Candace Bushnell
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Candace Bushnell (born December 1, 1958) is an American author, journalist, and television producer. She wrote a column for ''
The New York Observer ''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper printed from 1987 to 2016, when it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainmen ...
'' (1994–96) that was adapted into the bestselling '' Sex and the City''
anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...
. The book was the basis for the
HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
hit series '' Sex and the City'' (1998–2004) and two subsequent movies. Bushnell followed this with the international bestselling novels ''4 Blondes'' (2001), '' Trading Up'' (2003), '' Lipstick Jungle'' (2005), ''
One Fifth Avenue ''One Fifth Avenue'' is a 2008 novel by Candace Bushnell about the residents of the prestigious building. Its characters include a middle aged screenwriter, a novelist with a bad marriage, and a hedge fund manager's wife. "With a breezy pace ...
'' (2008), ''
The Carrie Diaries ''The Carrie Diaries'' is a young adult novel, the first in a series of the same name by American author Candace Bushnell. The series is a prequel to Bushnell's 1997 collection ''Sex and the City'', and follows the character of Carrie Bradshaw du ...
'' (2010) and '' Summer and the City'' (2011). Two of her novels have been adapted for television: '' Lipstick Jungle'' (2008–09) on NBC, and ''
The Carrie Diaries ''The Carrie Diaries'' is a young adult novel, the first in a series of the same name by American author Candace Bushnell. The series is a prequel to Bushnell's 1997 collection ''Sex and the City'', and follows the character of Carrie Bradshaw du ...
'' (2013-2014) on
The CW ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
. ''One Fifth Avenue'' has been optioned by the Mark Gordon Company and
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
for another television show.


Early life

Bushnell was born in Glastonbury, Connecticut. She is the daughter of Calvin L. Bushnell and Camille Salonia. Her father was one of the inventors of the air cooled hydrogen fuel cell that was used in the Apollo space missions in the 1960s. Her Bushnell ancestors in the United States can be traced back to Francis Bushnell, one of the signatories of the Guilford Covenant, who emigrated from Thatcham, Berkshire, England in 1639. Her mother was of Italian descent. While attending high school in Glastonbury, Candace was accompanied to her senior prom by
Mike O'Meara Michael Sean Patrick O'Meara (born June 22, 1959 in Glastonbury, Connecticut) is a podcast personality, the host of '' The Mike O'Meara Show'', previously a nationally syndicated radio show that returned as a podcast. Previously he was the co-ho ...
, later a nationally syndicated radio host, who also dated Candace's sister, "Lolly." She attended
Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...
and
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
. She moved to New York in the late 1970s and often frequented
Studio 54 Studio 54 is a Broadway theater and a former disco nightclub at 254 West 54th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Operated by the Roundabout Theatre Company, Studio 54 has 1,006 seats on two levels. The theater was ...
. In 1995, she met publishing executive
Ron Galotti Ron Galotti is an American former magazine executive. He was a corporate Vice President at Condè Nast and the publisher of such Newhouse owned publications as ''Vogue'', '' GQ'' and '' Vanity Fair''. Galotti famously left Condè Nast to found ' ...
, who became the inspiration for '' Sex and The Citys Mr. Big.


