MOVIES - March 4, 1988

When “Hairspray” director John Waters joined the Screen Actors Guild after a cameo role in his film, it didn’t occur to him that he might have a problem with the name his parents gave him. It did occur to SAG’s name duplication committee, however, which sees to it that a new guild members doesn’t use an existing member’s name. The committee told Waters that he’d have to add a middle initial, because another John Waters was listed in the guild’s files. “I have been firmly established on a national basis as John Waters,” he wrote in an unsuccessful appeal to SAG’s executive board. Waters, says Daily Variety, now is taking his case to SAG president Patty Duke. And what of the other John Waters? He hasn’t received film credit since appearing in “The Scalp Merchant,” “Cass” and “Demolition” in 1977. No theatrical representation was listed for the actor in SAG files, and he wasn’t in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Players Directory.