Candy Spelling
Member

One look at the study 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,” “The Mod Squad,” “Vegas,” “7th Heaven,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Fantasy Island,” “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.

While Aaron Spelling was celebrated publicly, Candy Spelling carved out diverse niches for herself. She is a tireless worker for her native Los Angeles, working in a variety of volunteer and civic roles with causes important to her. 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 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 also 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.

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."

In between her civic associations, she has had a number of successful business ventures. A graduate of the Chouinard Art Institute, Candy combined her artistic and entrepreneurial talents to establish several successful business ventures throughout the last 25 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.

Most recently, Candy has added blogging and writing to her activities. She was asked to write columns in the form of open letters for popular web site TMZ.com to provide advice to personalities such as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, and she has been a contributor to The Huffington Post. Last year she was added to the masthead of LOS ANGELES CONFIDENTIAL Magazine as a Contributing Editor. TMZ.com’s readers immediately responded to her “Spelling It Out” columns: “Someone please offer this woman a column…call it ‘Candid Candy,’” wrote one reader. “I love Candy. She should have an advice column for all the loser stars out there. Go Candy,” posted another whose comments join scores of others at candyspelling.com.

Her work was recently recognized when she was named a 2006 recipient of the Treasures of Los Angeles Award from the Central City Association. She also last year became a grandmother to Liam Aaron McDermott, and inspired son Randy to become a board member of L.A.’s Best Friends, a philanthropic arm of L.A.’s Best.

“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 if I added even more hyphens to the Spelling family history.”

Stay tuned.