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Candy Barr: The Small-Town Texas Runaway Who Became a Darling of the Mob and the Queen of Las Vegas Burlesque
Born Juanita Slusher in Edna, Texas, in 1935, the entertainer who became Candy Barr was perhaps the last great dancer in burlesque, a stripper who insisted on live, improvisational music and who at one time commanded $2,000 a week in 1950s Las Vegas. But as Juanita she had started life as a prematurely well-developed thirteen-year-old runaway victimized by a Dallas ritual known as "the capture" that enslaved her into prostitution, for a time turning over 4,000 tricks a year before she was able to escape. A lover of Mickey Cohen's and friend to Jack Ruby, Barr's tumultuous life included a period of imprisonment on trumped-up drug charges, an appearance in a crude, 20-minute stag film, and unlikely role in the investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Based on over 100 hours of exclusive interviews with Barr, this book is not just the story of Juanita and Candy, but also paints an unflattering picture of all those who sought to exploit her.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
318 pages, Hardcover
First published August 13, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 29, 2014
The reviews I've read of this book are kind of harsh (if not stupid. Just as an aside: finding a book's subject matter "upsetting" is not reason to give it a * review, especially if you never even FINISHED READING IT. But I digress...). I do find it, technically, to be a little sloppy in spots.
But...
I got this book as "research" for the novel I'm working on (about a former porn star), but also because I find Barr's story fascinating.
Talk about a book that gives you an insight into true "rape culture" or "exploitation of women." I put those two terms in quotation marks because they get tossed around like the people who use them know what they really mean. The implication of their use is that, in 2014, a woman doing porn or a man looking at it are necessarily contributing to a "rape culture" or "exploitation of women."
But back in '40s-'50s Texas, if we are to believe this biography, there really LITERALLY was a culture of exploitation and rape, exemplified by what the author calls "the capture," where a young girl (usually in her teens) would get kidnapped and forced into prostitution. And that's what happened to Juanita Slusher (Candy's real name).
The "rape culture" in 40s-50s-60s Texas was a criminal operation in which kidnapped women were forced into prostitution and kept there until they either died or were (for lack of a better way of putting it) used up. They were kept there by force. Juanita, for instance, was picked up hitchhiking at age 15 and forced into it. Even BEFORE Juanita was "captured," though, as a child, she was serially sexually abused by relatives and close acquaintances of the family. Her story is doubly horrific, even though it ended with her escaping "the capture" and becoming a celebrity.
The worst thing about "the capture" was that it truly was "rape culture." The law ignored the problem, and in fact was part of it. Women were considered subservient to men; the prostitutes, therefore, "didn't matter," and in many cases, the police not only turned the other way, but essentially protected the pimps and the johns so that they could continue to exploit these women.
One big reason? Many of the men who frequented these prostitutes went on to prominent positions in the community, in business or government. A prostitute, therefore, was considered "expendable" compared to the reputation of the man who frequented her.
Juanita ended up married to two of the men who controlled her in "the capture," but somehow escaped the fate of a lot of these women, and through a series of breaks, became a dancer who took on the stage name Candy Barr, leaving prostitution and "the capture" behind. Candy became perhaps the best-known stripper of her time, performing not only at clubs and parties in Dallas, but eventually as a showgirl in Las Vegas.
Oh, and Candy had "a book."
According to Joe Ashmore, a former Dallas judge, and one of the few public officials who was willing to talk and be identified by name in the book, "the book" was"an address book of all the who's who" in Dallas... full, rumor had it, of the names of men who had "known" Candy back when she was turning tricks as "Juanita."
"Everyone looked for that book," Ashmore said. "And I can remember some old newspaper stories (saying) that that book was going to surface or somebody had that book," which would have been trouble... so, of course, as these men rose in prominence in the Dallas community, and gained more financial and political power, "they wanted to get (Candy's) happy ass out of circulation," said Ashmore. "They were becoming federal judges and people like that and they couldn't have their names known. Developers, builders, city planners, etc. Candy Barr wasn't putting a bite on them. They were scared. A minister would be ridden out of town on a rail if he messed around." No one, Schwarz writes, dared get caught in Candy Barr's address book.
The actual book was apparently just a list of first names and phone numbers that Candy used to book private dance appearances at parties. But the THREAT of "the book" meant that Juanita was harrassed by the police, busted for "vagrancy" and other charges, and, eventually, sent to jail for possession of an ounce of marijuana, serving three years of a 12 year sentence.
