Candy Dubois

Candy Patricia Manzo Seguel

(24 de augost 1942 – 21 de may 1996)

 

 

Candy never knew her mother and is raised by her paternal grandparents in Cartagena.

 

At the age of 10, after the death of her grandmother, her father abandons her in a correctional facility in Valparaíso. Her life hell, she and her first love, El Rucio, plan to escape from there, and in the attempt El Rucio falls from the roof and dies.

 

After escaping, Candy sleeps among the boats in Caleta El Membrillo, where she meets a fisherman, her second great love, Chamu Mefi. Candy begins to work, doing everything, in the restaurant "San Pedro", after a while, with the sponsorship of the owners, she begins to do dance presentations doing lip sync to songs by Sara Montiel and dancing mambo. As make-up she uses chalk from the pool tables, the owner makes her a bikini with a crocheted tablecloth. To the applause of the fishermen, she begins her career.

 

In Santiago (1964), Candy manages to work at the famous La Carlina venue, Boîte Cabaré Bossanova. La Carlina, a visionary, decides to give Candy and other artists a space on stage, creating the first drag show in Chile. They become a sensation; everyone wants to see them. It is here where Candy meets the members of the Blue Ballet (1966) Solange, Alexandra, Gigi, Caprice and Monique.

 

In 1967, convinced by the show business manager Tino Ortiz, king of Arica's bohemia, they left La Carlina and Bossanova, to perform at the Manhattan in Arica. There they meet their first choreographer, designer, and mentor Fredy Tukas.

 

The Blue Ballet is a success in Arica, they have a contract for a month, they stay for almost a year. In Antofagasta the same story: sensation. The Café Checo in Valparaíso is the port where they stop for several months until in 1968, after defeating a moralistic boycott by the mayor and some show businessmen, led by La Carlina, they debut at Bim Bam Bum, the famous magazine company which is presented at the Opera Theatre.

 

 

In this period, they already have more than 16 works ready to perform, with their costumes and elements. Paco Mairena, choreographer from Bim Bam Bum, becomes their guardian and adoptive father. Paco writes “An American in Paris” for them, a work that makes them have multiple and demanding roles, each one of them taking their cross-dressing to the maximum. The work is a success with the public and specialized critics. Under his tutelage they form a notable dance group, unique in the history of the national show, at a time when it seemed impossible for a homosexual show to be popular. It is precisely the seriousness with which they work and rehearse what makes this event possible and the public rewards them with their applause and assistance. The consecration is undeniable. His recreations of La Quintrala, Cleopatra or Pavlova, the Geishas, leave the public speechless. So, do also, the striptease numbers where they end up naked covered only by a stole.

 

In May 1973, in search of new opportunities, the six embarked from Arica together with Tino Ortiz on the ship "Verdi" to Genoa. After a few presentations, understanding this new scenario, Tino returns to Chile and the girls decide to separate, it is more practical in terms of work, they spread out across Europe, getting together a couple of times to perform in Germany. Candy works mainly in France, where she marries Claude Dubois and then returns to Chile in 1983.

 

Together with her partner from the Blue Ballet Monique Leserre, she establishes a Little or Petit Trianon, in the historic center of Santiago. Meticulously decorated, Le Trianon revives a time of lost splendor, a French-style restaurant from the 1950s, with velvet curtains, an ornate building, the last vestige of the magazine genre. Candy Dubois in '84 reappears on the local scene with a Parisian-style cabaret show. Here, drag and dance shows are performed, under the artistic direction of Paco Mairena; artistic activities that avoided the repression imposed by authoritarianism during the military dictatorship in the 1980s. Le Trianon was the space where Candy once again elegantly protected the capital's nightlife.

 

 

Starting in 1990, she made numerous audiovisuals, films and video clips, recorded music and presented modern shows, turning her into a popular, admired and respected icon in the 1990s, she is the most valued star of the Santiago avant-garde.