Burlesque queen, ex-con, Jack Ruby’s pal, porno’s first (reluctant) star and a real lady.
Way back in 1951, when Linda was still a lump in Mr. Lovelace’s throat, Candy Barr became porno’s first star. Sixteen-year-old Juanita Slusher, soon to be Candy Barr, was taken to a motel and coerced into making the stag film Smart Aleck, which would propel her, against her will, into the immortal ranks of the erotic hall of fame.
Candy hasn’t made a dime from the one film she starred in. It didn’t play any theaters, but it enlivened countless smoke-filled parties. As a result of her striking screen presence-her baby face and siren body-Candy became a legend. Hers was not the first fuck film, but it was the most memorable. Within a few years, Juanita Slusher was Candy Barr, one of the hottest dancers on the burlesque circuit, and her legend turned to notoriety.
Still naïve—a kind of hardcore Judy Holliday—Candy drifted into all kinds of tough situations. She mixed with famous hoods and was for a time Mickey Cohen’s moll. She was pal to a number of major Hollywood stars. She shot one of her husbands. She was busted for pot long before it was hip, and she served a long stretch. She became good friends with God and Jack Ruby. But no matter what her extraordinary mixture of naïveté and erotic bravado got her mixed up in, no matter how much she was assaulted by the forces of moral indignation, jealousy or suspicion, she managed to come out smiling.
At the age of 41, Candy Barr is still young and sexy. She is, in fact, the sexiest grandmother we’ve ever met. She has also developed smarts the hard way. A religious person who talks to God regularly, Candy is still not afraid to defend herself and knock the teeth out of anyone who threatens to mess with her. Nevertheless, she lives a quiet life in Brownwood, Texas. Retired from dancing, she now writes poetry and claims to have a few other tricks left up her sleeve.
Candy was interviewed in Chicago by the editors of OUI and author Gay Talese, who had met Candy in Texas while researching his book on sex in America. It was Talese’s suggestion that OUI shoot pictures of Candy to accompany this interview. The interview was edited by Gretchen McNeese and the staff of OUI.
Candy’s week in Chicago was not uneventful. Columnist Bob Greene reported in the Sun-Times that on her last night in town, she went to a hotel bar for a ginger ale. “A 200-pound male customer,” Greene wrote, “began to bother her, and when she asked him to stop, he wouldn’t. He then made a mistake. He touched Miss Barr. She stood up and slugged him four times in the face, knocking him to the floor. Security guards dragged the man out.”
The taping itself was not always peaceful. Editorial Assistant Emalee Andre recalls that Candy was “irritable throughout the sessions. She obviously didn’t like talking into a machine, and she resented a lot of the questions about her past. Once, she became so angry that she flipped the recorder off, kicked her chair over and threw her cigarette lighter across the room.”
However, once Candy calmed down, she was quite co-operative and she continued talking with the speed of a New Yorker and the drawl of a Texan. Some combination. We started things off by asking about her nude pictorial.
Candy’s 34-Ds were two of the most perfect breasts ever put on public view
The Big Book of Breasts
OUI: What made you decide to pose for OUI? Did you want to prove that you still have a beautiful body and that a woman ‘s life can begin at 40?
BARR: I am proud that I’m still in good shape, but the real reason I agreed to pose is that it gives me a chance to tell my story. When I started out, I was a dumb sucker. I got in a lot of trouble through plain ignorance. Now my head is in the right place, and I can talk about my life.
OUI: Let’s start at the beginning. What was your first mistake?
BARR: I was only five years old when a man first used me sexually. I wasn’t penetrated. lt was just oral sex. He was a neighbor-about 19 or 20-but to me, he was a big man. He would come over to the house, and we would play hide-and-seek. He’d always hide with me, and he would pull my panties down and use his mouth on my little bitty thing.
OUI: Were you frightened?
BARR: Not really. Children have pleasurable sensations at an early age. I remember I was afraid to tell my family about it, because I wasn’t sure whether it was right or wrong. By the grace of God I wasn’t raped, but things like that happened to me time and time again.
