Beloved inspiration to the Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol, Morrissey, and countless trans people the world over, Candy Darling surely had one of the most poignant stories of the tumultuous and influential 1965-1975 “Warhol New York” period.

Born James Lawrence Slattery in Queens in 1944—the year of her birth is actually disputed—Candy met Warhol in 1967 while appearing in Jackie Curtis’ play Glamour, Glory and Gold, which also starred a young actor named Robert De Niro playing six parts (!). A year later Candy appeared in Warhol’s Flesh, after which her career took off.

Over the next few years, she would travel all over the world as one of the most alluring new stars of the alternative entertainment circuit. Tennessee Williams himself urged Candy to appear in his play Small Craft Warnings—Williams himself would opt to act in the ill-fated production midway through rehearsals—and she appeared in Alan Pakula’s Klute as well as a Sophia Loren movie called Lady Liberty. She would, of course, also work with Warhol again, in the Paul Morrissey-directed 1971 satire Women in Revolt. 
 

Candy Darling in Tom Eyen’s The White Whore and the Bit Player, 1973
 
Almost exactly a year before her tragic death of lymphoma in March 1974 at the tender age of 29, Candy acted in a low-budget revival of a 1964 play called The White Whore and the Bit Player by Tom Eyen, a prolific writer who for many years worked out of La MaMa in the East Village. In 1970 he scored a hit with the attention-getting title The Dirtiest Play in Town.

Premiering just two years after Marilyn Monroe’s probable death by suicide in the summer of 1962, The White Whore and the Bit Player was a work that endeavored to represent the subjective state of a blonde movie goddess just moments before her own death by barbiturate overdose—the parallels to the recently departed Marilyn would have been hard to miss in 1973, much less 1964.

The decision to cast Candy Darling in the role—nobody could have known that she would be dead just 13 months later—understandably acts as a spur to contemplate some parallels between Candy and Marilyn. At a minimum, both Candy and Marilyn were creatures of inordinate fabulousness who were taken from us much too early and whose lives contained no small amount of showbiz glamour as well as emotional tumult. As the title suggests, The White Whore and the Bit Player explored the virgin/whore dichotomy—in the play, the main character is sent to a sanitarium run by Franciscan nuns and develops split personalities, namely her own self as a nun and as a whore.
 

 
The 1973 production of The White Whore and the Bit Player ran for two weeks in February 1973 at the Theatre at St. Clements on West 46th Street. The production was directed by Manuel Martin. According to Thomas S. Hischack’s American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1969-2000, Eyen’s play had often been performed in Spanish, and in the St. Clements production of 1973, the eighteen showings alternated between Spanish and English.

The show was not a great success, alas. In his review of the show, Village Voice theater critic Michael Feingold averred that Candy Darling’s performance was somewhat better than the production:
 

Miss Candy is fascinating to watch, one of the very few convincing women of her type on the stage these days. But at the moment ... she is fulfilling the director’s play rather than the author’s. Her presence is magnetic, but her performance lacks the nuance and drive I’ve seen her bring to other productions.

 
Here’s Feingold’s full review, which appeared in the February 8, 1973, edition of the Village Voice (click for a larger view):
 

 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Cockettes crash and burn in New York City, 1971