Juanita Dale Slusher, better known as Candy Barr, was born on July 6, 1935, in Edna, Texas. She began her stripping career in her native Texas, becoming famous in the clubs of Dallas, particularly after a drug bust, before playing lucrative venues in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New Orleans in the late 1950s. She reportedly made $2,000 a week, equivalent to approximately $15,500 in 2012 dollars.
Barr served as a technical adviser on the movie Seven Thieves (1960),in which Joan Collins played an exotic dancer. She also appeared in a pornographic film, Smart Alec (1951),at the age of 16. She worked as a stripper at Barney Weinstein's Dallas strip club The Theater Lounge and the Colony Club, where she became known for her Texas-themed outfit.
In 1953, she married for a second time and had a daughter. Three years later, she shot her husband, Troy Phillips, when he broke down the door of her apartment. The case was dropped due to lack of evidence.
Barr tried acting, appearing in a 1957 Dallas production of "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" In October of that year, she was arrested by Dallas police for possessing nearly an ounce of marijuana. She was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison, but the case was dropped on appeal.
The pot bust increased her fame, and she became a mistress of gangster Mickey Cohen. She was hired by 20th Century-Fox to tutor star Joan Collins in the fine art of the strip-tease. Collins wrote in her autobiography that Barr was "a down-to-earth girl with an incredibly gorgeous body and an angelic face."
Barr was arrested by the FBI and returned to Texas to begin her imprisonment. She later testified in Cohen's 1961 tax evasion trial. When she was paroled in April 1963, she was not allowed to move to Dallas. Instead, she returned to her hometown of Edna, where she intended to become an animal breeder.
At the time of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Barr was interviewed by the FBI, which was likely probing Ruby's ties to a possible conspiracy. Barr had been in regular telephonic contact with Ruby after her release from prison, and the FBI thought Ruby had told her names and places and people, which he didn't.
Texas Governor John Connally, who was wounded riding in the presidential limousine during the JFK assassination, pardoned her in 1967. Barr claimed she did not know why he did it, unless he had read her record and realized she had been framed.
Now free of the legal restrictions of her parole, she went back to stripping in 1968, appearing in L.A. and Las Vegas. She returned to Texas to take care of her dying father the following year and was busted for pot possession once more. The case was dismissed for lack of evidence.
In 1970, she legally changed her name to Candy Barr. Two years later, she published a book of poems she had composed in prison, "A Gentle Mind... Confused". In 1976, at the age of 41, she appeared nude in "Oui" Magazine. She then avoided notoriety, though there were plans to make a film of her life starring Farrah Fawcett. The movie was never made.
Candy Barr died on December 30, 2005, in Victoria, Texas, at the age of 70.
