LOS ANGELES—The last time this author heard from Candace Collene "Candi Girl" Carmichael was in the Spring of 2018, when she IM'd, "OK IM GONNA KICK SOME CHEMO ASS IN THE MORNING !! WHOOT WHOOT" and a few days later, "Coming out of round 2 of chemo.....WHEW !! This is a rough ride...I aint gonna lie...but im hangin' in there !!" The cancer she referenced was mesothelioma, possibly contracted from inhaling asbestos fibers during her days as a house painter before picking up a camera and becoming one of the main videographers for Girlfriends Films between roughly 2007 and 2012. She passed peacefully at home on the morning of October 14. She was 50 years old.
"We had a show that we put on our [Girlfriends] website, The Vault; she was very good on that," recalled Dan O'Connell, one of the owners of Girlfriends Films during Carmichael's tenure there. "We would bring in a porn star, and then it would be Candi Girl and myself who would interview the person, and she was always very funny on set. It was a show where we gave little teasers about what we'd been shooting and then we'd bring in a girl to interview and so on."
Carmichael had walk-on roles in a couple of Girlfriends productions, but her other main contribution to the company was as a set decorator.
"She was good at making a set," O'Connell said. "We would decorate the sets, and we were very careful with colors and everything from picking sheets to artwork and putting trinkets in there and making the place look like a young woman's room, and she was very good at that. She was a good set decorator, and that was a big help because too often, when we rented homes, we were using a bedroom that looked like it was grandpa's room and not belonging to some young college-age girl. Candi Girl took care of that."
Another of Carmichael's friends and supporters in the industry was award-winning director Kay Brandt.
"I met Candace in 2009 when I went into the offices of Girlfriends Films to interview for the job of writer/director, and I liked her instantly; I thought she was a very unique person who had a unique presence," Brandt told AVN. "She had a strong presence. She definitely had a personality that you couldn't ignore. It wasn't abrasive or anything; she just had a presence about her that I liked, and she felt the same way about me, so we instantly hit it off, and she's part of the reason why I accepted the job back then."
Carmichael was the videographer for all of Brandt's productions for Girlfriends, and followed Brandt when she left and went briefly to Metro, where the pair produced seven features.
"She was hysterical," Brandt continued. "She was just a funny, lively, creative, inspired person who believed in everything I did, and always told me I could do whatever I wanted in life in general, not just at Girlfriends. She believed in me. She believed in me so much and she really didn't want me to leave Girlfriends when I did. She begged me to stay, she was so upset that I left because we had an amazing working relationship together. We made a lot of content together, because we were shooting five and six days a week for months and months, and we started getting together after work, and even after I left Girlfriends Films, we still met up with each other for coffee and hung out, and we always wanted to find another way to work together because we had such great chemistry as a director and a shooter.
"It was so important, my first gig in this industry after spending a long time in mainstream, and I was really uncertain about being in the adult biz and all that, and she just sort of like held my hand through the whole getting used to it, getting comfortable with what was expected of me from Dan, and she just made it so much easier. She made it fun, and I never stopped laughing on set, and we collaborated so well together. If I was being short-sighted or I didn't quite have the full vision, she would come in and simply give me all of her suggestions and I loved pretty much everything she said, and if I didn’t, she wasn't offended by it; we would just laugh it off and go with it. But we just had this amazing collaborative energy together," Brandt summed up.
Carmichael had many close friends, including a few ex-girlfriends and others that she kept in touch with, and who remembered her on her Facebook page.
"My heart is shattered. Today I lost one of my dearest friends," wrote Michele Weymouth upon hearing of her friend's death. "Candace Collene Carmichael, I love you more than words can say. You fought a good fight. When I met you 27 years ago, you came into my life as a free spirit, so happy and full of life. You gave me my first veggie chicken nugget. (My taste buds weren't happy.) You had me rescuing puppies in the middle of the night in the rain. We've danced, We've laughed, We've fought, We've cried and not one day did I ever stop loving you. You brought joy to everyone you came in touch with. I will miss you like crazy. I'm am thankful you are finally at peace. Rest Easy my Candi-Ass!!!!! Your Shelly-Butt loves you."