From this biography, I got the impression that Candy was someone who took her clothes off onstage not because she was an exhibitionist or because she was forced into it, but because maybe it gave her a little bit of a feeling of control over her body... in other words, by being a stripper, she actually was NOT being exploited any longer! After all she'd been through, what she was doing onstage was truly (to use two overused phrases) "empowering" and her "reclaiming her sexuality." Because up to her age of consent, she was anything BUT empowered, and everyone BUT her claimed and took and used her body sexually. To Candy Barr, stripping and dancing onstage was LIBERATION... her way of "taking back her body" and "taking control of her body and her sexuality" in ways she couldn't when she was caught in "the capture" all those years before... and I suspect, in ways that people who toss around all those bullshit phrases about porn (empowerment, demeaning, exploitation, rape culture, taking back your body, etc) could never REALLY understand.
"Juanita Slusher was a prostitute," she said later. "Juanita Dabbs (her first married name) was a prostitute. Juanita Phillips (her second married name) was a prostitute. All those Juanitas probably turned 4000 tricks a year. But Candy Barr was a dancer, an entertainer, a star. Candy Barr was the very essence of myself."
Fascinating, gripping reading and it's giving me a lot of great ideas for my novel and my characters.
But...
I got this book as "research" for the novel I'm working on (about a former porn star), but also because I find Barr's story fascinating.
Talk about a book that gives you an insight into true "rape culture" or "exploitation of women." I put those two terms in quotation marks because they get tossed around like the people who use them know what they really mean. The implication of their use is that, in 2014, a woman doing porn or a man looking at it are necessarily contributing to a "rape culture" or "exploitation of women."
But back in '40s-'50s Texas, if we are to believe this biography, there really LITERALLY was a culture of exploitation and rape, exemplified by what the author calls "the capture," where a young girl (usually in her teens) would get kidnapped and forced into prostitution. And that's what happened to Juanita Slusher (Candy's real name).
The "rape culture" in 40s-50s-60s Texas was a criminal operation in which kidnapped women were forced into prostitution and kept there until they either died or were (for lack of a better way of putting it) used up. They were kept there by force. Juanita, for instance, was picked up hitchhiking at age 15 and forced into it. Even BEFORE Juanita was "captured," though, as a child, she was serially sexually abused by relatives and close acquaintances of the family. Her story is doubly horrific, even though it ended with her escaping "the capture" and becoming a celebrity.
The worst thing about "the capture" was that it truly was "rape culture." The law ignored the problem, and in fact was part of it. Women were considered subservient to men; the prostitutes, therefore, "didn't matter," and in many cases, the police not only turned the other way, but essentially protected the pimps and the johns so that they could continue to exploit these women.
One big reason? Many of the men who frequented these prostitutes went on to prominent positions in the community, in business or government. A prostitute, therefore, was considered "expendable" compared to the reputation of the man who frequented her.
Juanita ended up married to two of the men who controlled her in "the capture," but somehow escaped the fate of a lot of these women, and through a series of breaks, became a dancer who took on the stage name Candy Barr, leaving prostitution and "the capture" behind. Candy became perhaps the best-known stripper of her time, performing not only at clubs and parties in Dallas, but eventually as a showgirl in Las Vegas.
Oh, and Candy had "a book."
According to Joe Ashmore, a former Dallas judge, and one of the few public officials who was willing to talk and be identified by name in the book, "the book" was"an address book of all the who's who" in Dallas... full, rumor had it, of the names of men who had "known" Candy back when she was turning tricks as "Juanita."
"Everyone looked for that book," Ashmore said. "And I can remember some old newspaper stories (saying) that that book was going to surface or somebody had that book," which would have been trouble... so, of course, as these men rose in prominence in the Dallas community, and gained more financial and political power, "they wanted to get (Candy's) happy ass out of circulation," said Ashmore. "They were becoming federal judges and people like that and they couldn't have their names known. Developers, builders, city planners, etc. Candy Barr wasn't putting a bite on them. They were scared. A minister would be ridden out of town on a rail if he messed around." No one, Schwarz writes, dared get caught in Candy Barr's address book.
The actual book was apparently just a list of first names and phone numbers that Candy used to book private dance appearances at parties. But the THREAT of "the book" meant that Juanita was harrassed by the police, busted for "vagrancy" and other charges, and, eventually, sent to jail for possession of an ounce of marijuana, serving three years of a 12 year sentence.
From this biography, I got the impression that Candy was someone who took her clothes off onstage not because she was an exhibitionist or because she was forced into it, but because maybe it gave her a little bit of a feeling of control over her body... in other words, by being a stripper, she actually was NOT being exploited any longer! After all she'd been through, what she was doing onstage was truly (to use two overused phrases) "empowering" and her "reclaiming her sexuality." Because up to her age of consent, she was anything BUT empowered, and everyone BUT her claimed and took and used her body sexually. To Candy Barr, stripping and dancing onstage was LIBERATION... her way of "taking back her body" and "taking control of her body and her sexuality" in ways she couldn't when she was caught in "the capture" all those years before... and I suspect, in ways that people who toss around all those bullshit phrases about porn (empowerment, demeaning, exploitation, rape culture, taking back your body, etc) could never REALLY understand.
