Wednesday, September 09, 2015

CANDIDA the song, the disease, the porn star CANDIDA ROYALLE

A few days ago, Candida Royalle (October 15, 1950 – September 7, 2015) passed on. She was a bright, intelligent lady. She was also one of the more attractive pioneers of full-length porn. As 8mm loops became more easy to find in the early 70's, so were hippie chicks willing to do what only fairly homely prostitutes had done: actually fuck on film.

8mm porn was sold by mail at about $20 a ten-minute reel, or watched in "peep show" booths at a quarter per minute. When the swinging 60's had made sure ordinary porn flicks were not likely to cause arrests, companies began to flourish and they hired attractive talent. There was Swedish Erotica, Lasse Braun, The Collection, Diamond Collection, and the appropriately named Prettygirl series, which had a star in men's mag model Linda McDowell (who also worked as Linda Powell). She was followed by the black-haired beauty Tina Russell, and eventually porn left the dirty bookstores and turned up in movie theaters. At first, the "talent" was still fairly homely (Spelvin) or mildly attractive (Lovelace), but soon there was Annette Haven and, yes, an exotic New Yorker named Candice Vadala.

In a remarkable display of sophistication and restraint, Candice didn't call herself "Candy." Yes, 8mm stripper Candy Barr was long gone, and Candy Samples was a big-boobed broad with the face of a diner waitress, but why go for a cliche? She became CANDIDA.

Vadala became ROYALLE, which probably was a relief to her father, Louis Vadala, who was a jazz drummer. Louis played in a variety of house bands, including ones that toiled at the Tavern on the Green restaurant in the middle of Central Park, and at the classy Waldorf Astoria, in the East 50's. I can't find actual credits for him on recordings (mostly because I didn't look), but he may have been in on sessions for Raymond Scott, Lester Lanin and Louie Prima, among others. Band members or session men were seldom given liner notes credits on pop albums of the day.

The musical tribute to her, is therefore, sad to say, not anything by her Dad, but instead, the pretty obvious choice of "CANDIDA." The song was the first hit for Tony Orlando, who had quit his not-too-successul singing career to work in the publishing division of Columbia. When producers couldn't quite find a voice that suited a song knocked out by Irwin Levine and Toni Wine, they persuaded Tony to cut a Latin-tinged demo. The rest, as they say, is misery. MOR star Andy Williams was one of many to also cut "Candida" after it became a sizzling hit, and it's his mild-mannered version you'll find below. It's not better than Tony's, but this blog can NOT get so cheesy as to have Orlando on it. Besides, Williams is dead and it's nice to remind people that he was once alive.

No longer alive is Candida Royalle, who made several dozen porn films. As she aged, she took an interesting direction. She became a porn producer herself, and in 1984 created a line of "Femme Fatale" movies aimed at couples. She figured, rightly, that most porn out was intended solely to arouse men (and slightly masochistic women working out their slut fantasies). Her notion was to ad some romance and subtlety. If she succeeded, I have no idea, since I never saw any of them. Candida also had a line of "contour" sex toys, and was literate enough to be invited to speak on porn and sexuality to audiences at the New School for Social Research, the Conference o the American Psychiatric Association, and even the New York Rotary Club.

In producing porn, Candida hoped to treat her actresses with respect and dignity. She made sure they came to the set healthy, and left in the same condition. In other words, she didn't want them suffering from Candida Albicans, a yeast infection. Candida is in the body naturally, but it can mutate into a fungus. It can cause gas and diarrhea, it can contribute to eczema, and if we want to use the medical term, it can also cause "cunt trouble." Most people seem to think that Candida is strictly a "female" problem but that's only one type of infection.

No, Tony Orlando wasn't singing about a stinking twat back in 1970. And the porn actress wasn't winking about having a royal pain in the cunt, when she began cranking out porn as "Candida" in 1976. After turning up in a variety of cheap flicks under a variety of names (Cyntnia Pleschette, Kathy Silverman, Candice Chambers, Bettina Mia) she became Candida Royal in 1979. The poster above, which was one of the few items from the "old days" on Candida's website, also misspells Susan Nero's name. The first correctly spelled film appearance as Candida Royalle was in "Pro-Ball Cheerleaders," where she was noticeably the slim and seductive brunette opposite the more full-figured redhead Lisa DeLeeuw. Through the late 70's and early 80's, Candida was certainly one of the favorite dark-haired vixens of porn, and then she moved on to her "Femme Fatale" years, her lectures and other enterprises, and she was even working on a "straight" documentary about her life at the time of her fatal illness.

Below, the cover version of "Candida" by Andy Williams. ANDY WILLIAMS CANDIDA

No comments: