Biography

Dorothy Karen "Cookie" Mueller was born 2 March, 1949 in Baltimore, Maryland. The daughter of Frank Lennert Mueller and Anne Mueller, Cookie had two siblings: brother Michael and sister Judy. Mueller grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore and acquired the nickname 'Cookie' when she was a baby. Cookie embarked on road trips with her family throughout her childhood and first began writing at age eleven. The tragic death of her brother Michael at age fourteen further encouraged Mueller to continue writing. Cookie hung out with the hippie crowd in high school and was constantly dying her hair different colors during her adolescent years. After amassing some money by working a small job at a Baltimore men's department store, Mueller headed off to Haight-Asbury in San Francisco, California so she could continue living a free-spirited hippie lifestyle. During this time Cookie traveled across the country living with groups of vagrants and briefly settled in such places Provincetown, Massachusetts; Pennsylvania, British Columbia, Italy, Jamaica, and San Francisco, California.

Mueller first met John Waters at the premiere of his film Mondo Trasho (1969). Cookie went on to become a key member of Waters' Dreamlanders ensemble and acted in 5 movies altogether for Waters. Mueller eventually moved to New York City where she established herself as a writer, journalist, and columnist: She wrote the health column "Ask Dr. Mueller" for the East Village Eye, was an art critic for Details magazine, and wrote the novella "Fan Mail, Frank Letters, and Crank Calls," the memoir "Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black," and several collections of short prose. Cookie died at age 40 from AIDS-related causes on November 10, 1989 in New York City. Her body was cremated and her ashes have been interred in multiple locations all over the world.