Cookie's Lover & Nan's Muse: Remembering The Life Of Sharon Niesp
On September 21st, 2023, news broke regarding the passing of Sharon Niesp, an actor, artist and singer who was one of director John Waters’ Dreamlanders (a.k.a regulars in his films) as well as the lover and girlfriend of Cookie Mueller, a fellow Dreamlander, author and actress in her own right.
A brief bio of Sharon Niesp’s life is documented in Edgewise: A Picture of Cookie Mueller, an oral history compilation on the life of Cookie by Chloé Griffin. It states that Sharon grew up in Buffalo, New York and first met Cookie in Provincetown in the early 1970s. Sharon described her early interactions with Cookie in Edgewise thus: “In Provincetown I was doing the Spiritus thing. Spiritus Pizza: it’s a big hangout where all the showgirls go after the show. Cookie would ride by with Max (Cookie’s son) on this old bicycle. She had an old tin pail as a basket and she’d ride with Max on the back in a baby seat. He had long hair then with old Popsicle sticks and gum and leaves and twigs hanging out of his hair because he used to like to roll around and play in the dirt. He hated to have his hair washed; it was like bloody murder. I thought those two needed help. Cookie always had heels on; she always had Spring-o-lators held together with safety pins. And her hair was always wavy. I said, ‘Oh my God, I love these people.’”
The pair began spending time together and by Autumn 1973, the two became girlfriends when Cookie asked Sharon, “Why don’t you just move your furniture into my house? Might as well; you’re there every day anyway.” According to Dennis Dermody, a friend of Sharon’s and Paper Magazine’s longtime film critic: “When Sharon fell in love with Cookie we were like, ‘Oh, no!’ God, we were a little worried about where this was going to go.” Sharon did in fact move in with Cookie as per her instructions and the couple lived together along with Max at 11 Brewster Street in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 1976, Sharon and Cookie then moved together to 285 Bleecker Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.
Over the years, Sharon acted in several of cult director John Waters' films, thus becoming one of his many Dreamlanders, which is what he called his cast and crew of regulars used in his movies. The term ‘Dreamlander’ came from the name of Waters' production company, Dreamland Productions, and other notable Dreamlanders included the likes of Divine, Edith Massey, Mink Stole, and of course, Cookie. Sharon’s debut as a Dreamlander was playing the role of Shotsie in Waters’ film, Desperate Living in 1977. She would later play several other roles in his movies , including playing a bouncer in Polyester (1981) and a nun in Pecker (1998), among others. In an interview with James Egan, Waters recalled that Sharon was a big part of his later Provincetown years.
Ben Syfu remembers being in a musical group with Sharon called the B.B Steele Review. The group would perform in variety shows at different venues including at the legendary Max’s Kansas City in Manhattan. Syfu recalls: “Sharon, Cookie, and myself were pretty much the vocal and musical part of the group. Susan [Lowe] was…I guess the personality of the group, you might say. And Edith [Massey] was basically the star, they all were there to see her.” Lowe added: “Edith would wear pigtails and it brought screams from the audience. I’d be singing Nina Simone, so I’d have my chanteuse outfit on. Sharon did Tina Turner. We loved changing our outfits. We rocked the show. We always packed the house. They loved us, because they thought we were all drag queens.”
Cookie and Sharon remained in a relationship until 1981 and Sharon, whose nickname was “Shaggy”, appears in numerous stories written by Cookie, primarily centering around their comical adventures together traveling around Europe and Jamaica. One of Cookie’s stories in particular, called The Stone Age, is about their “lesbian honeymoon” in Sicily. At another point, Mueller described “Shaggy” as being dressed like a "cross between a blond Japanese Sumo wrestler and a gypsy fortune teller." In Edgewise, Sharon recalls a memorable and touching visit to the Boston aquarium with Cookie and Max, where they saw a group of people clustered around the octopus tank, mocking it for being ugly: “We all got up to the window and Cookie was going, ‘Isn’t it beautiful, Max?’ and Max was saying, ‘This is really pretty, you’re really beautiful.’ And then, I swear to God on the ashes, the octopus straightened out like this and pressed itself against the window and showed itself off, and not only that, but its little baby that it was hiding opened right up, too. They both put their tentacles on the window and were showing themselves off. And Max was touching the window and he and Cookie started crying. She was really cool like that.”
