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Candy Clark arrived in Hollywood in the early 1970s, a feisty twenty-year-old who left her conservative Texas hometown to pursue a career in modeling in New York City. Although she had little interest in acting, she landed a role as a boxer's girlfriend in John Huston's Fat City, opposite famed actor Jeff Bridges. She moved into Bridges' Malibu home but left behind a bungalow on Fountain Avenue, close to the auditions. She was cast in American Graffiti, George Lucas's second film about a group of sixties teenagers spending a summer evening in Modesto, California, before entering adulthood. Clark played Debbie Dunham, a sexy, platinum-haired beauty who climbs into a Chevy with a shy suitor in search of adventure. She worked with such young actors as Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, and Ron Howard (credited as Ronnie). Without realizing it—no one did—she was in the period that would become known and mythologized as the New Hollywood. Wherever she went, she always took a Polaroid camera with her.
Candy Clark photographed by Ed Ruscha in the desert, circa 1976. Photo by Ed Ruscha / Courtesy of the artist
Ed Ruscha. Photo by Candy Clark
Years later, Clarke released Tight Heads, a collection of her Polaroids from the 1970s and early 1980s. She found them in the spare bedroom of her Los Angeles home at the request of writer Sam Sweet, who interviewed Angelenos for All Night Menu and became the book’s editor and publisher. “Hollywood is the story of men looking at women through cameras,” Sweet writes in the introduction. “Nick
Sourse: newyorker.com