Career

At the age of 19, Bushnell moved to New York City and sold a children's story (which was never published) to
Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...
. She continued writing and worked as a freelance journalist for various publications, struggling to make ends meet for many years. Bushnell began writing for ''
The New York Observer ''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper printed from 1987 to 2016, when it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainmen ...
'' in 1993. She created a humorous column for the paper (1994–1996) called " Sex and the City". The column was based on her own personal dating experiences and those of her friends. In 1997, Bushnell's columns were published in an anthology, also called '' Sex and the City,'' and soon after became the basis for the popular
HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
television series sharing the same name. The series aired from 1998 through 2004, and starred
Sarah Jessica Parker Sarah Jessica Parker (born March 25, 1965) is an American actress and television producer. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including six Golden Globe Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards. ''Time'' magazine named her one of the 1 ...
as Carrie Bradshaw, a socially active New York City sex and lifestyles columnist, a character whom Bushnell has stated was her
alter ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I", " doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a differen ...
. The series entered syndication and was also made into two films: '' Sex and the City'' (2008) and '' Sex and the City 2'' (2010). A third film was announced in December 2016, but was ultimately cancelled and replaced by the sequel miniseries, ''
And Just Like That… ''And Just Like That...'' is an American comedy-drama streaming television series developed by Michael Patrick King for HBO Max. It is a revival and a sequel of the HBO television series ''Sex and the City'' created by Darren Star, which is b ...
'', on
HBO Max HBO Max is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in the United States on May 27, 2020, the service is built around the libraries of HBO, Warner Bros., Cartoon Netw ...
. Bushnell went on to publish several international and ''The New York Times'' Bestselling novels, including ''Four Blondes'', ''Trading Up'', ''Lipstick Jungle'' and ''One Fifth Avenue''. In 2005, Bushnell served as one of three judges for the reality television show ''Wickedly Perfect'' on CBS. Bushnell began hosting a live weekly talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio in 2007. The show, called "Sex, Success and Sensibility," was canceled in late 2008 after the merger of Sirius and
XM Satellite Radio XM Satellite Radio (XM) was one of the three satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable television. Its s ...
, when Bushnell was asked to continue the show with a 50% pay cut and refused. She is the winner of the 2006
Matrix Award Matrix most commonly refers to: * ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise ** ''The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film ** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchis ...
for books, and a recipient of the Albert Einstein Spirit of Achievement Award. In 2009 she wrote a web series, The Broadroom, a comedic series about women over 40 dealing with workplace issues, starring Jennie Garth which was created in partnership with the magazine publisher
Meredith Corporation Meredith Corporation was an American media conglomerate based in Des Moines, Iowa, that owned magazines, television stations, websites, and radio stations. Its publications had a readership of more than 120 million and paid circulation of more ...
's ''Meredith 360'' division. Bushnell's 2005 novel, '' Lipstick Jungle,'' was adapted for television and aired on NBC in 2008. The series '' Lipstick Jungle'' starred
Brooke Shields Brooke Christa Shields (born May 31, 1965) is an American actress and model. She was initially a child model and gained critical acclaim at age 12 for her leading role in Louis Malle's film ''Pretty Baby'' (1978). She continued to model into ...
in the leading role, and ran for 20 episodes. In 2009, she wrote articles for Meredith's ''More'' magazine. Bushnell was contracted by
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
in 2008 to write a series of two books for young adults, about the high school years of '' Sex and the City'' character Carrie Bradshaw. The first of these, ''
The Carrie Diaries ''The Carrie Diaries'' is a young adult novel, the first in a series of the same name by American author Candace Bushnell. The series is a prequel to Bushnell's 1997 collection ''Sex and the City'', and follows the character of Carrie Bradshaw du ...
,'' was published in April 2010. The other, ''Summer and the City (Carrie Diaries Series #2),'' was published in April 2011. ''The Carrie Diaries'' was a number one ''New York Times'' Bestseller. In 2012 Bushnell was sued in federal court by her former friend and manager Clifford Streit who claimed that Bushnell reneged on a prior settlement in which she agreed to pay him 7.5 percent of anything she earned from the ''Sex and the City'' TV series and the two ''Sex and the City'' movies, an amount Streit estimated at least $150,000.


Personal life

From 2002 to 2012, Bushnell was married to
Charles Askegard Charles Askegard is an American ballet dancer and ballet master at Pennsylvania Ballet. Early life and education Askegard was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and began his dance training at the age of five with Loyce Houlton and the Minneso ...
, a principal dancer with the
New York City Ballet New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company' ...
who was ten years her junior, and whom she had met eight weeks before. They decided to divorce in 2011. She found the experience disorienting, telling ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', "When I got divorced, I couldn’t get a mortgage; I didn’t fit into a computer model. All of a sudden, I was invited to no more couple things. Being single is hard and there’s something a bit heroic about it." She owned a co-op in
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
until 2015. From 2005 to 2016 she owned an historic Victorian farmhouse in
Roxbury, CT Roxbury is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 2,260 at the 2020 census. The town is located northeast of New York City. History Roxbury, whose Native name was ''Shepaug'', a Mahican word signifying "roc ...
. In 2016, she bought a co-op on East 74th Street in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.


Bibliography

* (1996) '' Sex and the City'', * (2000) ''4 Blondes'', nur 302 * (2003) '' Trading Up'' * (2005) '' Lipstick Jungle'', * (2008) ''
One Fifth Avenue ''One Fifth Avenue'' is a 2008 novel by Candace Bushnell about the residents of the prestigious building. Its characters include a middle aged screenwriter, a novelist with a bad marriage, and a hedge fund manager's wife. "With a breezy pace ...
'' * (2010) ''
The Carrie Diaries ''The Carrie Diaries'' is a young adult novel, the first in a series of the same name by American author Candace Bushnell. The series is a prequel to Bushnell's 1997 collection ''Sex and the City'', and follows the character of Carrie Bradshaw du ...
'' * (2011) '' Summer and the City'' * (2015) '' Killing Monica'' * (2019) ''
Is There Still Sex in the City? ''Is There Still Sex in the City?'' is a novel written by Candace Bushnell and published in August 2019 by Grove Press. It is based on Bushnell's real-life experiences after divorcing at the age of 50. The title of the book references ''Sex and th ...
'',


References


External links


Official website
*
TehelkaTV interview – In conversation with Pragya Tiwari on being a woman and writing about it, Jan 2011Limited online archive of Bushnell's column in ''The Observer''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bushnell, Candace 1958 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers American columnists American women columnists American chick lit writers People from Glastonbury, Connecticut New York University alumni Rice University alumni American women essayists American women novelists Sex and the City 20th-century American essayists 21st-century American essayists