"Juanita Slusher was a prostitute," she said later. "Juanita Dabbs (her first married name) was a prostitute. Juanita Phillips (her second married name) was a prostitute. All those Juanitas probably turned 4000 tricks a year. But Candy Barr was a dancer, an entertainer, a star. Candy Barr was the very essence of myself."
Fascinating, gripping reading and it's giving me a lot of great ideas for my novel and my characters.
February 9, 2025
Having grown up in the Dallas area, I had heard of the stripper Candy Barr as a young man, thus the book was of interest to me to read. This is a biography of Juanita Slusher, aka Candy Barr.
The book was interesting and enlightening. I was already aware of much of the information in the book, but I was unfamiliar with a lot of her life. Despite her fame and notoriety, she lived a very tragic life. Much of her life was spent in subjection to others, including abusive men, pimps, corrupt politicians, police officers, and judges. Her arrest and prison sentence for marijuana was a set up job, and her years spent as a prostitute were a result of being forced into the business against her will.
My only complaints about the book is it is not written in complete chronological order. The story skips around a bit and was confusing as to the time frame involved. A paragraph may start out in the 1960's and suddenly shift to the 1970's without warning. Only after reading for a few pages did I realize the author had shifted the time frame. Also there is a discrepency regarding the age of her daughter Troylene. The author states Troylene was born in 1956. But at one point, the author states Troylene was 16 years old in 1969, which would make her born in 1953. Actually, I believe Troylene was born in 1955. The author should have been more consistent about these facts since it is so easy to check public records to ensure the information presented is accurate.
However, it was an interesting and enjoyable, but sad, read. I highly recommend it, especially if you want to learn how things really worked in the 1950's and 1960's.
The book was interesting and enlightening. I was already aware of much of the information in the book, but I was unfamiliar with a lot of her life. Despite her fame and notoriety, she lived a very tragic life. Much of her life was spent in subjection to others, including abusive men, pimps, corrupt politicians, police officers, and judges. Her arrest and prison sentence for marijuana was a set up job, and her years spent as a prostitute were a result of being forced into the business against her will.
My only complaints about the book is it is not written in complete chronological order. The story skips around a bit and was confusing as to the time frame involved. A paragraph may start out in the 1960's and suddenly shift to the 1970's without warning. Only after reading for a few pages did I realize the author had shifted the time frame. Also there is a discrepency regarding the age of her daughter Troylene. The author states Troylene was born in 1956. But at one point, the author states Troylene was 16 years old in 1969, which would make her born in 1953. Actually, I believe Troylene was born in 1955. The author should have been more consistent about these facts since it is so easy to check public records to ensure the information presented is accurate.
However, it was an interesting and enjoyable, but sad, read. I highly recommend it, especially if you want to learn how things really worked in the 1950's and 1960's.
January 27, 2020
This is not a light read. Tragic and heavy but interesting.
October 15, 2020
A tragic life and eye opening piece of Texas history. I would not say it was especially well written, but the story is worth telling.
February 27, 2023
Biography of mob darling burlesque dancer Candy Barr.
September 2, 2024
It was interesting, but I hated the fact that the author was obsessively about her body.
December 27, 2015
Candy Barr: The Small Town Texas Runaway Who Became a Darling of the Mob and the Queen of Las Vegas Burlesque by Ted Schwarz (Taylor Trade Publishing 2008) (Biography). In a nutshell, a small-town Texas girl is abused on all sides as a kid. She was a gorgeous girl and was born into a family nest of perverts and imbeciles in small town Texas in the 1930's . The first half of the book is fairly shocking: it's not about burlesque, it's about cruelty, the institutionalized rape of a child, and the subjugation / degradation required to break an individual's will in preparation for being turned out into a life of prostitution. The second half of the story, in which the protagonist "rises" to the glamourous life of stripper / burlesque dancer, is boring and simply filler. This reader assumes that the authors have over-hyped the subject's passing acquaintances with notorious public figures into high drama for the purpose of padding a thin manuscript into this biography which even came with a salacious title. My rating: 6.5/10, finished 9/1/2010.
October 5, 2009
I tried to read this, but the story was just really getting to me. Too many bad things happened with no hope of any type of salvation for the author...not uplifting at all. I know it was true, but it just made me too sad to finish it.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews