Today is a sad day. I have learned that one of the most radiant and talented actresses of 1970's drive-in cinema, Candice Rialson, has passed away. I was actively searching for her, as was probably every fan of hers, and she just disappeared around the late 1990s, after some recent photos in Celebrity Sleuth magazine showed she was just as lovely as ever.

According to the blog of Code Red DVD, the company's supplement producers recently found her phone number and called her home...only to learn from her husband that she had died on March 31, 2006. Almost 6 months ago. No reports appeared in any newspapers, searches haven't turned up an obituary, and there is no knowledge at this time as to the cause of death. She had just turned 54. A death certificate confirms, with her date of birth and date of death, that Candice Rialson indeed left this world on March 31 of this year.

Only a few years after the passing of Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith, this comes as a complete shock to me and I'm sure to every fan of Candice Rialson. As I sit here, eyes red from crying and just feeling emotionally suckerpunched, my primary concerns are: did she die peacefully? Did she know how loved she was by the film community? Was she in the company of family and friends? Some actresses of outsider films make such a deep impression on you that learning of their passing triggers a complete emotional breakdown. Candice Rialson is one of these. RIP Ms. Rialson.

Wow. Thank you for delivering the news, Casey, as tough as it may have been.

I just finished writing a tribute to Candice over at my blog.

She was one of the most talented of the 70's B queens and graced with a natural beauty few could match. Very sad news indeed, and I share many of Casey's questions. Claudia Jennings, Cheryl Smith and Candice were all gifted actresses and beautiful women who left this world much too young.

I'm not the biggest HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD fan but I often rewatch the title sequence alone, which shows Candice Rialson making the casting call rounds on Hollywood Boulevard. Although the sequence is primarily played for laughs, the effect of sweet melancholy that I take from it is a combination of the wistful title song and the look of the footage, the California sunshine of 30 years ago, and the understanding that so many people have come here (like I have) looking for the same dream, and that the rejection that Rialson's character encounters is probably not much different than the humiliations she faced when she was a young hopeful. I always found the montage bittersweet in the past, so I can't imagine how I'll feel watching it again in the wake of her untimely passing.

Rialson was one of those B-movie actresses whose name popped out at me from the pages of John Willis' Screen World annual, which I collected obsessively from 1974-1991. (This was not an inexpensive book for a 13 year old boy to pay for, even once a year... but I always found the scratch.) There were pictures of her in those glossy, black-and-white pages from PETS, THE EIGER SANCTION, and SUMMER SCHOOL TEACHERS (I puzzled over her character's strange name, "Conklin T."-- so not a girl's name!) and I name-checked her in other movies for which there were no illustrations... STUNTS with Robert Forster and CANDY STRIPE NURSES. I've actually seen relatively few of her movies, but she was always famous to me.

One of the pitfalls of enjoying a long life is that you see so many people fade away before you, people who defined and particularized your life in some way. Candice Rialson was one of those people for me, if by name more than by her acting ability. She played a small but pivotal part of my years of wonder, wonder about movies, wonder about life, wonder about girls... years in which Playboy and Famous Monsters of Filmland, my parents poorly concealed copy of The Joy of Sex, 16mm rental film catalogues and movie tie-in books were my key texts, my looking glass. She personified young womanhood for me in the early-to-mid 70s, at the dawn of my own sexuality, and her (seeming) brazenness and freshness both beguiled and intimidated me. At the ripe old age of 13 (at which I was already 6 feet tall and probably over 100 pounds), I wanted Candice Rialson... wanted her in the wonderful way that pre-teen boys used to want women thirty years ago (or longer), back before we all got so damned "sophisticated"; I wanted to get lost in her honey-colored hair, to intoxicate myself with the so obviously sweet scent of her freckled skin. I wanted other things, things I couldn't even put words to back then, but things I felt when I saw the name "Candice Rialson" in print. Oh... her.

Halfway through my life (well... touch wood), Candice Rialson's untimely death closes that circle, and now she's a part of my distant past and my color-faded memories of long summers and abundant sunshine and the aching wonder of what lay down the road.

This is sad and painful news. Whenever I think of Eastwood's film, THE EIGER SANCTION (1975), the scene with Rialson as the frisky art student propostioning Eastwood is always the first scene that comes to mind. I loved her in HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD. One wrong move and that movie might not have worked at all, but Rialson was perfect for it.

