Close, Waters search for their roots
The things you learn on TV! Apparently, when director John Waters began making “Pink Flamingos” and other crazy, shocking movies, he had no idea he was descended from a hero of Valley Forge!
This is just one of the historical tidbits to emerge from tonight’s installment of “Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr.” (8 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings). In addition to Waters, director of such films as “Mondo Trasho,” “Polyester,” “Female Trouble” and “Hairspray,” Gates takes actress Glenn Close on a genealogical trip through history dating back centuries.
Close has made no secret that she was raised by religious cultists who submitted to something called “Moral Re-Armament” that took them all over the world doing missionary work. She was later part of the super-cheerful choral society “Up With People.” Always intent on becoming an actress, she bolted from the family fold in her early 20s, when she emerged on both stage and screen.
To her surprise, she discovers that some of her ancestors were also steeped in deeply religious societies. One was a prominent Puritan in 17th-century Massachusetts, and another a Quaker who was expelled from the Society of Friends for taking a wife outside of the faith.
As much as John Waters identified with freaks and outsiders, his family had been well-off for generations. One of his ancestors was part of the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s, and another an ironmaster who made a fortune. Waters, being Waters, can’t help making a ribald joke about the term.
“Roots” makes a good point of showing how ancestors might be genetic influences on each individual. But the series seems more interested in demonstrating how each individual has the potential to be linked to many chapters of our national story. Both Waters and Close are descended from rags-toriches strivers. And both have ancestors who owned slaves.
“Roots” is also a celebration of record-keeping. Sadly, slaves are not given names at all and were listed as property, with only age
and gender noted. Unless African Americans know who owned their ancestors, the search for their roots can become impossible.
Both Close and Waters seem sobered by dark chapters in their pasts. But Waters does not seem surprised that his story, like any story, includes “good guys and bad guys.” Waters concludes on a wistful note, saying that he wished he could share these revelations with his since-departed parents, who would
have loved the melodrama and might share insights, being one step closer to the unfolding story.
› Sundance Now begins streaming “The Night Caller,” a four-part documentary series following an Australian serial killer who terrorized Perth in the 1960s. After tonight’s premiere, new episodes will stream each following Tuesday.