Weymouth spoke at length with AVN about her memories of Carmichael and their adventures together—like the time they got ejected from the Hollywood Bowl for disturbing a performance by soft rock group Peter, Paul and Mary.
"We ended up in the parking lot of the Hollywood Bowl because we were trapped there, because at the Hollywood Bowl, there's really no parking lot; they just line you up wherever, and we were trapped for the whole concert so we ended up partying in the parking lot of the Hollywood Bowl and listening to Peter, Paul and Mary outside of the venue."
Weymouth recalled another concert the pair attended, with a happier ending.
"The reason we got to AC/DC was, her and Dawn and I were partying in their house, and I left to go get beer because I was the sober one, and I walked back in the house and they were screaming. I shut the door and I'm like, 'Ohmigod, what happened?' They're like, 'Ohmigod, you won't believe this but I just won tickets to AC/DC,' and I was like, 'Woo-hoo; when are we going?' But how she won the tickets is the best part of the story. Those two were arguing facts about AC/DC. Well, back then, we didn't have Google so you couldn't just Google anything and get your answers; you had to call a radio station. So they called KLOS, arguing, and they weren't listening to KLOS; they were listening to a CD on the CD player, and they just happened to call KLOS because they were arguing, and they said, 'You're caller number whatever,' and she's like, 'Um, for what? What did I win?' And she won AC/DC tickets. And we went to see them and it was awesome."
Weymouth was also with Carmichael during her final days.
"She got diagnosed about two-and-a-half years ago and we were thankful for the last two-and-a-half years that we were able to spend with her," Weymouth said. "We didn't think it was going to be as long as it was, and it was a beautiful thing that we were able to have that much time. But she was just amazing. Her love for animals was incredible. She had me one night—I think around midnight, we heard these puppies crying behind our house, and it was pouring down rain, and she had me throwing her over a fence to get these puppies out of this mud puddle. Midnight, six puppies, trying to get them over the fence; handing them to me; everything was muddy. She was an animal lover; she was a well-rounded person, usually in very good spirits, positive—she was amazing, positively amazing."
Another Carmichael fan and friend was actress Zoey Holloway, though it took a little while for the pair to gain each other's respect.
"I met her when I first began working for Girlfriends Films and she just was a little bit standoffish of the new girl, but I proved myself to her and she welcomed me with open arms and was just a joy to be around," Holloway recalled. "At one point, she got into stamping metal and she sent me some things that were stamped and I guess in one of the scenes, I had yelled at a girl, 'Goddamnit,' and she thought it was so hilarious, she stamped 'Goddamnit' into a medal for me and made it into a refrigerator magnet, so I keep it on my fridge. She really touched my heart."
Holloway shot quite a bit for Girlfriends Films, and even came up with the concept for its long-running series Please Make Me a Lesbian, most of which were shot by Carmichael.
"Candi Girl became a good friend outside of shooting scenes, and she was always such a joy, always positive, and she was sending me things about other people who had beat cancer and videos and positive things, so it was just a shock to see that she had left on Sunday. Even until the end, I was looking at my last messages from her earlier in the year, and she was still just positive, just always saying how strong she was and everything's cool and she's living and living good; didn't want anyone to feel down for her. She was always trying to spread positivity. I drove down to LA to say goodbye to her and was able to get one picture with her where she was just smiling big and throwing the peace sign out; that was Candi Girl. I'm glad I was able to get that last photo with her, because that just sums her up: Big ol' smile and a peace sign."
Holloway was also aware that Carmichael was seeking a biographer.
"I was just looking at the messages, text messages from her and she had wanted somebody to write her life story and I don't know if she ever found anybody to do that. It was just a surprise to find that she had passed."
In fact, in 2014, Carmichael had asked Kay Brandt, who's a mainstream author as well as an adult filmmaker, to write her story, but the two never connected on it.
"It's sad, but we never took the time to really sit down and talk about it, which is so unfortunate, but that's kind of how things happen sometimes, and that's where it was," Brandt told AVN. "She had a whole life story that I didn't know a lot about, and I had full intentions of writing it out one day and it just never happened."
One thing is clear, however, from the outpourings of friendship and remembrance: Candi Girl Carmichael touched a lot of lives during her time on this planet, and many will remember her fondly for that.
