About Candy Darling

Look closely at the picture above and get some make up tips from Candy. And watch the trailer to the upcoming documentary about Ms Darling, including a short interview clip with John Waters.

She was baptized James Lawrence Slattery in 1944 but reinvented herself as Candy Darling in the late 1960s after leaving suburban Long Island for the streets of the West Village, a place in the back room at Max”™s Kansas City and a role as muse.

She hung out with artists like Andy Warhol and crossed paths with musicians like David Bowie. The filmmaker Paul Morrissey put her in two of his movies. Lou Reed wrote the Velvet Underground song “œCandy Says” with her in mind and included a verse about her in his “œWalk on the Wild Side.”

It was as a teenager in the summer of 1966 that Mr. Newton first met Candy Darling, a self-styled transgender glamour girl. (…) The two soon became friends and roommates, living together in Manhattan and Brooklyn until 1974, when she died of Hodgkin”™s lymphoma at 29.

(…) In 1997 his remembrance of his friend, “œMy Face for the World to See,” was published. And more recently he began working with others on a documentary, “œBeautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar,” which he said was scheduled to be shown in theaters and broadcast on the Sundance Channel near the end of this year.

More at NY Times via Lady Bunny

Earlier: Candy Darling Quotes

Candy Darling

Below are a few quotes from the book Candy Darling by Candy Darling, published 1992 through Hanuman. During the course of a day Candy committed her thoughts to a soft-covered notebook writing about things such as recipes, drafts of letters, makeup tips, addresses, etc. Then, there are pages of speculation; words meant to be used as a rebuke or compliment, dialogue to be stored away for future use – perhaps for a play she was writing, jokes:

All I could concentrate on for the rest of the morning was the grunting and groaning and the sounds ofthe bed creaking. Gil left around 9 a.m. I was still too stunned to sleep, being persecuted to capacity. As Mr. Right was going out of the door he saw that I was not asleep and said goodbye. His face seemed to be saying to me it’s really you I love mentally it was all you. But then I am not mentally well.

I know it hasn’t all been beer & pretzels for you either.

I see the day coming when the words femme and butch will be more commonly used. I mean to be used for heterosexuals not just for gay or bisexuals. Think of the intersting types.
Female-Heterosexual-type- Basic butch with femme overtones. the drag type
Raq. W. / J. Craw. / Jane Russell
Basic femme – Butch overtones Greta Garbo
Basic femme – femme overtones M.M. L.T.

When a woman wears the same dress twice
Then she doesn’t feel chic.
And when she doesn’t feel chic
She feels insecure
Then she can’t sleep at
night then she suffers from
nervous exhaustion then
that could lead to a
nervous breakdown.

The only law she never broke is the law of gravity.

The only security is health and the ability to adjust in life.

Dear Kathy
First of all please forgive me for not answering sooner. I’ve been so involved with my own identity, which has been so vague, and social commitments, basic living procedures and affairs of the heart that for a while I ceased to exist. Except for other people. (…)