Candy Barr, America's First Porn Princess

A New Leaf

Candy almost certainly would have been acquitted under search and seizure laws established in the 1960s.

Poster: Huntsville Prison Rodeo

But she lost in appeals all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — a legal effort funded in part by Mickey Cohen. In January 1960, weeks after her wedding with Sahakian, her appeals ran out, and she surrendered to Goree Prison Farm for Women, near Huntsville.

Although she resented being there, Candy used her prison times wisely.

She earned good-time credit by working earnestly in the prison laundry and by attending classes to catch up on some of the high schooling she had missed out on.

And she managed to keep her hand in entertaining while behind bars. She was a star attraction at the famous annual rodeo at the Huntsville state prison — as a singer, not a stripper.

On April 2, 1963 — after three years and three months — she walked out of prison carrying a Bible and holding a $5.70 one-way bus ticket back home to Edna. As a condition of her parole, she was barred from working as an exotic dancer.