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John Waters refused to marry 19-year-old Winona Ryder to Johnny Depp because he thought she was too young, he reveals in his new memoir Mr Know-It-All: the Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder.

The director had just finished filming 27-year-old Depp in the 1990 movie Cry-Baby and the actor wanted him ordained as a minister to marry Ryder, 19, who was eight years younger than him.

Waters talked them out of it after Depp's lawyers had drafted the paperwork - and claims Ryder's parents gratefully thanked him afterwards.

The colorful anecdote is one of many in the laugh-out-loud memoir by Waters, who is best known for his cult films like Hairspray and Serial Mom.

His lewd and kitsch taste made him famous in 1972 for his film Pink Flamingos, in which the characters compete for the title of filthiest person alive.

Waters, who has been dubbed the 'Pope of Trash' and the 'Prince of Puke', has spent nearly five decades in the movie business and at the age of 73 has now achieved a level of respectability which baffles him.

John Waters has been dubbed the 'Pope of Trash' and the 'Prince of Puke' for his decades-long career as a director of quirky and eccentric films

Waters revealed in his new memoir that he talked then 19-year-old Winona Ryder out of marrying Johnny Depp - who was eight years her senior - after they asked him to officiate their wedding 

The 73-year-old reflects on his controversial career in his new memoir Mr Know-It-All: the Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder

In his memoir Waters recounts the later part of his career with wit and warts-and-all detail. 

His shamelessness came in handy during the making of Polyester, his 1981 comedy which starred 1950s movie star Tab Hunter and Divine, the drag queen and close friend.

In the book he takes aim at The Pope, calling him a ' faux-queer-friendly fraud' and says a 'stink bomb' should be dropped on Uganda for opposing gay people 

New Line Cinema put up half the $300,000 budget and Waters had to find the rest - so he got $30,000 from a camp counselor who used to masturbate him when he was 14 years old.

Waters writes that during filming they hired an empty suburban house and moved in for a month, shooting 24 hours a day and enraging the neighbors with the noise of generators running at night.  

The final straw was on a Sunday morning as all the neighbors were walking to church and the crew were shooting a scene with dead bodies in a car.

A local pastor thought it was real - and asked his congregation to pray for the victims.

Waters writes that filming Hairspray was 'one of the happiest times of my life' until Divine died two weeks after it came out and ruined the film's chances of commercial success.

Waters writes: 'Who wants to go laugh at a comedy when the star died the day before?'

In 2002 the movie was turned into a musical which stormed Broadway and toured the world but not without some issues.

In South Korea they put blackface on the actors and argued it was OK because they 'don't have any black people here'. Waters demanded they use another ethnic minority so they did.

A school in Texas had all white children playing the black parts and Waters objected to thin girls in fat suits playing the character of Tracy Turnblad, who was played by Ricki Lake in the film.

He writes: 'Isn't a fat suit blackface of insult to overweight girls? There's plenty of fat talent in the United States!'

Hairspray was arguably Water's career high and it helped him to land Depp for Cry-Baby in which he played a motorbike riding punk who dates a prim high school girl.

Waters writes that Depp 'hated being the Justin Bieber of his time and figured making a movie with me was a surefire way to haywire that image'.

The rest of the cast included a freshly sober Iggy Pop who was 'serious' about being an actor on set.

Waters is pictured directing Johnny Depp and Amy Locane in the 1990 film Cry-Baby, which was one of his major successes

Waters says he is proud of his Baltimore roots - basing Hairspray in the Maryland city where he has shot almost all of his movies and plans to be buried 

'One group of girls approached the crew and offered to pay for the sewage under Depp's trailer,' Waters recalled on the set of Cry-Baby

A young Brad Pitt came in to read for the part of Milton and was a complete unknown at the time so Waters turned him down because they 'needed a guy with a quirkier look'.

He writes: 'I may be the only director who turned down Brad Pitt in a casting session'.

Waters says he was probably 'the only director to turn down Brad Pitt' for a role because he thought he was too pretty to be in Cry Baby

Seventeen-year-old Amy Locane, who read for the part of Allison, the square who turns 'bad' for Depp's love, kissed him during a rehearsal and fainted on the spot.

Locane would later kill a woman and injure her husband while driving drunk but Waters defends her, writing: 'As awful and terrible as that was, couldn't it have been you or me, dear reader?'

During the shoot 'of course there was drama' writes Waters but Depp was professional even though Waters routinely called him 'Cry-Rimmer', a pun on the film's title.

Waters writes: 'He was constantly battling paparazzi or wild girl groupies who would leave notes at his hotel reading: 'I'd like to suck your d*** through a garden hose'.

'One group of girls approached the crew and offered to pay for the sewage under Depp's trailer'.

The FBI raided the set and tried to get actress Traci Lords to return to LA to testify against the mafia for distributing her underage porn films.

Lake lost her virginity halfway through the shooting and Waters had an affair with a young man he called an 'insanely cute hipster'.

Waters writes: 'Before we wrapped Depp's lawyers did the paperwork to get me ordained as a minister in the Universal Life Church because (he and Ryder) wanted me to perform the marriage ceremony, but I gently talked them out of it because Winona was so young. Her parents thanked me'.

Before the filming of Serial Mom Waters had been warned that Kathleen Turner, the star of the movie, was a 'ball breaker' but he found her to be a 'total pro'.

John Waters is pictured with Divine (Harris Glen Mistead) at the premiere of the cult film Hairspray. Divine died two weeks after the movie came out

The 73-year-old says that the best time of his life was directing Hairspray in 1988 - which went on to become a hit Broadway musical. He's pictured with the star of Hairspray Ricki Lake 

Drag queen Divine is pictured on the poster of one of Waters' first films - 1972 Pink Flamingos which touted itself as 'an exercise in poor taste' 

Waters says that Turner's only vice was that she 'liked a cocktail' and enjoyed the 'ferocious growl of ''Ahhhhhhhh'' she let out after her first martini of the evening.'