I was thinking about her when I contributed to the GRIND HOUSE thread over on the general cinema board a few weeks ago. I mentioned Claudia Jennings in my post, but I was thinking of all those unforgettable performers like Rialson and Rainbeaux and Erica Gavin and Pam Grier that graced exploitation films in those days. In last week's Entertainment Weekly they showed posters for PLANET TERROR, Rodriguez's segment of GRIND HOUSE, and one poster had Marley Shelton and the other had Rose McGowan and, I'm sorry, they just don't compare.

I wrote a short tribute at my blog, though it's nowhere near as elequent as Richard's great post above. I may rewatch some of her films and write some more over the weekend.

And I absolutely agree Brian, these girls today just don't compare.

Upon learning this, I knew that Mobius was a good place to post it, as this was the place where Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith's passing was met with such an outpouring of fan sentiment. After Smith's death, I remember someone posted, hoping that Candice was OK. That was 4 years ago.

I kept searching for loopholes to prove that this wasn't Candice. But all roads led to the inevitable... I agree with everyone here, Candice never got her due. She and Cheryl Smith both left this world too soon.

Tragic news. We have statements from HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD directors Joe Dante and Allan Arkush at Video WatchBlog.

I've just posted a round-up of some of the online tributes that have appeared today at High and Low - including Tim's messages from Joe and Allan, Marty's great career retrospective at Johnny LaRue, and this very thread, among others. I'll add more to the post as they appear.

That really saddens me in that I spent almost a full year searching for Candice Rialson a couple of years ago hoping for an interview for a piece for Mr. Skin. I ended up writing the article but is was (in my own opinion) underdeveloped because I really wanted her input. I even paid for a professional online people search, found a phone number near L.A., called it, only to find the line out of service. My heart sank.

She was my second cinematic crush (after Goldie Hawn) and I discovered Candice at the drive-in during the summer of 1977 when they ran CHATTERBOX constantly on the strand (specifically at the Skylark Drive-in Theater in Aurora, Illinois). Though "soft core" in sentiment, CHATTERBOX was a truly sweet film with Candice playing her role with a naivete and wide eyed wonder. Candice was 26 when that movie was released.

Her California-style good looks made me dream of how every girl must look in Malibu to a 17 year old midwestern teen.

Her last film was, I think, WINTER KILLS where she was relegated to a short scene riding on a golf cart with John Huston...she was only 28 when she dropped out of the biz.

But I often wonder if she was retched out by the Hollywood system - if she became a casualty and crashed and burned. Now we'll never know.

Sad, sad news ...

I remember Joe Dante once writing somewhere that her disappearance wasn't all that hard to understand if you realize that, in her last starring role, she played a girl with a garrulous vagina.

Reading these posts, it's sweet to see how much love and devotion her work inspired, but we need to be realistic. If you look at her career from what was likely to have been her perspective, she was only top-lined in a series of drive-in movies where she was obliged to take her top off, and whose titles probably didn't do her any favors at casting calls. She inspired a lot of schoolboy crushes, but I don't know many young professional women in their mid-20s who aspire to play solely to an audience of predominantly teenage boys. (Even today, it seems impossible to find a photo of her online that's suitable for illustrating a memorial blog.) When she appeared in pictures outside the New World universe, you could see, by the size of the roles she got, the true gulf between her stardom and her actual standing in Hollywood. It must be strange and frustrating for an ambitious young actress to be a goddess at one studio and no more than a walk-on or bit player at another, at the same time.

I would like to think that Candice found better things in life to pursue -- either in work or family, and had a great life for her remaining years. Hopefully, we'll find out. I would hate to think that she gave up her film career and regretted it for the rest of her life, but that's so unlike the survivor she was onscreen, I doubt that was the case. What I also suspect is that she probably had no idea how fondly she was remembered, or she might have kept in better touch.

Tim's observations are of course right-on... but I refuse to be realistic about Candice Rialson. And now I have to go... she's waiting for me at Zuma Beach. We'll spend the day body surfing and tonight we're going over to Lee Marvin's for drinks. A lot of drinks.

