Sitting down with Candace Campbell felt less like an interview. More like opening a long, well worn journal. Candy walks me through a life that zigzagged on purpose. From childhood humor and early writing to acting. All the way to radio, debate, academia, aviation, nursing, and finally circling back to art. Nothing here followed a straight line, and that is exactly the point.

We talk about being unprepared and surviving anyway. About leadership that finds you before you find yourself. Also, about the quiet courage it takes to pivot when the room you are in no longer fits. Sharing stories from Pan Am, Vietnam era flights, theater mishaps, and improv chaos. Finally to the moment a single image haunted her for decades. Until it demanded to become a screenplay, then a book. This conversation touches faith without preaching, creativity without ego, and failure without shame.

What stayed with me most is Candy’s refusal to be boxed in. Actor, scholar, nurse, artist, storyteller. She never chose one and let the rest die. This episode is for anyone who feels late, scattered, or misaligned. Sometimes the long way around is the work.

Where to Find Candace Candy Campbell?

🌐 Website: https://www.candycampbell.com/ 📚 Work: 📖 Upcoming book based on her award winning screenplay and solo performance work 📲 Social: @candycampbell

Interview with Candy

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Dr. Candy Campbell: Well, I don't about best thing, but you know, you just have to have that, uh, that sort of attitude because here's the thing, I was just talking to one of my high school best friends

Dave: right.

Dave: And

Dr. Candy Campbell: one of the

Dave: I'm one of the only.

She just thinks when you die, that's it. And I said, you know, if there's no other reason to have faith, to give you some hope about today. Even if it's a grand Lucian, I don't care. I'm happier for it. It, I know it sounds stupid, but and then, and you know, there's the other thing, I, I don't think that you check your brain at the door when you invest in scripture and, and read the wisdom there and then say, okay, is this credible?

Dave: No, I, I think you were the one that, that told me this, where you were doing, please correct me if I'm wrong 'cause my memory sometimes is all over the place. You were telling me about, you were doing debates with this person that was

Dr. Candy Campbell: I was

Dave: as dumb as Yeah. That was like as dumb as a doornail. And you'd come in completely like didn't even know and how you were gonna do this.

How are you gonna pull this off? And I'm just like sitting there, I'm like, can you imagine like investing your time and edu energy into education? And then you're put in that position. It's like whatcha supposed to do with.

Dave: Yeah,

Dave: I, I, when you told me that I, I didn't like fully process it until recently and it's, it kind of like clicked for me because for me, you know, I, I'm planning on going back to New York even though like I've been here in Florida for the past three years and I'm like invested all of my time and energy, you know, obviously to do podcasting and then also to have a career

Dr. Candy Campbell: right,

Dave: automotive industry.

Dr. Candy Campbell: right.

Dave: And what I realized was why am I moving? And then I realized that the. Industry here. The automotive industry here has horrible management. They don't take any form of responsibility. There's no consumer protection laws here in Florida at all. So I realize it's not me running away from my problems. It's not me spending money that I don't have.

We don't have the skills, we don't have the experience. We're just, we're in the wrong place to do it.

Dr. Candy Campbell: well. Yeah. You know, and, and sometimes your work, uh, if you get the job, whatever that job might be, hired, they move you. As in the case with Pan Am I didn't have a choice. They moved me and they moved me f. Sometimes I had, um, you know, a this or a that kind of a choice, but they made the ultimate decision.

Dave: Oh my God. No. No. You're a hundred percent correct. I'm, I'm Libertarian and I'm like, I mean, New York is one of those states, I hate to say this, they've been running without government for so many years.

Dr. Candy Campbell: well, yeah, and it shows. So

Dave: Yeah.

Dr. Candy Campbell: kind of like my concern there. It's like, should do that if you don't have to at this point, you know, timing

Dave: But it,

Dr. Candy Campbell: too.

Dave: it's interesting though, because with you, you had a career with PanAm and what's weird about, like, even back then, like PanAm, even though they're one of the oldest airlines, they were so, excuse me, they were so far up their ass where they were just doing these outlandish things, just blowing money.

