“In 1965, when I went to The University of Baltimore, almost 50 years ago, it was a very different place than it is today—they’d take anybody! And I’m living proof because I was thrown out of my high school—they wouldn’t let me graduate from Calvert Hall because of my long hair and truancy. I went to summer school at Boys Latin, somehow passed, and then went to the University of Baltimore with a big chip on my shoulder. But one teacher changed that—a woman named Miss Norris, who helped start a literary magazine here that year, called Welter. She encouraged me to write something for it. And I did an inside job about my grandfather and how he was waiting for death. It got published—my first anywhere! And while my parents were horrified about the subject matter, they were proud I was in print. And here I am. 58 years, eight books and 17 movies later.
“The next year, I got into NYU (probably because I was published at the University of Baltimore). Now it’s true, I got thrown out of NYU in the first semester in the first university pot bust, but pot’s legal now, isn’t it? Things change. I won.
“The University of Baltimore helped me even more, in 1972, 1974 and 1977, when they allowed me to hold the world premieres of three of my most notorious, trashy pics—Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living—at the Langsdale Auditorium. (Not here anymore, but it was.) Yep, no questions asked; flat rental fee. No censor board could hassle me, and every show I did, I sold out, and I could keep all the money. They never balked at the subject matter. They never objected to the insane crowds that showed up. Nope, each premiere, they saved me and hid me with a cloak of education. And God knows I thank them.
“And now for this honorary degree. Not my first—I got one from Coppin, so I could teach in prison; one from RISD; two from the School of Visual Arts; and one from MICA. But this is the only school after grade school I ever went to that actually claims me. And I am proud of that. Maybe it was true then that anybody could get in, but I got out. And I salute University of Baltimore for helping me do just that.
“A doctor of humane letters. I always said I’d be a good defense lawyer or a good psychiatrist. Is this the first step in a new career? All you need is one good teacher and one an honorable profession that can be, and I believe I got one here. And so did you. Congratulations. And thank you very, very much.”