Candida Royalle (born Candice Marion Vadala; October 15, 1950 – September 7, 2015) was an American producer and director of couples-oriented pornography,
pornographic actress
A pornographic film actor or actress, pornographic performer, adult entertainer, or porn star is a person who performs sex acts in video that is usually characterized as a pornographic movie. Such videos tend to be made in a number of dist ...
,
sex educator
Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexual reproduct ...
, and
sex-positive feminist
Sex-positive feminism, also known as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, or sexually liberal feminism, is a Feminism, feminist movement centering on the idea that sexual freedom is an essential component of women's freedom.
Sex-positive fe ...
. She was a member of the
XRCO
The X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) is a group of writers and editors from the American adult entertainment industry who each year present awards in recognition of achievement within the industry. After the controversy and criticism of the ...
and the
AVN Halls of Fame.
Early life and education
Royalle was born Candice Marion Vadala in New York City on October 15, 1950.
Initially trained in music, dance and art in New York City, she studied at the
High School of Art and Design
The High School of Art and Design is a career and technical education high school in Manhattan, New York City, New York State, United States. Founded in 1936 as the School of Industrial Art, the school moved to 1075 Second Avenue in 1960 and mor ...
,
Parsons School of Design
Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...
and the
City University of New York
The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...
.
[
]
Career
After graduating from Parsons School of Design, she began performing with the avant-garde theater group The Cockettes
The Cockettes were an avant garde psychedelic hippie theater group founded by Hibiscus (George Edgerly Harris III) in the fall of 1969. The troupe was formed out of a group of hippie artists, men and women, who were living in Kaliflower, one of ...
and in 1975 played Divine's daughter in the play ''The Heartbreak of Psoriasis''.
In 1975, she began her career as a pornographic performer, appearing in about 25 movies before retiring in 1980 with ''Blue Magic'', which she also wrote. Royalle quit as a performer because she got married, and was uncomfortable being sexual with other men. Moreover, she had increasingly felt that her strongly feminist views were at odds with the male-centric manner in which traditional pornography was produced and that she had been working in, giving virtually no attention to the female perspective, and making no effort to appeal to female viewers. The increasing availability of cable television
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...
and VCR
A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the recording. ...
around 1983 provided Royalle both with an incentive and opportunity to consider producing her own "feminist" pornography, aimed at women and couples who wanted to watch a different kind of porn from the privacy of their homes.
In early 1984, Royalle founded Femme Productions
Candida Royalle (born Candice Marion Vadala; October 15, 1950 – September 7, 2015) was an American producer and director of couples-oriented pornography, pornographic actress, sex educator, and sex-positive feminist. She was a member of the X ...
together with Lauren Neimi. Their goal was making erotica based on female desire, as well as pornographic films aimed at helping couple therapy. Her productions are aimed more at women and couples than at the standard pornographic audience of men, and have been praised by counselors and therapists for depicting healthy and realistic sexual activity.
Royalle stated that she tried to avoid " misogynous predictability", and depiction of sex in "…as grotesque and graphic wayas possible." She also criticized the male-centredness of the typical pornographic film, in which scenes end when the male actor ejaculates. Royalle's films are not "goal oriented" towards a final "cum shot
A cum shot is the depiction of human ejaculation, especially onto another person. The term is usually applied to depictions occurring in pornographic films, photographs, and magazines. Cum shots have become the object of fetish genres like bukk ...
"; instead, her films depict sexual activity within the broader context of women's emotional and social lives. In 1989, she signed the Post Porn Modernist Manifesto.
She was featured in Maya Gallus
Maya Gallus is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, and co-founder of Red Queen Productions with Justine Pimlott. Her films have screened at international film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, ...
's 1997 documentary film '' Erotica: A Journey Into Female Sexuality''.[Janice Kennedy, "Exploring female sexuality: Documentary a revealing look at women's erotica". '']Ottawa Citizen
The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
History
Established as ''The Bytown Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the '' ...
'', February 10, 1999.
Royalle wrote regular columns for adult magazines ''High Society'' and ''Cheri''. She was also a public speaker, giving lectures at Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
, the World Congress on Sexology, and numerous universities and professional conferences.[
In 2004, she authored the book ''How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do''.][
A five-track EP titled ''Candida Cosmica'', a collaboration between Royalle and ]Patrick Cowley
Patrick Joseph Cowley (October 19, 1950 – November 12, 1982) was an American disco and hi-NRG dance music composer and recording artist. Along with Giorgio Moroder, he often is credited as a pioneer of electronic dance music.
Early life
Patr ...
from the mid-1970s, was released in October 2016 by Dark Entries Records.
Affiliations
Royalle was a member of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, and a founding board member of Feminists for Free Expression.
Personal life and death
In the 1980s, Royalle was married to producer Per Sjöstedt; they separated in 1988. In May 2006, she announced that she was engaged to be married. She died in Mattituck, New York on September 7, 2015, aged 64, from ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer is a cancerous tumor of an ovary. It may originate from the ovary itself or more commonly from communicating nearby structures such as fallopian tubes or the inner lining of the abdomen. The ovary is made up of three different c ...
.
In media
In 2019, ''Candice'', a documentary about Royalle's life and finding out what happened to her mother who left her as a child, was screened at various documentary film festivals. It was directed by Sheona McDonald and distributed by Mbur Indie Film Distribution.
Filmography
During her acting career (1975–1980), Royalle performed in 25 traditional male-centred porn films, including ''Ball Game'' (1980) by Ann Perry, ''Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls'', ''Hot Racquettes'', ''Delicious'', ''Fascination'' by Chuck Vincent, and finally ''Blue Magic'' (1980), which Royalle also wrote and her then-new husband Per Sjöstedt produced.
By 2013, Royalle had (jointly) written or directed 18 feminist porn films with Femme Productions since 1984, including:
* ''Femme'' (1984)
* ''Urban Heat'' (1984)
* ''Three Daughters'' (1986)
* ''Christine's Secret'' (1986)
* ''A Taste of Ambrosia'' (1987)
* ''Rites of Passion'' (1987)
* ''Sensual Escape'' (1988)
* ''Revelations'' (1993)
* ''My Surrender'' (1996)
* ''The Gift'' (1997)
* ''The Bridal Shower'' (1997)
* ''One Size Fits All'' (1998)
* ''Eyes of Desire'' (1998)
* ''Eyes of Desire 2'' (1999)
* '' Afrodite Superstar'' (2006)
* ''Under the Covers'' (2007)
References
External links
Candida Royalle's Website
*
*
*
*
Papers of Candida Royalle, 1920-2017.Schlesinger Library
Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Royalle, Candida
1950 births
2015 deaths
American pornographic film actresses
American feminists
American women writers
Women pornographic film directors
Feminist pornography
Sex-positive feminists
Businesspeople from New York City
Pornographic film actors from New York (state)
Deaths from ovarian cancer
Parsons School of Design alumni
City University of New York alumni
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
High School of Art and Design alumni
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American businesswomen
21st-century American women