After their separation, in 1983 Sharon moved to New Orleans for a brief period of time, though she remained close friends with Cookie and continued to be a second mother to Max. After the stint in New Orleans, Sharon returned to her two home bases, splitting her time between Provincetown and New York City. In Provincetown, she worked for many years as a cook at Spiritus Pizza and cemented herself as a P-town icon. She continued to be an on-again, off-again artist, acting in Gary Indiana’s theater pieces such as The Roman Polanski Story and Phantoms of Louisiana, as well as in various other film roles and stage performances. She also continued to sing, and would stun anyone who listened with her “soulful and profound spirituals.”
Additionally, Sharon was a muse to numerous artists and photographers, most notably Nan Goldin and David Armstrong, both of whom took many striking portraits and candid shots of Sharon over the years. And though they were no longer together, Sharon never stopped loving or caring for Cookie, who would ultimately die from AIDS-related pneumonia on November 10, 1989 at the age of 40. Sharon would survive Cookie by almost 35 years, but in her own final chapter, suffered from pulmonary fibrosis, and she quietly passed away on September 21st, 2023.
Upon her passing, numerous NYC artists, legends and downtown folks remembered Sharon's legacy as a caretaker and kind soul:
Performance artist Penny Arcade (@penny_arcade_forever) wrote a beautiful eulogy on her FB page: “She was a deep well that girl. A beauty without compare—really a remarkable face, even in old age…I only heard her sing once, it seemed like she was going to do it regularly, people wanted her to, but she was ultra non careerist. So unusual. Her true art form was her life.”
Actress and TV personality Debi Mazar (@debimazar) recalled working with Sharono once upon a time: "Sharon and I worked together at Mickey Ruskin’s restaurant, 1-U (1 University Place). She was very maternal to me. I used to go over to her girlfriend’s (Cookie Mueller) apartment on Bleecker Street to hang out. Sharon was an amazing person."
Writer and performer Nora Burns (@noraburnsnyc) reminisced: "Sharon was fun, funny, sweet, sassy and uniquely chic. We met in P-town and became fast friends, she would take me to secret ponds and beautiful marshes in Truro and her house was always open to me when I wanted to come up, a most welcoming hostess."
According to @greer_lankton_archives_museum: Sharon was "one of the loveliest humans to ever walk the earth. The caretaker of Cookie and Max and countless others...A true hero who will be dearly missed."
I’ll leave off here with some more photos of Sharon and with Penny Arcade's final words in her beautiful eulogy: “When I look at her photos her eyes always pierce right through me. She's reunited with Cookie and so many friends now. RIP.”
***Many thanks to Alice O’Malley, Arielle De Saint Phalle, and Chloé Griffin’s Edgewise for the info and guidance!***
References & Further Reading:
Fitzgerald, G. (2014, November 5). An artist in Berlin. An Artist in Berlin. https://georgefitzgerald.blogspot.com/2014/11/an-artist-in-berlin-part-i.html
Gould, E. (2014, October 8). Cookie Mueller. Interview Magazine. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/cookie-mueller
Griffin, C. (2022). Edgewise: A Picture of Cookie Mueller. b_books.
Kessler, M. (2018, February 9). The underground it-girl shot by Nan Goldin and John Waters. Dazed. https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/38966/1/get-to-know-cookie-mueller-writer-dreamlander-and-underground-it-girl
McNeil, L., & McCain, G. (2016, November 20). Partying with John Waters in 1970s Provincetown. VICE. https://www.vice.com/en/article/of-bourbon-and-black-beauties-nan-goldin-and-cookie-mueller-in-provincetown/
Molotkow, A. (2014, December 8). The unique genius of Cookie Mueller. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/the-unique-genius-of-cookie-mueller/article21992884/
Mueller, C. (1990). Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black. Semiotext(e).
Poitras, L. (Director). All the Beauty and the Bloodshed [film]. (2022). Neon; United States.
Sharon NIESP obituary - wicked local. wickedlocal.com. (n.d.). https://www.wickedlocal.com/obituaries/pneo0592158
Waters, J. (2019). Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder. Macmillan Audio.
Zinaman, M. (n.d.-a). Alice O’Malley. personal.
Zinaman, M. (n.d.-b). Arielle De Saint Phalle. personal.
"Her true art form was her life.” What a wonderful quote. Thank you for sharing this herstory of these beautiful amazing women.