OUI: Do you mean that other men made advances to you when you were a child?
BARR: When I was seven, a 42-year-old man used to babysit with me in the daytime, while my mother worked in a laundry. The first time she left, he made his move. He told me that my mother wanted him to check me for chiggers, which aren’t uncommon in Texas. Anyway, it evolved to the point where he made oral love to me. And he used to buy me things I couldn’t have had otherwise: chewing gum and little surprises.
OUI: Did you have a happy home life, aside from these sexual incidents?
BARR: My mother died when I was nine. My father, who had five children then, married a woman who had four children. Then they had another two children together. It was a very confusing family situation. We were worked very hard and disciplined very harshly.
OUI: Did you run away?
BARR: Many times. Each time I went back I had less freedom than before.
I had a baby face, but my figure had blossomed, so I passed for 18 for a while, until members of the Alcoholic Beverage Commission discovered me. lt was as if they had radar on my ass.
OUI: When did you leave home for good?
BARR: When I was in the ninth grade. I went to Oklahoma City to live with one of my sisters who had already left home. I went to school there. Next I went with another sister to Dallas. My sister and I both worked, but we could hardly make ends meet. Then she got involved with a man, and I was left on my own. I worked myself into night clubs as a waitress. I had a baby face, but my figure had blossomed, so I passed for 18 for a while, until members of the Alcoholic Beverage Commission discovered me. lt was as if they had radar on my ass. No matter where I’d work, they’d find me. l always had to change jobs. I had people hide me in rest rooms until the inspectors left, because I was an exceptionally good waitress. I believe that anything you do, you should do your best. I finally got a job in a restaurant that didn’t serve beer, but there I bad trouble with the harness bulls.
OUI: Harness bulls?
BARR: Yeah. Policemen in uniform. They thought they could use a dumb young girl. They’d frighten me into thinking they could put me in jail for vagrancy if I didn’t play along with them, so we’d back-seat it.
OUI: Was this about the time that you starred in the stag-film classic, Smart Aleck?
BARR: That happened when I was 16. I used to go dancing at this place called the Round-Up Club. I just got out there and jitterbugged and jitterbugged. I had a girlfriend named Jackie who could really jitterbug, too. I didn’t know anything about girls doing girls then, you know. A lot of the people who hung around the Round-Up Club were pimps and whores and dope pushers—though I wasn’t aware of that at first. I just got out there and jitterbugged. I was going with the leader of the band and my borne entertainment was always top drawer, too. Anyway, one of the guys who did the film used to come and dance, and I must have danced with him. He must have been looking at me for some time. I have some blocks in my life. I try to remember, and J can’t. I evidently had to tune it out. Eventually we were in this motel. The film wasn’t something I was turning back flips to do.
OUI: You didn’t want to do it?
BARR: I never thought about doing it. I wasn’t Candy Barr then. But it happened and I’ve had a lot of flack about it. People say, “What the hell, it’s only a fuck movie.” Well, that was 1951; I do care what the hell. lf I had done it by choice, then I would have had some mechanism to adjust it into my lifestyle. But I didn’t do it by choice, and the law has harassed me because of it.
OUI: How were you lured into the motel room?
BARR: I wasn’t lured. I was taken, done and that was it. I didn’t even realize that people look at such movies.
OUI: Were you paid?
BARR: No. Why would they pay me if they were making me do it?
OUI: In the film, one of the men tries to make you go down on him, and you struggle very realistically; then there’s a cut, and you come back in with another woman who does go down on the man while you sit in a chair and watch. Was that real, or were you acting?
BARR: I suppose it was real, because I have never been an actress. At the time, I wasn’t even aware that people engaged in oral sex—despite my experience of it as a seven-year-old. It wasn’t something I’d planned to make part of my life. When I got married, it didn’t come up.If they had hung me up and thrown darts at me, I wouldn’t have done it. It was just a matter of principle. But they had this other’ girl outside, whom I’d never seen before.
