Cast Iron: A friendship,a personality
Peter Jarrette catches up with CANDACE BUSHNELL, Author of Sex and the City, and Lipstick Jungle

In the early 80s, Candace Bushnell and I had very glamorous flats in the exclusive New York landmark building, the Cast Iron, on 11th and Broadway. There we became “Cast Iron friends” and now, many, many Mahnolos later, while it does not seem that success has spoiled Candace, getting the chance to meet up with her has definitely gotten more difficult. In fact, during her PR trip to the UK this time, I managed to bag just one dinner meeting with her, at The Strand Palace Hotel.

In the late 80s a “pre- Carrie” Candace was a struggling writer, but she was already used to criss-crossing the Atlantic, often on the Concorde, to visit money markets, Belgravia– dwelling boyfriends, the trendy shops of Kensington High Street and the discreet upmarket boutiques on Kensington Church Street. On one occasion, Candace had made a Carriestyle purchase of an incredibly expensive, Daniel Boone inspired jacket, made of pink baby-soft leather and adorned with a tassel fringe running up both arms and across the back of the shoulders. Afterwards, we had taken to the streets during the Notting Hill Carnival, where this sophisticated New Yorker, in her £1000 purchase, had bounced to Caribbean beats, swigged bottled beer and munched on calorific Trinidadian salt fish dumplings.

“I’m all New York through and through,” Candace once said, “but you know I just adore London. Knightsbridge, especially, has just about everything a girl could want.” What has changed for “La Bush” on her trips to London and the UK as a whole is her access to spontaneity. Success may have limited her activity, but not her personality.

This very personality launched her great career. In the early 90s, Candace Bushnell introduced us to her thirty something alter ego - Carrie Bradshaw. This character debuted in Candace’s widely read and much gossiped about New York Observer column, Sex and The City (SATC), and subsequently became renowned through her bestselling post feminist book of the same name and then through TV screens in the person of actress Sarah Jessica Parker. SJP, SATC, Carrie Bradshaw and Candace Bushnell - four international icons - will live forever. This is credited to the TV channel, HBO; the crafting of Candace’s then collaborator, Darren Starr; and the worldwide TV syndication of SATC.

Of the SATC days she said, “It was in and out of TV studios, sitting on early morning and late afternoon meetings talking about the book and the TV series. I got very little time to myself or to enjoy London.” She also shared some insider info on the making of the SATC TV series: initially, SJP turned down the role of Carrie, even though the actress was Candace’s first choice to play the series’ lead. SJP eventually came around and she now enjoys the multi-millions for portraying Carrie on both TV and the big screen. All concerned are presently poised to begin the filming and reap the rewards of the sequel.

Apart from her SATC success, Candace is the executive producer of TV’s Lipstick Jungle, based on her fourth novel about high-powered forty-something women. She oversaw everything from actress choices to wardrobe selections. She has also written, published and is presently touring for a fifth novel - One Fifth Avenue. This book tells of the lives of some wealthy and not so wealthy, fictional New Yorkers, living in the much revered Manhattan apartment building No. 1, 5th Avenue. One may well wonder, given Candace’s workload, does she get any time to enjoy any of the scores of cities she visits on her hectic PR tours and general media multi-tasking?

Aside from the dinner meeting, I am able to see Candace again at The Old Market Theatre in Brighton. I am the last person to join her audience and Candace is already on stage. However, before she allows the Q&A to begin, she calls out, “Is Peter Jarrette here?!” During sections of her chat, she continues to direct comments over the audience, it seems, specifically to me. Before responding to questions on the setting of her new novel, One Fifth Avenue, Candace calls out again, reminding me, “It’s very near our old place, The Cast Iron. Nothing much has changed in the old neighbourhood Peter; except the fact that everyone is 30 years older!”

Back then, in the Cast Iron, Candace would spend many an afternoon or evening watching with interest as I concocted my favourite Trini dishes. She clearly had her own favourite. “I love your…Peloo?” she’d enthuse in all innocence, before I’d instruct her, “Pelau, Candy”. Though she has always been, and still is, model thin, Candace enjoys good food and world cuisine. Like Carrie, in a fashion magazine wardrobe ogling shelves of classic Jimmy’s, Candace was all wide eyed and eager to try anything. “Is that Buljol?... Is that Calaloo?... Eeek!... Is that Souse?! I wanna try some!”

I was an art student and working illustrator in our NYC Cast Iron days. I branched out into various art- related applications, including animation. Candice was the inspiration for some of my early work. One of my three films, televised in the USA and in Trinidad, featured a paper doll version of Candace named Neo Mod Candy. The doll travels on holiday to the Caribbean in the short film La Vie en Papier. Candace helped in selecting the soundtrack - Ralph MacDonald’s, Calypso Breakdown. She liked the pan.

The region by then was familiar to Candace as she had enjoyed Caribbean beach vacations with her ex-boyfriend, the late Gordon Parks, director of the iconic 70’s film, Shaft. She was athletic and lean, and enjoyed swimming in the clear blue Caribbean Sea. With her own success, her holidays to the West Indies became more Carrie-like, with snatched weekends to St. Barts and its world-class designer boutiques. “A girl can wear Louboutin on the beach you know, if the sand’s wet!”

“What’s your favourite thing about the Caribbean?” I had asked. This sleek New Yorker, who is part Italian, with an already rich pigmentation purred, “The sun. I go a very special golden copper when I’m there.”

The only downside to the Caribbean for Candace was the high profile court case brought against her, a few years ago, by a friend who claimed that Candace had stolen one of her characters from him. “His character was from Jamaica!” she stated firmly and then laughed. “I’m not being funny, but have any of my ladies been Jamaican?”

Now, Candace is in the middle of a world wide PR tour, miles from a sun-kissed beach. She is in the middle of a circus of sharp-eyed publicists and publicists’ assistants, who, after much bombardment from me, have allowed us our moment together, following her stage appearance. Despite her demanding schedule, she looks radiant, as she works down the long queue of admirers who are waiting for her signature in their new copies of One Fifth Avenue. Success hasn’t changed her and the years have been kind to her small frame; made slightly taller by her black Mahnolo spike sandals. Her hair is a luxury of warm honey blond. Her eyes are clear and bright and when she jumps up from her book-laden table and joins me, her hug is strong and tight. Our time is limited but her attention to my wife, who she has not seen since the 80s, and my photographer Diana Frangi, is generous as she poses for a long series of photos.

“How’s Charles?” I ask. Her husband of six years, Charles Askegard, who is 10 years her junior, is a lead dancer with the New York City Ballet. “He’s fine!” she replies and for a brief moment I can see that she misses him and the domesticity of her home life, “out of the limelight”.

Bushnell fans will get the chance to meet her again when her next two books chronicling the early years of her alter ego’s rise to the sexy city and designer heels -The Carrie Diaries - are released in 2010. Now, after her chat with me, this cultural zeitgeist has several more UK dates to keep before heading off to a round of the same, down under, in Australia.

“I’ll be back home in a few weeks.” My famous lady friend whispers into my ear, one last time. “We’ll speak again then.”

Candace Bushnell seems no different from the girl of our Cast Iron days.

Peter Jarrette is an anchor on gossiptv.co.uk; a weekly radio guest presenter on The Mike Mendoza show (www.playradiouk.com/www.nttbs.com); a special guest columnist for Absolute Magazine, and an internationally published artist and author.