Born 91 years ago today (14 August 1935): fashion model turned Copacabana nightclub dancer turned actress Candace Hilligoss. For connoisseurs of cult cinema, Hilligoss is eternally cherished for her single onscreen leading role as Mary Henry in dream-like and bizarre 1962 low-budget horror classic Carnival of Souls (vividly and accurately likened to āan episode ofĀ TheĀ TwilightĀ ZoneĀ directed by Ed Wood and Antonioniā by Bruce Kawin on the Criterion website in 2000). As Lisa Simpson would put it, Hilligossā intense and febrile performance āhas the demented melancholy of a Tennessee Williams heroine.ā (Fittingly, later in her career Hilligoss would indeed portray Blanche DuBois onstage in a regional production of A Streetcar Named Desire). I havenāt revisited the once-seen-never-forgotten Carnival of Souls in decades: I definitely saw it at the cinema in the late 1980s as a student in Ottawa, Ontario (at the Bytowne? The Mayfair?) and then inevitably again at The Scala once I moved to London in the early 90s. Note that the dirge-like Lana Del Rey ballad ā13 Beachesā from her 2017 album Lust for Life cleverly samples some of Hilligossā urgently-whispered alienated dialogue from Carnival of Souls (āI donāt belong in the world ā¦ thatās what it is ā¦ something separates me from other people. Everywhere I turn, thereās something blocking my escapeā) to haunting effect.
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