Serial Mom would prove to be Waters' last movie that turned a profit and started the beginning of his return to the fringes of film making.

But did it stop him? Of course not.

He writes: 'Mid career is the time to realize that failing upward is the only way to go'.

Water's film Pecker led to him taking the Motion Picture Association of America to arbitration because they claimed the title referred to a penis.

Waters successfully argued it referred to the main character and the film and got it released.

The movie, which starred Christina Ricci and was about an aspiring photographer, was mocked by the critics like The Japan Times which called it a 'Disney Film for perverts'.

Some saw the funny side and it was rejected by the Cannes Film Festival which said it was 'not offensive enough like your other usual stuff'.

The most uncomfortable part of filming was when Waters wanted a scene showing two rats having sex so he called in an animal trainer to help.

As they waited for the rats to feel the urge Waters decided to talk 'rat dirty' to get into the part and said: 'Oh f*** me, rat hog! Eat that cheese b****!

'F*** my dirty rat hole'

Nobody laughed on set which Waters thought was odd until he left his director's chair and was 'mortified' to realize that the trainer had brought a child with him to see how movies were made - and had heard everything.

Johnny Knoxville and Selma Blare starred in Waters' 2004 film A Dirty Shame which bombed at the box office, making only $2million off a $10million budget 

Waters finds it a hoot that the few pieces of music he wrote for his films earn him royalty checks from random places like New Zealand which paid him $2.83 for the songs from Cecil B. Demented.

The film bombed spectacularly and made $2million off a budget of $10million, sending Waters 'back into the gutter' as he puts it to make A Dirty Shame in 2004.

The comedy about people with head injuries who become sex addicts was, as Waters puts it with some understatement, a 'risk' from the beginning.

Tracey Ullman agreed to star in the film along with Johnny Knoxville of Jackass fame - Waters once asked him: 'You did the same thing as we did only you made millions and I made hundreds'.

Selma Blair signed up even though her part involved wearing an enormous fake pair of breasts and David Hasselhoff played himself using the bathroom in an airplane toilet.

Waters writes that Hasselhoff's scene was vital as his turd crashes to Earth and hits one of the main characters in the head and turns him into a sex addict.

Hasselhoff was such a professional he 'didn't balk when I asked him on the last take to 'strain...now grunt' as he sat on the prop toilet of our interior airplane set'

Waters writes: 'What a pro!'

The film was given an NC-17 rating which doomed its chances of commercial success.

Waters writes in hilarious detail how he tried to appease the censors by reducing the amount of 'thrusting' by two animated squirrels having sex.

He tried to cut down the shots of Ullman's face when Knoxville gave her oral sex and tried to make it look like she was being tickled.

Graffiti which read 'BONER' was changed to 'BONE' and a cab driver's script was changed to 'knapsack instead of nutsack'.

But it made no difference and they still got the same rating.

The film bombed and critics like A.O. Scott in the New York Times refused to call it offensive because that would be 'another way of congratulating Mr Waters'.

The most memorable review came from Waters' own family and during the premiere many people in the audience kept turning around to see the reaction of his 80-year-old father.

Afterwards his dad said: 'Well, it was pretty funny, but I hope I never have to see it again'.

Waters writes: 'Now that's a blurb for you!'

Such an attitude is typical of Waters who says that only by 'sliding back down to the bottom of Hollywood is how I really cashed in financially'.

His films are now easily available for steaming meaning that Waters is rich like never before.

Reflecting on his life, Waters writes that among his few regrets is that he did not recognize Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas when sitting next to him on a plane until they landed.

Waters calls him a 'lying b******' and writes: 'I believe Anita Hill', referring to Thomas' bitter confirmation hearings in 1991.

Waters takes aim at The Pope and calls him a 'co-opting, faux-queer-friendly fraud'.

He says that military should 'drop a massive stink bomb on Uganda' for its opposition to gay people.

Waters writes about being 'accepted' in Hollywood, calling it the 'worst thing that can happen to a creative person'

Aside from Hairspray, Waters is best known for his 1994 film Serial Mom. He's pictured with the cast: Matthew Lillard, Ricki Lake and Sam Waterston

Ever mindful of his budget, Waters says that he takes cheap coaches whenever he travels from New York to Washington, recounting how the driver once stopped mid journey and walked to the back to use the toilet.

Waters, who is gay, does not mind the closure of many gay bars because young people want to hang out with people of all sexual persuasions.

But he does want a 'few of those sex pits from the past' to be remembered, noting that 'some were so appalling I get misty eyed just thinking about them'.

His favorite such establishment was called Hellfire on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan which he describes in vivid detail: 'You could be talking to a museum curator and a d*** would pop through a glory hole next to you and knock your drink out of your hand'.

At the age of 70, Waters celebrated his 50-year friendship with the actress Mink Stole by inviting her to his home for a night of taking LSD.

He is proud of his Baltimore roots - he has shot almost all of his films there - and plans to be buried next to his friends on one of the city's cemeteries.

In the memoir Waters writes that in his eighth decade alive he had 'somehow became respectable' and the Museum of Modern Art in New York has copies of his earliest 8mm movies on its collection.

He is invited to talk at college graduations and he says that he has become 'accepted' which is the 'worst thing that can happen to a creative person'.

With a typical flourish Waters writes: 'I'm 73 years old and my dreams have come true. Couldn't you just puke?'