CANDY DARLING

Those who are not well versed in Warhol movies of the 1960s and '70s may not remember Darling, but James Rasin's incisive documentary, "Beautiful Darling," which received its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, not only tells Darling's intriguing story but also makes a larger comment on the lust for celebrity that is one of the enduring, unhappy legacies of the Warhol era.Darling was born James Slattery, a Long Island boy who always felt like a misfit until he imagined that he might reinvent himself as a movie star in the mold of his idol, Kim Novak. Warhol met Darling and cast her in a few of his shoestring productions, along with Jackie Curtis and Holly Woodlawn (who is still alive and is interviewed by Rasin). Yet there was something unique about Darling. As John Waters observes in the film, many other transvestites were freakish, whereas Darling was genuinely beautiful. Cecil Beaton and Richard Avedon photographed her, and she starred in one of Tennessee Williams' later plays, "Small Craft Warnings," before dying of lymphoma in 1974 at the age of 29.

-The Hollywood Reporter