The Road to Glitter and Gold

During the next three years, Candace totally cut loose and became famous in many ways and in many circles, to hear her tell it. Soooo…. Let’s tell it! Because tell it, she did, so we have plenty to go on.

The Alabama summer heat was sweltering in August 1947 as Candace hopped off The Southerner train in Anniston. She had alerted the local press that she, Candace Johnson, a hometown girl turned national success story, would be making a quickie visit to her former tiny town. So as it happened, a reporter was there, maybe even enthused and totally ready to greet her. A fun success story for the Society pages was always a welcome addition to _ The Anniston Star_.

Wearing a stylish, pastel-colored short-skirted dress and moderately high heel shoes, Candace indeed looked like a star as she exited the train. Her platinum blonde hair was elegantly pulled back to accommodate the heat. She was Marilyn Monroe before Norma Jean Mortenson was Marilyn Monroe.

Winded and appearing hurried, Candace provided the local reporter with shards of truth mixed and plenty of touches and dashes of embellishment, along with some complete untruths… for nothing ever got in the way of a good story for Candace. She explained with a degree of pride that she had been gone from Anniston for precisely eight years (it had actually only been three, but never mind, right?).

“It’s good to be back in Aniston, though it is just for a few days,” Candace told The Aniston Star reporter, with a sigh, the reporter noted in the article, as though she was doing a favor to grace her hometown in spite of her ultra busy, super important life.

Candace explained to the reporter (and hence to the locals) that she had been discovered while she visited Hollywood and was offered a contract from a major movie studio. She declined the offer, however, and instead entered the world of high fashion in New York City, where she has made quite a splash.

NYC is where she declared she had spent the last several years, modeling and studying fashion design. There’s more… she told of her budding success as a businesswoman, opening a modeling agency and a modeling school in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her plans, she explained, are to expand the Candace Modeling Studios into Dallas and Houston. And… she boasted that a little over five years ago, she had been contracted to design the complete line of clothing for Adrianne, a well-known house of fashion based in the Big Apple.

Oh, that husband of hers? One could gather the two had split up at some point well before this day, but when that happened is unknown. He was not mentioned during the interview.

Candace was living in New Orleans during the late 1940s, and she did in fact operate a modeling school, initially named simply “Candace Studios,” and later called the “Candace School of Self Improvement and Modeling”. Candace offered payment plans on tuition and options of day sessions or evening sessions.

From the summer of 1946 until spring of 1948, Candace ran a series of advertisements in The (New Orleans) Times Picayune for her modeling school. “Candace Makes You Glamorous,” the advertisements announced. “Under the personal supervision of Candace Johnson, graduate of the Barbizon School and prominent authority on feminine beauty … you will receive instruction in style, sense, color harmony, poise, grace, etiquette, diction, makeup, individual hair styling, figure streamlining, and smoothing of the ‘unattractive” spots.” She promised to teach young ladies training in high fashion, “figure correction,” weight control, fashion and photo modeling, and interviewing skills.

“Make the most of what you possess,” Candace advised in the print advertisements. “Your power is unlimited. The elegance of your manner, speech, grace, poise and charm.”

“All we sell is advice and service” advertisements declared.

Rumors later circulated that the modeling school was a front for prostitution, however, Candace always vehemently countered those “accusations.”

Whatever she had or had not done while in Hollywood or in the Big Apple, a move to the Big Easy definitely changed things up for Candace… and set the foundation for the true fame and fortune she so desired.

Her life forever changed following a “chance” encounter in 1947, while she was volunteering as a fundraiser for the New Orleans Opera. She had offered to visit a wealthy but reputably “stingy” businessman, Jacques (Jack) Mossler. She was determined to get a donation from Mossler, in part because it was a challenge (she had been told he could, of course, donate, but probably would not). She was hoping to get a few hundred dollars from him. After their brief meeting, during which she truly tried to get a nice donation, Mossler reluctantly wrote a check to the Opera Foundation for twenty five dollars. She left, concluding he was as described, “a cheapskate.”

But shortly after this meeting, Candace later explained in varied interviews, Mossler scoped her out, possibly pretending to be taking photos at the Audubon Zoo when she was on a Saturday outing with her children. He made contact with her and said he recalled her visit to his office. There is no disputing that Candace Johnson would be difficult to forget. The two started dating soonafter.

There was a slight problem with the new couple. As it happened to be the situation, Jacques had a wife of 30 years, Evelyn, and the couple had four teenage daughters. Jacques and Evelyn might or might not have been separated before he started dating Candace, but they weren’t legally divorced until May 12, 1949. Just a little over a week later, on May 20, 1949, Jacques and Candace applied for a marriage license in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Four days later, they were married.

With her wealthy husband and his many successful business ventures pretty much guaranteeing continued riches, Candace was set for a lifetime of wealth and all that comes with this.

It would not be far-fetched to imagine that Candace was thinking about this time, “Watch out, world, here I come!”