Candy is Dandy
The annals of burlesque are filled with tales of “top bananas” who have moved on to better, or at least, more socially accepted endeavors. Comics, like Phil Silvers, have cleaned up their jokes and graduated to television. Others, like Gypsy Rose Lee, have hung up their G strings and become authors. But there will be no switcheroo for Candy Barr. Dandy Candy says that she will remain true to the stripping art until men tire of seeing a well-filled frame moved to the maximum with a minimum of frills. As everyone knows, this will probably never be.
OUI: What happened after you made your one and only porn film?
BARR: I ran around a lot. I had been working in a motel called Trolley Courts in Dallas. It was called that because it was made out of trolley cars. My room was free because I was the maid. I cleaned during the day and hopped cars at a drive-in at night. That’s where I met Shorty, who was the best box man in town.
OUI: Box man?
BARR: Meaning he was good at opening safes. He introduced me to Billy, whom I later married. Billy had just gotten out of jail. At first, I wasn’t aware that either of them was a crook. They sent me into a little place outside of Dallas to buy nitroglycerin and fuses and caps to blow safes with. I didn’t know nitro· glycerin could kill you, if you don’t walk right. We had an old souped-up Plymouth with a signal whistle that I was supposed to use if the cops came while they were inside a building. They would send me into stores to see what kinds of safes they had. I just felt it was part of my job. I thought business was business, you know?
OUI: What happened to your first husband, Billy the safe-cracker?
BARR: Billy was sent to the penitentiary. Eventually we got divorced, and he was shot to death. Then I married Troy Phillips. It was about that time that I started dancing for a living.
OUI: Where was that?
BARR: I went to work at the Theater Lounge in Dallas as a cigarette girl. I was only about 17 or 18, but I looked of age. Being a cigarette girl entailed sitting with the customers, drinking champagne, which made me sick, and getting a lot of sweaty pinches and stuff. Eventually the boss asked me if I wouldn’t rather dance. Taking off my clothes was no big inconvenience—for me. I enjoy being scantily clad—and they offered me $85 a week, so I got up there and danced, and within a couple of months, I had top billing at the place. But I got in a fight with one of tbc girls, so the owner, Barney Weinstein, carried me over to his brother Abe’s place, the Colony Club. I packed the house, and that’s where I got the name Candy Barr. I was billed as candy barr—striptease artist. I didn’t wear a G string. I wore net panties. And pasties. You could not be totally bare breasted then.
OUI: How did you get your name?
BARR: There was a little coffee shop next to the Colony. The waitresses would send out for coffee, but I didn’t drink coffee and I didn’t drink alcohol—I still don’t drink alcohol—so I would order a candy bar. At that time, I was eating Snickers and Millionaires. I always had them around. So the name just happened.
OUI: How did your fame spread from Dallas to Las Vegas and California?
BARR: You’re asking the wrong person, because I don’t know. People have different impressions of me. I was quite earthy. I had long blond hair, a peaches-and-cream complexion, big green eyes and dimples. I had a baby face that didn’t match my woman’s body. My muscles have always reacted to rhythm. People told me I looked like a wild filly up there saying, “Break me if you can.” Others said I reminded them of a cat. Some of the girls even put me down as a bull dyke. Everybody had a different image of me.
OUI: Did women come on to you?
BARR: Women did, and men did. And do.
OUI : You didn’t respond to the attention of women?
BARR: I didn’t have time to be bothered, to tell you the truth. I’ve tried everything out of curiosity, but nothing’s going to be habit-forming with me.
Tura Satana.
I followed Candy Barr several times in Las Vegas and one time down in Dallas, Texas, where she first got her start. Her whole gimmick was that she was a Texas Cowgirl. She was very petite, very well endowed. She was a cute girl, and had a great personality on stage, off stage she was very quiet.
