Sex, success and sensibilityI was invited to a lunch at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills to hear her speak on the topic of next-generation women hosted by Radiesse. As it turns out, the most riveting topic was her latest project, Lipstick Jungle, and why this is more about her life now. She quickly informed us that she'd be talking about sex, success -- and not that much sensibility.
Girls just can have fun
Growing up in the sixties, Candace says she was a little Gloria Steinem. Girls were supposed to be sugar and spice and everything nice and she didn't want any part of it; spiders and snakes and puppy dog tails sounded much more interesting to her. When she got to college and wanted to go out with her roommates, one told her, "We don't go out without men," and another stayed in the dorm room all weekend crying because she didn't have a boyfriend.
Candace decided then and there that if she did one thing in life, it would be to show women that they can go out with their girlfriends have a really good time. "And I think I've done a pretty good job," she said to a round of applause.
The generation gap
Born in Connecticut in 1958, Candace moved to New York in the late seventies, intent on exploring a new lifestyle. Moving to a big city, she and scores of other women her age wanted to pursue a career and having it all. Sex was a part of this, and if you were lucky, so was the Big O -- which she jokes that she's still not sure if she's had.
Back then, women dressed for success -- in other words, like men, with the buttoned up collars and little bow ties. Candace and all of her friends wore running shoes to work because as a single woman back then, you never knew when you'd have to run.
She says you'd also carry a bag with another change of clothes, because after work -- if you were lucky enough to have a date -- 
you might go home with a guy and spend the night and you'd need something to wear the next day. The single woman's life back then entailed a lot of schlepping.
Hoping for wedding bells
"The big dilemma was how to get a man to marry you -- and I always did everything wrong." Candace recounts the numerous times in her twenties when she'd move in with a guy and a year later, need to move out. She'd call her friends, who would come over and load all of her possessions into trash bags and haul them out like a reverse Santa.
By the early nineties, she had lots of friends, but still had not found 'the guy.' She also realized at the end of ten years of living in NYC that men come and go, but our girlfriends are going to be here forever. This realization, she says, is what spawned the concept of Sex in the City. 
"Back in the eighties, women believed that they couldn't have sex and not go crazy if the guy didn't call. But in the nineties, women with power and status had sex like a man," she says. "Most of my friends were like Samantha. Even my Miranda handled sex like Samantha."
The actual Mr Big
It turns out that there was a real Mr Big in Candace's life who dated her... and supermodels. "The thing I love about New York is that when you go out with a guy, your competition isn't the girl-next-door, it's a supermodel. Mr Big did break up with me and marry someone else," she says. "I was 37 when I was dumped by Mr Big."
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A different world Soon after I met Candace Bushnell, I had to ask, "If you were to write Sex in the City now, how would it be different?" "I wouldn't," was her immediate answer. "I wrote it 13 years ago. I was a different person then. The things I was going through then were different. I couldn't relate to those issues now. I've been married for five years -- I mean, I can't believe how concerned I was with men!" |
She says she spent five or six years trying to be Mr Big while leading up to Lipstick Jungle. "It was a different era for women in the nineties. Single women in New York were trying to find a way to live differently. The women I knew had grown up now, and in their forties, they were suddenly a lot more successful. They had confidence and financial security," says Bushnell.
"This was a very different model than what society would have you believe about an unmarried successful woman -- that you have to be a dragon lady, or lonely and bitter, or a man-hater. That's crazy!"
But from all that craziness, there was a revelation. "It inspired me to write Lipstick Jungle, because a woman doesn't need a man to put a roof over her head anymore. Society gives a lot of lip service to choice, but as a woman, you don't have choices unless you have money. There's no way around that."
Coming soon to a TV near you
After the staggering success of Sex in the City, her new work instantly was a hot property. Candace met a woman at Cynthia Rowley's wedding and they clicked. Then she told her she wanted to buy Lipstick Jungle, and it ultimately ended up with Candace's new friend as the producer.
There were a few bumps along the way, though -- the script was picked up a year ago, and according to Candace, the director soon after went on strike (and wouldn't come out of his hotel room!) so production was shut down.
In the end, the book got picked up for a pilot at NBC and now Brooke Shields has been cast, along with Lindsay Price (formerly of Coupling, and who has also appeared in NCIS) and Kim Raver (from 24). (See the new gals above right.)
Candace was clearly proud to mention that five other women executives are involved at the network and the studio in the production of Lipstick Jungle. And that kind of influence -- and control over one's destiny -- is really what she's been working toward all of these years.
