The life of Candy Darling, Warhol's muse

Lifestyle

by caroline howe

Fifty years after her death at age 29, Candy Darling (real name Jimmy Slattery, Massapequa, Long Island), Andy Warhol's underground film star, has long been a transgender icon. He finally achieved the coveted stardom.

In her 418-page biography, Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar, Cynthia Carr writes: [Farrar, Straus and Giroux], Candy was a “beauty queen, and never belonged to that, and never will…” Anyone who is gender nonconforming (a term that was never used in Candy's time) is called a “queer.” They were lumped together under a label. And that was a slander. ”

Candy died of lymphoma in 1974, with broken bones and bad teeth. It is believed that the cancer-causing female hormones she injected into her body were the cause. Her often tragic life is brought to life for the first time by Carr.

In Massapequa, Candy grew up in a dysfunctional family, a mother who was ashamed of herself, and a father who was angry. To escape his lonely and repressed life, he modeled himself on glamor queens like Lana Turner and Kim Novak.

“Candy has just learned that she is a woman, and has always been a woman,” the author writes.

She fled to the city, where she changed her name and appeared in Off-Off-Broadway productions, where she was cast because of her feminine looks, which were a combination of Brigitte Bardot and Audrey Hepburn, Kerr writes.

When she wasn't working, Candy collapsed on dirty couches in friends' apartments or cheap hotels, often penniless and hungry. To earn her money, she did tricks. Carr reveals that Candy carries a Tampax in her purse and tells Johns that she can only perform verbally because she is on her period. She has never had sex reassignment surgery.

A star of sorts was born when pop artist and entrepreneur Andy Warhol discovered her, and soon Candy Darling was appearing in Warhol's curious underground films Flesh and Rebel Women. I started getting the best pay.

Soon, Darling became the center of attention for the downtown elite of the day, including Sylvia Miles, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda. According to the author, when Fonda and her film director husband Roger Vadim broke up, Darling had a “bruising brief affair” with him.

“I've lived most of my life starving for love,” were one of the sad last words in Candy Darling's diary.

All she wanted, Kerr writes, was someone who loved her and a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence.

—caroline howe