Cyndi Wood in Apocalypse Now
OUI: What got you out of Dallas finally?
BARR: Weinstein sent me to Los Angeles, then to Vegas, to the Silver Slipper. When I got there, the whole town started buzzing about this little girl from Texas with a ponytail and big tits. I didn’t know that l already had some fame from the blue movie. I thought it was my talent that people responded to.
OUI: In 1959, you were busted for marijuana in Texas, for which you were sent to prison for several years. How did that come about?
BARR: lt was a setup. The police were harassing me. I was eventually pardoned, beca use I wasn’t guilty in the first place.
OUI: Why would the police harass you?
BARR: The blue movie was a big sin in their eyes, so they used to pick me up for vagrancy. I thought that meant you didn’t have a job, but they used to pick me up on the way to work. I think what they were angriest about was the time I shot my second husband, Troy Phillips, and got away with it.
OUI: How did you happen to shoot him?
BARR: We were separated at the time and I was afraid he was going to come around and bother me, so I borrowed a gun. I had a month-old baby. Sure enough, Troy showed up and knocked the door down with his foot. I got up out of bed and met him at the door. He socked me in the jaw and la id me against the wall. I was so mad I footballed him all the way down the hall into the bathroom, and he fell into the bathtub. I ran back to the bedroom, got the rifle, and said:·stay right where you are, Troy, because if you don’t, I’m going to kill you.” He started to leave and I went and stood on the stairway. Damned if he didn’t come back, so there I was backing up the stairs like Annie Oakley. He said, ‘I’m going to come up there and whip your ass.” I said, “Baby, when you hit that third step, I’m going to drop you.” And I did. He fell against the wall and said, “But, darling, you shot me.” The little .22 bullet went into his belly. When the neighbors ran out, I told them to call the police. I kept the rifle on Troy, because I was afraid he might pull his gun on me. He said, “Give me a kiss. I’m dying … He was so sweet to me then. When the police arrived, he said, ”This motherfucker shot me.”
OUI: And you got away with it?
BARR: He lived and he never pressed charges. He had invaded my home, after all. There was so much publicity, people flocked to see me at the club. They wanted me to sign autographs for their children.
Joan Collins and Candy Barr
“I learned something from Candy Barr, the famous stripper, when we made a movie together years ago—Seven Thieves [Henry Hathaway, 1960]. She taught me that the less you reveal, the more exciting it is. Her art was eroticism that involved taking off just her stockings, her long gloves, unzipping her dress, sliding out of it. She taught me how to move and how to look. There was a dance she did that I learned and can still do. I have to say that I became a pretty expert stripper. She was quite a contributing figure in my continuing quest to be a sex symbol—I joke! I jest!”
Playboy, April, 1984, p. 57.
8/21/1959-Hollywood, Joan Collins (left) is shown as she follows in the steps of Candy Barr, strip-tease queen. Miss Collins has spent about 45 hours working with Candy Barr learning the art of the strip. Miss Barr says that anytime Miss Collins wants to leave the movies, she “has it made” in burlesque.
OUI: How did the drug bust occur?
BARR: I was running around with a couple of girls in burlesque and one of them was living with a narc. The police moved in across the hall from me and put a tap on my phone. Anyway, when I was sick with hepatitis, this person I had classified as a friend came over with a little package she wanted me to keep, because her mother was the kind of person who always went through her belongings. I said, “Certainly, no problem.” I put it into an Alka-Seltzer bottle and hung it around my neck. I thought of getting rid of it, and then I thought, “Why should I? Nobody’s going to bother me. Everybody knows I’m not into dope.” I was talking to my fellow on the phone when there was a knock on the door. It was the police from across the hall, but they said it was Western Union. I opened the door, and they shoved a gun into my face. They came out of my closet with more paraphernalia than I knew existed; they had planted it there. Then they reached under a chair cushion and came out with a marijuana cigarette. I wouldn’t say that the marijuana was mine, because it wasn’t. But I did admit that I had some in my possession. I didn’t know that possession was nine tenths of the law.
