The first time I saw American Graffiti must have been around 1978 on the telly, which would have made me about 12 years old, and I have to tell you, Debbie was everything a 12 year old kid could fantasize about: Super Cute, Loud, Naughty, Sassy, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, willing to give the unpopular loser (Terry the Toad, as played by Charlie Martin Smith) the time of day! Why, she was an…an…ANGEL! Ahahahaha!
So yeah, I was pretty infatuated with Candy Clark! I remember this one time, a kid brought to class the AMERICAN GRAFFITI novelized paperback that was the movie tie-in book, one of those books that had a bunch of pages with black and white pictures in the middle, you know the ones I mean. Anyway, I desperately wanted to see if there were any pictures of Debbie in that paperback, but that stupid kid refused to let me see it, because he was more interested in running around the class showing all the girls the picture from the movie of some guy mooning his butt out a driving car! Grrr…
I’ll tell you a funny coincidence… I was SO infatuated with Candy Clark: I remember a neighbor had a copy of HUSTLER laying around with a cute blonde on the cover, and the first thing my mind said was “WOW! that girl looks like…DEBBIE!” I remember wondering if it WAS Candy Clark! After all, this was the year when the scandal of Angie “Police Woman” Dickinson nude shots were all the buzz, so WHY NOT pics of Candy Clark?
Well, it wasn’t Candy Clark, and I would have forgotten all about it, but in an interesting turn of events, the model on the HUSTLER cover turned out to be none other than Dale Bozzio, she of MISSING PERSONS fame! I remember when they showed the cover of the magazine, I immediately recognized it, exclaiming, “Hey! Dale was that model I thought looked like Candy Clark!” (It’s the December 1982 issue, if you care to look it up) Funny thing though, looking at the cover NOW, she doesn’t look much like Debbie, after all! HAHAHA!
I remember a year or so after I’d fallen in love with Candy Clark, they released a sequel to American Graffiti called MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI (how original!), and I really had to BEG my friends to come down with me to see the movie, because I desperately needed to see it!! One of the main reasons I wanted to see this, of course, was because Candy Clark was one of the cast members from the original movie that would be reprising her role.
Well, I’d like to say that It was great and I was blown away, but the fact of the matter was, I hadn’t realized that the Debbie character was wearing a fluffy blonde WIG in the first movie, and no such wig was found atop the head of Candy Clark in the second one! GASP! Why, I didn’t even RECOGNIZE Candy when she first appeared…it was only after watching the scene that I figured it out, and folks, I mean to tell you…I WAS CRUSHED!
But to be honest, it wasn’t just her- the movie was supposed to reflect the late sixties hippie-culture, peace, Vietnam War, etc, and well, it just didn’t have that magic the first one had.
Oh well…I still had the original movie to keep me company!
Years later, the American Graffiti Movie came out on Laserdisc(!),and I was able to enjoy the movie without having to either rent it or wait for it to appear on TV, and once again, I was instantly taken back to my Debbie-obsessed days! THEN, even MORE years later, when the Collector’s Edition DVD came out, I watched it, and yep, fell in love AGAIN!
I may pass on ever needing to see “More” American Graffiti again, but the original will always remain one of my very favorite movies of all time, and you can be sure that each time I re-watch it, I will have Candy Clark on the brain, as well!