Like every single time it was like, Hey, maybe we should, instead of blowing our money, maybe we should try to invest it. Like, no, they just kept on doing it over and over and over again, and then they finally went bankrupt and everybody's like, oh, I'm.

And in terms of flight attendants in the seventies, their stewardesses had to wear hot pants and we're like, oh my gosh. You know, wearing, oh, I don't remember all the designers, Ole Cassini and, and Chanel and things like that. You know, it was different. We were still wearing gloves. Yeah. It was, it was in its way.

Can you find it? And you got 350 meal trays and you're in this cook. And we're going, I'm looking for my glamor here, going through the old garbage of all this. Oh

Dave: Oh my God.

Dr. Candy Campbell: I, what are, we're not recording yet, are we?

Dave: No, we are, we've been recording for like the past 10 minutes. I told you, I literally, I had a guest last episode, like last week. We canceled immediately. She's like, you're not gonna give me a heads up when we're recording. And I'm like. No. And she's like, well, I don't think we should reschedule. And I'm like, I don't think we should reschedule either.

Dr. Candy Campbell: Oh, okay. Well, no, I mean, you know, improv's my middle name, so it's fine with me. I just, I trust that if we go off in these tangents that for your listeners benefit, you're gonna edit certain themes together.

Like regardless of all of the things that you've gone through and all of the different experiences you've been through, it's like. You can't just put somebody in a box. You have to experience it. I think what we're gonna be doing today is we're gonna be experiencing candy. This is gonna be a candy experience.

Dr. Candy Campbell: I, I feel sorry for the, you know, you're gonna lose people right away if it's like, oh no, it's all about one person. Oh no, because I'm not a celebrity, you know, if I was Julia Roberts or, or, you know, somebody politician or something, it would be more interesting. But I'm

Dave: I don't think

Dr. Candy Campbell: who's, who's done a lot of different things.

Dr. Candy Campbell: from your lips to your listeners ears. I hope so. Uh, for your sake. I hope so. know.

Dave: Well, we, the last time we spoke, we touched on a lot of different things and I think one thing that, um, I would love for you to, if you want to get into, we can talk about how exactly you fell into acting. 'cause I know that, that that was a, that was an interesting story.

Dr. Candy Campbell: Yeah.

Dave: I want you to please tell it again because I have to hear it again

Dr. Candy Campbell: Golly. Well,

Dave: please.

Dr. Candy Campbell: um, when you're a kid and you're an animated person, IWI will start that. You know, I didn't start in acting, I started in writing 'cause I've

Dr. Candy Campbell: a good writer and I like comedy. I come from a fun family um, uh. So I was, I don't know, third grade, what is that, eight or 10 or something like that.

Dave: Somewhere in there.

Dr. Candy Campbell: eight or nine. And they had a Thanksgiving writing competition just in our little class about write a story about Thanksgiving. That was our creative writing thing. And, um, there was always two of us in the class who loved to write humor. the, uh, the teacher would read or ask the three people who she thought were the best to read in front of the room.

Dave: George Jetson.

Yeah.

Dr. Candy Campbell: so funny and um, way ahead of its time. And so anyway, the whole, the whole gist of what I wrote was that the future, instead of this big spread and everybody stuffing themselves, we would have little pills and there would be a brown pill for Turkey and you know, a red pill for cranberry sauce and whatever.

So, of course, as soon as that was announced. All the popular people wanted to be on stage,

Dave: Course.

And, you know me, is the narrative. Trying to in and, and create the, there was so much laughter. It was so much laughter. I was kind of hooked on it then. And so then the, um, the teacher, by the time I got into, I guess it was fifth grade, um. One of the teachers said, we've hired a, um, a lady to do, um, a play and it's gonna be after school enrichment. And, uh, you, you know, you seem to be that kind of person you should go and try out. So we had to go and cold read and I, I tried out, and, and here you should know this, the whole school was allowed for the afterschool enrichment. And a lot of parents were more than happy to have their kids stay an extra hour and the kids wanted to do it.