My Tale Is Hot
“My Tale Is Hot” is a lively, captivating picture which has more than the average share of unclad cuties. It’s also got a fast-paced story which fires de imagination.
But one of the highlights of the picture doesn’t have much to do with the story: the guest appearance of Candy Barr, famous Texas striptease artist.
Candy, looking as trim and lovely as ever, does a complete dancing routine during the film. Her magnificent proportions appropriately mouth-watering on the big screen.
“My Tale Is Hot” is primarily about the Devil’s attempts to capture a man’s soul by tempting him with… temptation. Much to the Devil’s chagrin, the man manages to resist.
OUI: How long was it from the time of the bust until you went to prison?
BARR: Two years. I appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, I got a note in a champagne glass from Mickey Cohen one evening. The note said, “Don’t be afraid, little girl, you still have friends.” I went over to Mickey’s for dinner and we talked. I really liked him. I had no idea that he was going to want me as his lady. What are you going to do? Say no? I had to get rid of the guy I was going with, and Mickey’s organization wasn’t too pleased about the publicity, but Mickey and I really liked each other; we had some tender times. We had a good thing until the pressure got to be too much. It got to be a lot more than I could handle. When I left Mickey, I went back to work in Las Vegas, but as soon as I opened, I got word that my bond had been forfeited and that I was considered a fugitive from justice. J didn’t know what that meant. l didn’t know what to do, so I decided to marry Jack Sahakian and let him handle my personal affairs.
OUI: Who was he?
BARR: He was a hairdresser. The night I married him, my room was robbed of all my jewels and furs. Everybody thought the things taken were things Mickey Cohen had bought me, but in fact they were mostly things I had bought myself. I was lying on my bed, still in shock, when the FBI came in and put me under arrest. They even checked my car to make sure it wasn’t rigged to blow up. Everybody thought I was going to get killed. I was in V.I.P. trouble. At first, I was under heavy protection. Then they put me into prison.
OUI: How long did you stay in prison?
BARR: My sentence was for 15 years. Hell, they tried to get me life, as an example, but I served only three years and four months. I got out on April Fools’ Day 1963. As it turned out, prison was kind of an answer to my prayers. I had been talking to my chief trying to find a way out of the life I had been leading. Prison was it.
OUI: Your chief?
BARR: I think of God as my chief. When I was a child He was the only friend I felt I could talk to. To me, He was real. God was the one who bounced me on His knee. His hands patted me when I cried myself to sleep, which was often. The only thing I remember wanting to be when I grew up was a missionary.
OUI: Are you still religious?
BARR: I identify with God. I don’t question His presence. He is the source of all my energies. He has sustained me all my life, not just when I was in prison.
OUI: How did you get out of prison so long before the term was up?
BARR: There was a point system in the penitentiary where I served my time. I really humped my buns to get 80 points. I worked in the sewing room, the library and the commissary, and I performed in the prison rodeo. I even sang in both the Protestant and the Catholic choirs.
OUI: It sounds as if you were a model prisoner.
BARR: I wasn’t a total goody-goody. I had to make a living, so I bootlegged toilet paper, delivered a few gifts and operated a little illegal mail service.
OUI: What happened to you after you were paroled?
BARR: The terms of my parole were very strict. I wasn’t even supposed to be in a place where alcoholic beverages were served, Jet alone work in one. Fortunately I had friends. Vince Edwards sent me some money. Jack Ruby sent me $50.
OUI: What was your relationship with Ruby? You got out of prison in 1963, about seven months before the Kennedy assassination.
BARR: I had known Jack since I was about 14 or 15, but I never worked in his club. He came to see me down in Edna after I got out of jail. He brought me two dachshund puppies. He thought I could start breeding them and make some money to live on. He brought their papers and everything. And he bought me an air conditioner, because it was very hot. He stayed at a motel, but we spent three days talking. I still get a lot of flack about that, because of Oswald and the Kennedy assassination.