UPDATE --- FROM CODE RED DVD ---

Bill from Code Red just posted some more information on their MySpace blog regarding the circumstances of Candice's death. Bill writes, "My brother, Walter Olsen, spoke with Candice's husbands brother today. He was told the cause of death was liver disease. Apperently her liver got infected. He told Walter she was cremated, as that was her wishes. He told Walter near the end she was still in good mood, cracking jokes." And then the post takes a truly heartbreaking turn. Bill continues, "He asked him about if she wanted nothing to do with her acting past,as there was no obituary, and no news in the trade papers. No, as Candice and her family has all her films on video, and she talked about her film career to them all the time, and told Walter she would have been honored and more than happy to do a on camera interview and a commentary for the PETS DVD. Near the end, she was still talking about her days in Hollywood to her close friends and family. Sadly, she didn't know she still had fans. Fighting back the tears, Walter asked if he can make a retrospective documentary regarding Candices life, in which he replied Candice would have loved that, as she would have wanted to be remembered, as Walt's been invited to visit them next time he is in California."

It is very sad that Candy died without knowing that so many people remembered her so fondly, and this confirms that the lack of notice of her passing was not by choice, but by a tragic lack of interest by Hollywood and the film industry. It sounds like Code Red is already planning a video tribute to her, presumably to be included on the forthcoming Pets dvd. I wouldn't have thought that this story could have gotten any sadder, but this news just puts an extra depressing twist on things.

Special thanks to Bill and Walter at Code Red for getting the details out to all of us.

Dying at such a young age, liver issues, not realizing how many fans she had, being proud of her films, virtually no notice by the industry......this reminds me uncomfortably of the death of Rainbeaux in 2002. Candice was one of the few actresses who compelled me to see or rent or buy films she's in, even if only for a brief cameo.....also like Rainbeaux, it wasn't just her beauty....it was something else entirely that spoke of the human being and not the commodity. RIP

It is sad to hear that she was actually at ease with and proud of her acting roles, but was never given the appreciation and recognition in her later years, even from us rabid b-movie aficionados. I can understand mainstream Hollywood not caring at all (it's a ruthless town), but it would have been nice if she had known that she had a legion of fans out there. If it wasn't for the diligence of Walt and Bill Olsen, none of us would even know she had ever passed, much less anything about her feelings towards her career. I am definitely looking forward to any retrospective Code Red puts together for her on the "PETS" dvd.

Comic book and television writer Mark Evanier posts about the late Candice Rialson and his experience attempting to cast her in a TV project. The circumstances are sad and not terribly surprising.

How times have changed - Mark Wahlberg gets tons of roles despite starring in a film where he played a boy with a prodigious penis...

Yes, but it didn't tell jokes followed by rimshots.

Let's not forget the undeniable scourge of sexism- Wahlberg is a man.

Vincent

CBS certainly did not exhibit the same level of prudishness concerning Kristine DeBell when they hired her for their soap opera YOUNG & RESTLESS. Nor Hollywood in general, Kristine got several higher profile roles than CR ever did. While Candice starred in a R rated film titled CHATTERBOX, Kristine got her start in the X rated ALICE IN WONDERLAND where she performed fellatio and had a graphic masturbation scene. A real shame if that story is completely true and that was the sole reason behind their decision not to use Candice ( who could act circles around Kristine, no offence intended ). I would not be surprised if there is more to the story there, and like alot of questions about Candice in general, we'll most likely never know the real truth.

My point exactly...

PETS came out yesterday. None of the affiliates listed above have it in stock, but diabolikdvd.com has 4 copies.

As I'm sure many of you have heard, the print used for the DVD, while allegedly the best available, was in tatters.

No, I hadn't heard! I looked but didn't see any reviews online.

I don't even like PETS, but I'll probably buy this anyway.

Sometimes the buying public gets it right. From DVD Empire:

Current Bestsellers
1. Pets
2. National Parks, The: America's Best Idea
3. Stepfather, The
4. Drag Me To Hell: Unrated Director's Cut
5. Trick 'R Treat

I bought PETS and the source print used looks like someone's real pet chewed and spewed on it.

The reviews have disappointed me. Since it doesn't have any substantial extras (can't believe no one has done a comprehensive Rialson docu) and the print is rough, I can't see why I should upgrade my junky old VHS dub.