Tag Archives: Peter Beard

Transgender titillation: Warhol’s he/she chronicled in “Candy Darling”

Poor Candy. She got more than 15 minutes of fame, but died at age 29 . . . four years before he became as she. Her fame was fleeting. Chronicling the short but influential life of transgender pioneer Candy Darling, a major part of Andy Warhol’s entourage, Beautiful Darling delivers audiences to a bygone era, recapturing the excitement of a long lost New York City to recount the story of Darling, a star in the constellation of Warhol’s Factory.
Candy Darling on her death bed
By the mid-’60s Jimmy Slattery, born in the Long Island suburb of Massapequa in ’44, had become Candy, a gorgeous blond actress and throwback to Hollywood’s golden age. This persona won her starring roles in two Warhol movies, parts in mainstream films and a lead role in Tennessee Williams’ play. Her ethereal beauty attracted such taste-making photographers as Robert Mapplethorpe, Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon and Peter Beard. She was the inspiration behind two of Lou Reed’s best known songs, Candy Says and Walk on the Wild Side, and was one of the most unusual and charismatic fixtures in the explosive downtown, underground scene of late ’60s/early ’70s New York.

Candy’s journey of self-discovery and transformation becomes, for director James Rasin, a tragic allegory for our fame and media obsessed times. But it is also a gripping story with a simple, universal theme: One person’s pursuit of their own American Dream. The film interweaves rare archival footage and both historical and contemporary interviews (Tennessee Williams, Paul Morrissey,  Fran Lebowitz, Holly Woodlawn among many others) with excerpts from Candy’s own diaries and letters, which are voiced, to devastating effect, by Oscar nominee and Golden Globe Award-winning actress Chloë Sevigny.

“That Summer” offers the first glimpse into the lives of Edith and Edie Beale

Welcome to Grey Gardens . . . as you’ve never seen it.|

Three years before Albert and David Maysles’ landmark documentary introduced the world to Edith and Edie Beale—the unforgettable mother and daughter (and Jackie O. relatives) living in a decaying dream world on Long Island—renowned photographer Peter Beard chronicled life at their crumbling estate during the summer of 1972.

For the first time ever, in That Summer (IFC Films), director Göran Olsson assembles this long-lost footage, featuring glimpses of luminaries like Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger and Truman Capote, into a one-of-a-kind family portrait bursting with the loving squabbles, quotable bon mots and impromptu musical numbers that would make Big and Little Edie beloved cultural icons.

Great, gossip and a bit garish.