John Waters was joined at his star ceremony on Sept. 18 by Ricki Lake, Mink Stole and Greg Gorman. (photo by Rance Collins)

John Waters’ legacy is unique among Hollywood personalities. The writer, director and sometimes actor is not known for art films or Oscar-winners, but instead for what he proudly calls “trash.” While movies like “Hairspray,” “Cry Baby” and “Serial Mom” cracked into the mainstream consciousness, the majority of Waters’ work has a camp edge that might be described as totally and completely outrageous.

On Sept. 18, Waters’ legacy was cemented on Hollywood Boulevard with his own star on the Walk of Fame.

“God, here I am, closer to the gutter than ever,” Waters said upon accepting the honor. A large crowd was gathered, many dressed as Waters characters, including several iterations of drag queen and frequent collaborator Divine.

The star is appropriately located outside the offbeat Larry Edmund’s Bookshop, which Waters said he’s been visiting for half a century.

“The Hollywood Walk of Fame [was] the first place I ever came to in Los Angeles after driving across the country … I got out of my vehicle in 1970 at Hollywood and Vine and darted across the street and got a jaywalking ticket – the first one, and I never looked back,” he added.

Waters was flanked at the ceremony by some regulars from his films, including Mink Stole, who has appeared in each of his feature-length movies.

“I was drawn to him immediately because he was so smart, so funny, so confident and so totally unlike anyone that I had ever met,” Stole said. “What I didn’t realize is that he was totally unlike anyone that anybody had ever met or how lucky that meeting would be for me.”

Also on hand were photographer Greg Gorman and actress and television host Ricki Lake, who got her start playing Tracy Turnblad in “Hairspray.” Notably, neither Stole nor Lake were introduced with any of their respective credits listed in accordance with the SAG-AFTRA strike. Lake read a letter that she sent to Waters after production on “Hairspray” wrapped.

“I love you like a brother, father, director, friend, savior, even lover … well, maybe not lover, however you are the one person I will never forget. For the first time in my life, my peers treated me as an adult,” Lake said.

“[To] the Hollywood Walk of Fame – you’re the best, and I hope the most desperate show biz rejects walk over me here and feel some sort of respect and strength,” Waters said. “The drains on this magic boulevard will never wash away the gutter of my gratitude.”

The star ceremony occurred in conjunction with the opening of the Academy Museum’s new Waters exhibit, appropriately titled “Pope of Trash.” The exhibition includes costumes, props and other memorabilia that inform what the museum calls “the grotesque, daring, deliberately tacky, hilarious and salacious elements that recur in Waters’ … career.” The display will be featured through Aug. 4, 2024.

“I offer my deep gratitude to John for trusting our museum with the formidable endeavor of telling the story of his vast film career,” director and president of the Academy Museum Jacqueline Stewart said. “As the subject of numerous exhibitions on his visual art and photography, John is accustomed to the process of exhibition making. For ‘John Waters: Pope of Trash,’ he has uniquely plumbed decades of remembrances and searched high and low – literally attics and basements – for the works seen in this exhibition.”

In concluding his Walk of Fame ceremony comments, Waters declared that “this time [he] had finally gone beyond the valley of the dolls.”