First published 2009
Candy Spelling opens the doors to her extravagant world as the wife of television mogul Aaron Spelling. Once a shy girl named Carole Gene Marer who hid in powder rooms when meeting celebrities, she transformed herself into the mistress of Los Angeles's largest private home. She created artificial snow on tennis courts for California Christmases, traveled cross-country in private train cars with fifty-two pieces of luggage, and commissioned designer Nolan Miller to create Halloween costumes for her children Tori and Randy. Candy influenced beloved TV shows like Dynasty, stopping production when she deemed an engagement ring insufficiently spectacular. Yet beneath the glamorous surface, she grapples with deeper insecurities. Her daughter's public description of her as "complicated" stings. Oprah's discussion of hoarding sends her into panic. She developed a lifelong humming habit as her personal coping mechanism. Through stories of entertaining Hollywood's elite and managing her grand estate, Candy explores why perfection mattered so much to her and how domestic rituals kept her family together.
Genres: family-life, autobiography, memoir, non-fiction
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: rags-to-riches, unreliable-narrator
Setting: California, Los Angeles
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
248 pages · Hardcover · St. Martin's Press