Candida Royalle: ‘Femme’, Feminism, and a Female Icon – Podcast 35 reprise

Candida Royalle: ‘Femme’, Feminism, and a Female Icon – Podcast 35 reprise
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Our friend Candida Royalle passed away this week. She was 64.

Candida was a former star of pornographic movies who became a self-styled feminist filmmaker at 30 when she started producing and directing films for her own company, Femme Productions. She defined her work as female-oriented, sensuously explicit cinema as opposed to formulaic hard-core pornographic films that she said degraded women for the pleasure of men.

Candida succumbed to ovarian cancer not long after tracking down the mother who abandoned her as a child and discovering that she had already died of the same disease. At the time of her death, she’d been working on a documentary, While You Were Gone, about the search for her mother.

We were fortunate to get to know her well in recent years, and will miss her happiness, wisdom, sense of fun, and warmth.

In 2014 The Rialto Report interviewed Candida over five separate days. The result was our podcast Candida Royalle: ‘Femme’, Feminism, and a Female Icon which we are pleased to re-present here.

This episode running time is 106 minutes.

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Candida Royalle

Candida Royalle

 

Candida Royalle

 

Candida Royalle

 

Per Sjostedt

 

While You Were gone

 

42nd Street Studio - Joyce Baronio

 

Nina Hartley

 

Candida Royalle

 

  • Posted On: 13th September 2015
  • By: The Rialto Report
  • Under: Podcasts

13 Comments

  1. Randy Jones · September 13, 2015 Reply

    This is one of the best of all Rialto interviews ever, and re-listening to it now it has just become even more poignant and meaningful. Thank you SO much for conducting this detailed look at her life. She was interviewed on many occasions but never in such an insightful and sensitive way.

    Candida R.I.P.

  2. Money man · September 13, 2015 Reply

    What a classy woman. I met her in New York at an industry event and she radiated class. We don’t have many people like her left.

  3. Roy Karch · September 13, 2015 Reply

    One of the true pioneers of this pornography we have become.
    From top to bottom and as brave as possible. I had my office in her Femme space on lower Broadway, produced her in Ultra Flesh wherein I had circus rigging specialist lower her down200 feet onto the erect cock of Mike Ranger. A wonderful time with wonderful moments. Just a great gal and also from the Bronx. Thank you once again, Ash, for keeping us in deep focus and with a gentle hand.
    Roy Karch

  4. Mark · September 14, 2015 Reply

    this was brilliant. even the musical choices are so fitting. you guys amaze me with each podcast.

    btw: candida will be missed. she was an absolute angel

  5. Alex D. · September 14, 2015 Reply

    …and this is why Rialto is one of the most precious and innovative and important sites covering film out there. Candida’s passing is such a tragedy. Now we have but her words recorded with wonderful sensitivity by this august site. Thank you, thank you.

  6. Sue Nero · September 16, 2015 Reply

    A true lady always. I had the pleasure of knowing Candida in both Los Angeles and New York City. The first time I met her was in a film called Pro Ball Cheerleaders we shot together in LA. She was always gracious and extremely sensual. In NYC we were in the first porn support group called Club 90 and we did a small play called Deep Inside Porn Stars at Franklin Furnace with Annie Sprinkle, Veronica Vera, Gloria Leonard, Kelly Nichols, Veronica Hart and myself. I was not very together at that time but they never judged me and were always kind and supportive. I am so very sad to learn of her passing and that I drifted in another direction all these years ago and lost contact with a lot of people but Candice was a bright light for me in the time that I knew her and I will always remember her grace and beauty ….inside as well as out.

    Much love and RIP dear Candice,
    Sue Nero

    • Sean Elliot · September 21, 2015 Reply

      The Rialto report is amazing. To have some sort of contact after all these years. We worked together on “Widespread Scandals of Lydia Lace”, Sue. As well as the New York scene.I have fond memories of you on and off the set.
      Ashley West is in the process of interviews with me and I’ll be sure to tell him I had the pleasure of your mouth in The Henri Packard film.
      Love and respect to all my fellow porn actors
      Sean Elliot

    • Stephanie · October 18, 2015 Reply

      WOW I always wondered what happened to you. So many people I knew worked with or designed wardrobe for are gone. Still doing costumes and other stuff. Wrote for a magazine for a few years, but they were crazy so I quit. It was never as good as when I wrote for High Society Tattle Tails by Tanqueray. Hope all is well with you.

    • Joseph Hunt · April 11, 2016 Reply

      Thank you for your kind thoughts and feelings Sue.. Joey

  7. Diane · September 16, 2015 Reply

    This remarkable woman was truly one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the screen! Her beauty was akin to the old movie sirens of the Golden Age of Hollywood, like Garbo and Lombard! Her death, and the death of others from the Golden Age of Porn, is all the more tragic when one looks at the dreck that passes for porn today!
    Candida Royalle was truly a pioneer and she will be sorely missed.

    One more thing that I have to say-it seems that porn is suffering from the same lack of imagination that mainstream entertainment/arts is coming from. It’s just violence, meanness and immaturity that is in our faces these days.

  8. S. · September 19, 2015 Reply

    Your light shall shine on beautiful!

  9. Sean Elliot · September 21, 2015 Reply

    Never had the pleasure of working, much less knowing Ms.Royalle personally. What I do know is she was well loved and respected by all those who’s lives she touched.
    R.I.P.

  10. Jennifer Arnold · January 11, 2018 Reply

    The Rialto Report is more than just a podcast. Your work in support of the porn stars of yesteryear is so wonderful. I’m sure Candida appreciated it.

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