Candy Spelling, author of the bestseller, STORIES FROM CANDYLAND (St. Martin’s Press, April, 2009), had a 50-year hiatus from writing. In the meanwhile, she excelled in school cooking and sewing classes, was a cheerleader, model, interior designer, married twice, had two children, became one of Hollywood’s most-famous wives, built the largest home in Los Angeles, ran a gift store, designed dolls and jewelry for cable shopping networks, and performed public service work.

Candy’s first published work was 1957’s “How I Gave My Father An Ulcer,” a letter to her father apologizing if food she made using the Betty Crocker junior baking set he bought her gave him an ulcer. Her parents thought the letter was worthy of publication, and submitted it to the local Los Angeles newspaper. It ran, and readers were glad to learn that Candy’s father did not have an ulcer. Happily, she continued baking and went on to excel with a clear conscience as a Home Ec major in junior and senior high school.

Fifty years later, Candy was asked to start “blogging.” After looking up what that was, she began with celebrity website TMZ.com, offering advice and counsel to troubled young celebrities. She then became a columnist for The Huffington Post and a contributing editor to Los Angeles Confidential Magazine. She later added columns for Momlogic.com, and started providing entertainment news reports for BBC Radio in Summer, 2009. Candy’s new television series, Bank of Hollywood, will debut on E! in December 2009, and in Spring, 2010, she will take on another role as a first-time Broadway co-producer of the award-winning musical Promises, Promises .

Her public service work also expanded. In Summer, 2009, she was named “Ambassador for Tourism” for Los Angeles, joining Tom Hanks, Kobe Bryant and others representing the city for tourism. She was invited to join the Board of Directors for LA INC., the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau.

She is currently a Commissioner for the Board of Recreation and Parks for the City of Los Angeles, an active panel overseeing hundreds of public parks and recreational areas serving millions of people who annually visit the public areas. She also was instrumental in creating the first non-profit Parks Foundation in Los Angeles. She is also a member of the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission, part of the on-going effort to attract more events to the historic site. She is an active Board Member of L.A.’s Best, the after-school enrichment program that serves children in need through the city in partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, the City of Los Angeles and the private sector.

“I was married to one of America’s greatest storytellers, a man who helped define pop culture for decades,” Candy says. “Aaron loved hearing my stories, but I never thought about writing them for anyone else. Now that I have written my book, I wish I would have started earlier, so Aaron could have read the stories.”

STORIES FROM CANDYLAND is a confection of stories and adventures in Candy Spelling’s magical life, with tales and revelations ranging from how her shyness made her hide out in Rock Hudson’s bathroom; a family vacation to Europe that combined a train trip, White House visit, ocean liner and 52 pieces of luggage; how she relies on her dogs’ good judgment to help her evaluate people; sharing parenting advice she received from experts such as Dr. Spock and Mr. Spock; how she created a modern-day Hollywood mogul’s office, and more. Her stories trace Candy’s pop culture influences and how they influenced her life with Aaron Spelling, motherhood and everyday experiences.

One look at the library of Candy Spelling’s Los Angeles home tells a visitor all he or she needs to know. The beautiful room has more bookshelves than can be easily counted, and each is filled with leather-bound scripts that make up the thousands of hours of television and films created by her late husband, television’s most-prolific writer and producer, Aaron Spelling.

Shelves of “Beverly Hills 90210” are across the room from “The Love Boat,” with “Dynasty,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Mod Squad,” “Vega$,” “7th Heaven,” “Starsky & Hutch,” “Fantasy Island,” “Charmed,” “Melrose Place,” and scores of other series, specials and movies all taking up honored positions on the shelves.

Photos of the Spelling family together far outnumber photos of the celebrities who starred in Spelling’s shows. There are awards and memorabilia everywhere, more photos of Candy and Aaron Spelling with their children, and sections devoted to Mark Twain, Aaron Spelling’s favorite author. “Everyone thinks they know all of Aaron’s shows,” Candy says, “but we often laughed that there were some not so famous. Even Aaron had shows that had short runs, and those are here, too. We didn’t take the success for granted,” she explains.

When Candy started writing, the reactions were immediate. “I was amazed by the instant responses, how accessible everything was to so many people and how passionate many people were about what everyone else wrote. Aaron would have loved the immediate responses to his work.”

In 2008, Candy was recognized for her thousands of hours of public service work by the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, which noted that her dedication to volunteer service “signifies you have served your community and your country with distinction.”

She was involved with three additional non-profit organizations and their events in 2008. She served as a judge for the Humane Society of the United States’ inaugural “Dogs of Valor” award and later judged the first “Natural Dog-Eared Photo Contest” for HSUS. Friendly House, one of the first treatment centers for women in crisis, honored Candy as “Woman of the Year” on October 18, 2008. Her dog, Madison Spelling, also chaired a fund-raising event, “Bark for the Cure,” in October, in Griffith Park to benefit the new Los Angeles Parks Foundation and research into canine cancer.

Centro De Niños, a downtown Los Angeles daycare center for underprivileged families, holds a special place in Candy’s heart. Her participation was even noticed by the federal government, enabling the center to expand its facility and offer several additional programs and services to needy families and their children. Candy championed their cause and brought results. According to director Sandra Sewell, "Candy has been a God-send and our true angel." Her work was also recognized when she was named a 2006 recipient of the Treasures of Los Angeles Award from the Central City Association.

Candy added “proud grandmother” -- to Liam Aaron McDermott, born in 2007, and Stella Doreen, born in 2008 -- to her list of life’s special treasures.

In between her family activities and civic associations, she has had a number of successful business ventures. She attended the Chouinard Art Institute, and has since combined her artistic and entrepreneurial talents to establish several successful business ventures throughout the last 30 years. These included an exclusive gift store, a line of jewelry, and an interior design service. She, too, created television programming. Candy also designed a special line of limited edition collectible dolls, The Candy Spelling Fantasy Dolls, which she sold on the QVC network to raise money for Centro De Niños.

“Aaron was the ultimate Hollywood ‘hyphenate’ as a writer-producer-performer-creator-creative consultant-innovator for all things entertainment,” Candy says, “but he used to tease me that I had a lot of hyphens, too, as an entrepreneur, civil commissioner, charity board member, television hostess, and wife and mother. His legacy is without peer, and I know he would be proud that I am adding even more hyphens to the Spelling family history.” Stay tuned.

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