inner outrageousness like a hippy hugging a tree.

His persona is camp, bordering on crack-up.

The voice is arch as a Vulcan’s eyebrow. Then there’s the skinny body, and skinnier moustache, giving him the appearance of a World War II spiv. Or the Addams Family’s second cousin, twice removed.

His oeuvre is equally outre.

This is the gent who has written and directed some of the most disturbing (yet intentionally silly and hilarious) movies ever to go SPLAT! on a cinema screen.

The titles alone supply decent clues about content. Hag In A Black Leather Jacket. Mondo Trasho. Multiple Maniacs...

Then came Pink Flamingos.

His 1972 masterpiece of muck didn’t just take the biscuit – it consumed an entire tin of Family Circle.

Pink Flamingos starred Waters' drag queen chum, Divine, as Babs Johnson, the “filthiest person alive”.

Babs is exceedingly proud of the title, and will do anything to prove how majestically yucky she can be. That includes eating dog dirt. (Sincere apologies if you’re reading your Post while chomping a chocolate muffin. Stick to warm milk until the end of this article. Best for a strong stomach.)

No stunt double was used in the making of Pink Flamingos. Divine genuinely dined on the dreaded delicacy. Not surprisingly, the film can’t be shown in the UK in its uncut form, though it’s a cult favourite on America’s midnight movie circuit.

Luckily I get to talk to the unedited version of John Waters, who tells me how proud he is of his book.

“For years I’ve been yakking away to my friends about my role models,” he says. “They know all my opinions off by heart. So I was looking for someone new to tell the stories to.

“That’s why I decided to write the book.”

He adds: “Everybody can write a version of this book, because we all have role models who have inspired us to do something with our lives.

“And it’s wrong to think that those role models have to be holy and perfect. Mine certainly aren’t!”

Oh boy, is that an understatement.

Waters prefers Jayne Mansfield to Marilyn Monroe. (Fair enough.) The Three Stooges to Charlie Chaplin. (Controversial, though I understand his point.) Alvin and the Chipmunks to The Beatles. (Say what?!)

Then we come to the really questionable choices. Bobby Garcia the gay porn star. Waters is gay himself, and admires Bobby’s, erm, enthusiasm for meeting and befriending Marines.

What he admires about Leslie Van Houten is harder to comprehend.

Van Houten was a member of the Manson Family, the gang of killers led by Charles Manson in the late 60s.

I expect Waters to be gleefully flippant regarding Van Houten. It’s his default position on most matters.

Not about this.

“When I write about Leslie I have to be serious,” he says. “There isn’t much humour in this part of the book. I know Leslie did a terrible thing, and that’s something she has to live with every day of her life. I suppose she’s a role model for me because she has accepted what she’s done, and struggles each day to be a better person.