(2/1/15) Hot on the heels of earning her doctorate in human sexuality this summer, Candida Royalle was featured along with the surviving members of “Club 90” in the closing keynote session at CatalystCon. Representing the “Golden Age of Porn” along with Veronica Hart, Veronica Vera, Annie Sprinkle, the “Club 90” ladies, which also included the late Gloria Leonard, were the original “Sex and the City” girls, turning to each other for support and forming a bond that would last for over thirty years. They went on to pursue their personal goals and, in the process, blazed new trails in the fields of human sexuality, women’s empowerment and free speech. It promised to be a unique reunion and comes at a time where Candida Royalle’s compelling life story is gaining more widespread attention.
Recently, Canadian filmmaker Sheona McDonald announced an upcoming documentary on Royalle’s amazing life entitled: While You Were Gone. The project is planned as a deeply intimate portrait of a woman in search of answers and will portray Royalle’s search for the mother who walked out on her when she was only 18 months old along with the real-life saga of growing up to become a fiercely independent pioneer in erotic filmmaking and a fighter who beat drug addiction and cancer into remission. “Candida Royalle is a woman you think you know,” McDonald said, “with a story you’ve heard before: a porn star, turned producer, turned advocate for women’s sexual rights. But inside the story you know, is a woman you don’t.” Simply put, Royalle’s life has never been conventional. At every fork in the road, she has chosen the path less traveled and, in so doing, has challenged herself, raised the bar and found a new way forward. Whenever told “It can’t be done,” she says, “Just watch me!”
The following video, produced by McDonald for her YouTube channel, summarizes the project: http://youtu.be/I6yehyoC7mQ. For more information about the project and to contribute to its success, please visit: http://whileyouweregonefilm.wordpress.com/donate/
Love your site and this post.
Congrats on speaking at CatalystCon West! Wish I could be there. I attended the earlier Club 90 reunion at the Museum of Sex in New York back in 2012, and it was wonderful. Candida Royalle truly is an inspiration.