Candida Royalle, born Candice Vandala, grew up in New York City and trained in dance and music before entering the adult film industry in 1974. Candida starred in about 25 Golden Age films before retiring from performing in 1984 - after which she became the first woman to start her own studio, Femme Productions, and was one of the earliest female directors. In her later years, she, with the help of a private investigator, managed to track down her birth mother, who had abandoned her at 18 months, but she had already passed away from ovarian cancer. Not long after, Royalle was herself diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which she succumbed to on September 7, 2015.