Biography
Model-turned-actress Candy Clark first came to filmgoers' attention with a secondary role in
John Huston's
Fat City. Then Clark
really went to town as gum-chewing, dumb-like-a-fox Debbie Dunham in
American Graffiti (1974); for her portrayal of the girl who reminds
Charles Martin Smith of
Connie Stevens (well, it
sounded like a good pick-up line, anyway), she was nominated for an Academy Award. Equally worthwhile roles followed in
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), which included the scene wherein a sympathetic Clark lifted and carried ailing alien
David Bowie, and the 1978 remake of
The Big Sleep, which featured the actress as the deviant, thumb-sucking Carmilla Sternwood. Then, inexplicably, the actress endured a cinematic dry spell, though she was seen (and her Oklahoma accent heard) to good advantage in the made-for-TV movies
Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill (1979) and
Rodeo Girl (1980). In 1981, she made her first off-Broadway appearance in A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking. Candy Clark has been consigned to maternal roles in such films as
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and
Radioland Murders (1994). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide