Believe it or not I actually know where I was — not because it was a major trauma for me, but because it was when I first took note of the name in the first place. Cookie Mueller (Dorothy Karen Muller, 1949-1989) was in Eric Mitchell’s movie Underground USA (1980) with my late friend Tom Wright, and it was he who first told me about the late actress, though I had certainly seen her in John Waters’ movies prior to that without troubling to get her name (surrounded as she was by the flamboyant likes of Divine, Edith Massey, Mink Stole, Marian Vivian Pearce, and David Lochary). Nowadays, you can be certain that I take care to pay special attention.
Like most of the Dreamlanders, Mueller was a Maryland local who drifted into Waters’ orbit and was drafted to be in his casts both because she was a “character” and because he needed somebody — anybody at all — to be in his movies. A working class girl who was fond of cheap hair dye and make-up, she fit his trashy aesthetic, while also having had aspirations to be a writer since childhood. Her lesbianism, drug use (including heroin), and transient lifestyle only enhanced her Bohemian street cred. Waters proceeded to give her great parts in Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972), Female Trouble (1974), Desperate Living (1977), and Polyester (1981).
Mueller went on to become involved with New York’s No Wave scene. Her other films include Final Reward (1978) with Richard Hell; Seduction of Patrick (1979) with Gary Indiana, Taylor Mead, Viva, et al; Mitchell’s aforementioned Underground USA (1980), Amos Poe’s Subway Riders (1981), Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens (1982), Paul Mazursky’s Tempest (1982), and Bette Gordon’s Variety (1983).
Mueller also wrote a column for the East Village Eye, penned art reviews for Details and published the books How to Get Rid of Pimples (1984) and Fan Mail, Frank Letters, and Crank Calls (1988). In 1986 she married Italian artist Vittorio Scarpati, with whom she collaborated on the book Putti’s Pudding (1989). By autumn of that year both Mueller and Scarpati had died of AIDS related causes.
Her fame only continued to spread posthumously. Collections of her writings were published, such as Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black (1990), Garden of Ashes (1990), and Ask Dr. Mueller: The Writings of Cookie Mueller (1997). In 1991 Nan Goldin, with whom Mueller had worked on Bette Gordon’s Variety, toured with her photography exhibit The Cookie Portfolio 1976–1989. The movie Downtown 81, shot over a dozen years earlier was released in 2000, containing footage of Mueller, Jean-Michel Basquiat and John Lurie. In 2014, the book Edgewise: A Picture of Cookie Mueller was released.
She’d have been 76 today, Man, you could make a weird-ass film with a 76 year old Cookie Mueller.