Candida Royalle was born on October 15, 1950 in New York City. Candida was raised by her father and stepmother after her biological mother abandoned her when she was only eighteen months old. Royalle trained in music, dance, and the arts in New York City: She not only studied dance and music at New York's High School of Art and Design, but also attended both the Parsons School of Design and the City University of New York. She was active in the women's movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's.
Royalle moved to San Francisco, California in 1970. She was a singer in clubs and theaters prior to becoming involved in the adult entertainment industry. Candida did her first explicit hardcore movie in California in the mid-1970's. After acting in a handful of X-rated features, Royalle returned to her native New York City in 1980 and subsequently founded the production company Femme Productions in 1984 with the specific intention of making erotica based on female desire as well as producing hardcore fare aimed at helping couples therapy. An early feminist pioneer in what later became known as the "couples" market, Candida's work was notable both for its admirable refusal to depict sex in a remotely degrading and/or misogynistic fashion and its equally laudable emphasis on showing sex in the broader context of women's social and emotional lives. Royalle signed the Post Porn Modernist Manifesto in 1989. In addition, Candida was not only a member of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, but also was a founding board member of the group Feminists for Free Expression. Royalle published the book "How To Tell a Naked Man What to Do" in 2004. She died at age 64 from ovarian cancer on September 7, 2015.