OUI: Seven months after you got out of jail, Kennedy was in Dallas riding in the car with the man who pardoned you, Governor Connally.
BARR: I was out on parole. Connally pardoned me later.
OUI: Where were you when Kennedy was shot?
BARR: At home in Edna. It wasn’t 25 hours after Oswald was shot that the investigators were down there on me. Now that’s ridiculous. It really is. They told me that Jack had been down to visit me seven days before Kennedy was killed, and I said, “AII I can tell you is that if he was, that’s fine.” They still come to see me about that stuff.
OUI: Was there someone with Ruby when you saw him?
BARR: A black man and a white man drove him down. The white man could have been Oswald, but I don’t think it was. I don’t know. I don’t believe Jack was that closely linked with all that mess. Jack was a Jewish man who was rejected by most Jews in town. He’d go to a place and he had to pay the cover charge. When the owners of another place came to Jack Ruby’s place, they got in free. He felt rejected. He complained of this when he came to see me. We talked for a long time. He felt like Kennedy was the Messiah. I don’t know about what he did in the three years that I was in jail. But I was with him for three days, and he was very clear to me. Let’s leave it at that.
OUI: Do you want to speculate on why he shot Oswald? ,
BARR: I have no idea. Probably he detested what Oswald did and wanted to avenge Kennedy’s murder. Jack adored Kennedy. He was a close friend of mine and wouldn’t have lied to me about this. Anyhow, why should he lie to me? If there was any collusion, as some people have speculated, I couldn’t have testified on Jack’s behalf, because I was a paroled convict. Look, Jack thought Kennedy was the Messiah. Not only do I believe he didn’t know Kennedy would be killed, but he would have prevented the murder if he had known about it.
OUI: Was your parole hard on you?
BARR: There were people trying to get me back in the joint, I’ll tell you that. One time, I was slugged on the back of the head and left unconscious, with 22 capsules of barbiturates in my purse, outside of the county I wasn’t supposed to leave. Fortunately I made my way home. Another time, a parole officer sent in a report saying I was dancing at a club wearing two postage stamps and a playing card. It was ridiculous. They wanted to create something to get me back in the joint. Nobody thought I’d be able to stay out. And nobody was more surprised than I was when Governor Connally pardoned me.
OUI: Has your life been tranquil since the pardon?
BARR: God, no. I’ve even had to throw down on two or three people in my home town.
OUI: Throw down on?
BARR: Pull a gun on them. There was never much to do around Edna except ride around town, get drunk or get pregnant. I never had any trouble with getting pregnant, but I have bad trouble with people who ride around and get drunk. There was a kid who used to follow me. One time he pulled his car up beside mine, and I said, “What’s on your mind, honey?” He said, “I thought we’d get acquainted, maybe have a little party.” He got out of the car and walked up to me. I said, “I’ve noticed you driving behind me for three nights. I guess you like to play games.” I had a gun on my lap, even though I wasn’t supposed to, because my brother thought I shouldn’t go around unprotected. I eased the little barrel up like Cool Hand Luke, right into his face, and I said, “I’m going to tell you, honey, if I catch you following me anymore, I’m going to blow you away.”I never saw him again.
OUI: You were able to return to dancing after your pardon, weren’t you?
BARR: Yes, but I really didn’t want to. I was busted for pot again. They raided the bedroom of this lady’s house where I was staying in Brownwood, and they said they found a stash in a little S & H Green Stamps music box that plays Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Those charges were dismissed after about two years of running back and forth to court.
OUI: Do you dance now?
BARR: No, but I miss it.
OUI: You don’t dance just for fun?
BARR: No, there’s nobody who dances the way we used to dance when I was a little girl. I’m an older person now.
OUI: What about the future, Candy?
BARR: Don’t ask me about the future. I’ll let you know when it happens.
The Forbidden Book of Beauty 
A real film noir dame: always the wrong place at the wrong time.
LikeLike