Earlier today I caught Paul Morrissey's 1971 film
Women In Revolt and was instantly smitten by Candy Darling. That she was a transgender person hardly matters, she's an enchanting, lovely beauty all the same. Candy is perhaps best known as the Candy in
Walk on the Wild Side, immortalized in the song's most famous verse:
Candy came from out on the island,
In the backroom she was everybody's darling,
But she never lost her head
Even when she was giving head
She was also Lou Reed's muse on an earlier song,
Candy Says, from the third VU album, a far more delicate song about Candy's dilemma of being a man living as a woman, and all the doubt, guilt and confusion that brings. Reed's line "
What do you think I'd see, If I could walk away from me" is especially touching. Elsewhere Candy is one of the cover stars of The Smiths' discography, her image (a stylized still from
Women In Revolt) was used for the 1987 single
Sheila Take A Bow. Candy also appeared in films beyond the Factory, she's shares a tiny moment with Jane Fonda in
Klute, and perhaps stranger still, she appears in
Silent Night, Bloody Night (which also includes two other Warhol alumni Mary Woronov and Ondine). The film would be Candy's final screen appearance, after contracting leukemia she passed away in March 1974 aged 29.
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