Candy

I was born in New York to Theresa Phelan, a bookkeeper at Manhattan's Jockey Club and Jim Slattery.I spent my early years in Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York where myself and my mother had moved after my parents divorced. My step-brother Warren left home for the service, leaving myself as the only child.I spent much of my childhood absorbing the influences of US television and old Hollywood movies, from which I learned to impersonate my favorite actresses - my favorite being Kim Novak. I learned about the mysteries of sex from a salesman in a local children's shoe store and finally revealed my inclination towards transvestism when my mother confronted me about local rumours which described me dressed as a girl frequenting a local gay bar called The Hayloft. In response I left the room and reappeared in full drag. My mother later said that "I knew then... that I couldn't stop Jimmy. Candy was just too beautiful and talented."Late at night I would often take the Long Island Railroad to Manhattan to avoid the attention of neighbors. Once there, I referred to my home in Long Island as my country house and hung out in Greenwich Village, meeting people through the circle of Seymour Levy on Bleecker Street.It wasn't long before Warhol invited me to appear in one of his movies. I was given a short comedic scene in Flesh (1968) with Jackie Curtis and Joe Dallesandro. After Flesh, I was cast in a central role in Women In Revolt (1971). I played a Long Island socialite drawn into a woman's liberation group called PIGS (Politically Involved Girls) by a character played by Jackie Curtis. Interrupted by cast disputes encouraged by Warhol, Women in Revolt took longer to film that its predecessor and went through several title changes before a consensus was reached. I wanted it called Blonde on a Bum Trip since I was the blonde, while Jackie and Holly told me it was more like Bum on a Blonde Trip - titles which were both used in the film during my interview scene.Women in Revolt was first shown at the first Los Angeles Filmex as Sex. Later it was shown as Andy Warhol's Women, an homage to George Cukor. Unable to get a distributor for the film, Warhol rented out the Cine Malibu on East 59th Street, New York and launched the film with a celebrity preview on February 16, 1972. After the screening there was a dinner in my honor at the restaurant, Le Parc Perigord on Park Avenue at 63rd Street, followed by a party at Scavullo's townhouse round the corner, where we watched TV reviews of the movie. We watched it being called "a rip-off", that it "looked as if it were filmed underwater," and "proves once again that Andy Warhol has no talent. But we knew that since the Campbell's Soup cans."Among the guests at my party were D.D. Ryan, Sylvia Miles, George Plimpton, Halston, Giorgio di Sant 'Angelo and Diane and Egon von Furstenberg. Jackie Curtis stood out in the cold, along with other gate crashers. When a security guard asked "My God, what are they giving away in there?" one of the guests responded, "Would you believe, a transvestite?"The day after the celebrity preview a group of women wearing army jackets, pea coats, jeans and boots and carrying protest signs demonstrated outside the cinema against the film which they thought was anti-woman's liberation. When I heard about this, I said, "Who do these dykes think they are anyway?... Well, I just hope they all read Vincent Canby's review in today's Times. He said I look like a cross between Kim Novak and Pat Nixon. It's true - I do have Pat Nixon's nose."I went on to appear in other independent films, including Brand X, Silent Night, Bloody Night, as well as a co-starring role as a victim of gay bashing in Some of My Best Friends Are...I also appeared in Klute (as an extra in the disco scene) with Jane Fonda and Lady Liberty with Sophia Loren. In 1971 I went to Vienna to make two films with director Werner Schroeder - The Death of Maria Malibran, and another one that was never released.My theatre credits include two Jackie Curtis plays - Glamour, Glory and Gold (1967) and Vain Victory: The Vicissitudes of the Damned (1971) and Tennessee Williams' play, Small Craft Warnings, at the invitation of Williams himself.My attempt at cracking the mainstream movie circuit by campaigning for the leading role in Myra Breckinridge led to rejection. MyGen Profile Generator