Model and actress Candy Clark first came to filmgoers' attention with a secondary role in John Huston's "Fat City". Then Candy really went to town as gum-chewing, dumb like a fox Debbie Dunham in "American Graffiti" (1974); for her portrayal of the girl who reminds Charles Martin Smith of Connie Stevens (well, it sounded like a good pick-up line, anyway), she was nominated for an Academy Award. Equally worthwhile roles followed in "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1976), which included the scene wherein a sympathetic Candy lifted and carried ailing alien David Bowie, and the 1978 remake of "The Big Sleep", which featured the actress as the deviant, thumb-sucking Carmilla Sternwood.

Then, inexplicably, Clark endured a cinematic dry spell, though she was seen (and her Oklahoma accent heard) to good advantage in the made-for-TV movies "Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill" (1979) and "Rodeo Girl" (1980). In 1981, Clark made her first off-Broadway appearance in "A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking". Candy Clark has been consigned to maternal roles in such films as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Radioland Murders" (1994).