Dave: Yeah.

Dr. Candy Campbell: lame play. I cannot remember what it was. It was about Christmas. And um, what happened was that I got cast as an extra um. people that were cast, the eighth graders who were cast were the main roles were just terrible actors. And the script was awful. And I just remember it was such a bad experience.

It was, I just, I said to myself, I'll never do that again. That's it. I'm done with this stuff. They're all a bunch of egotists and I can't stand them. And so there we go to high school and my best friend, she's all about drama. Fine, okay. She's in drama, but I'm a singer. I love to sing. And so, um, turns out though, I also like humor.

Dave: should be. Hold on

Dr. Candy Campbell: Okay, now

Dave: minute.

Dr. Candy Campbell: it's okay. It

Dave: That was weird.

Dr. Candy Campbell: get closer to your router. I'm like, I'm hard rider. How

You know, you start to realize like to yourself, like, what am I actually passionate about? You know, what do I actually wanna do? Like, do I still wanna be around these skanky ass people or do I wanna do something that actually makes me happy?

Dr. Candy Campbell: Oh, well that's insightful. Yeah.

Dave: Yeah.

That's, you know, fly by the seat of your pants and try and, you know, um,

Dave: I think that's so. I think that's so Okay if anybody's listening up until this point. All right. Try to break this down. All right. We, we started with a Thanksgiving play to then plays that you didn't really want to be in to sketch comedy. Then from sketch comedy, we go to talk host RA radio talk host.

Dr. Candy Campbell: you. And I was not really a radio talk show host. I had, uh, one or two times to fill in when one of the DJs didn't show up on time. But no, I was the director, manager of programming of the whole thing. And I had never, it was mostly a classical station.

Dave: So you were like the, the back end, you weren't even like in front of the mic.

Dr. Candy Campbell: I was doing the programming and trying to figure it out.

And they had, they had a template of what had been, but they, you know, they were under the auspices of, okay, um, here's a new person. And they thought I'd be there for four years. Like the person before me had. Because, you know, I, I didn't know at the time I would be changing schools, but, um, that was the idea.

Oh, I forgot our, our reputation had preceded us because during the first orientation week we had done a sketch comedy routine based on Little Red Riding Hood goes to college and. Some dumb thing. We, and, and, and at the end we got in such trouble, I don't know if I told you this story,

Dave: No,

Dr. Candy Campbell: um, was Little Red Riding Hood 'cause she actually had this whole cloak with a little Red Riding hood thing.

We got her a basket and inside the basket in whatever the goodies were that she was coming to grandma and I was playing all the other parts. and we had somebody to be a narrator, I think, and I was the, the wolf and, and grandma's clothing and all of that.

Dave: of course.

Dave: Oh my God.

Dr. Candy Campbell: a whipped cream fight. In the middle of this beautiful lounge with 50, um, women, freshmen through senior, uh, who, I don't remember what club it was or whatever it was, but you know, it's a college living room kind of place. And, and all these ladies are dressed up 'cause it's a tea and we're the entertainment for the tea and we are getting whipped cream, we're spraying people.

Dave: are the whipped cream queen. You are the whipped cream queen,

Dr. Candy Campbell: Right away. And so this guy had evidently heard about these crazy new freshmen they were having. So he invited us personally to come back and maybe work on some fun stuff. So that's how.

Dave: spraying, whip, spraying, whipped cream on his television set.

And then he would. it to his head and come up with a question and it would be hilarious, whatever that was. we did our own version of silly things like that, and one day they needed a commercial break and they wanted a, a funny commercial break. So I got inspired for some reason watching tv. I got inspired and I got a, a glass with a little bit of water.

So I was holding it up to the camera and I will show you how it works and something about, you know, it'll make me feel better fast. It makes you feel better fast. That was part of the tagline of the commercial.

Dave: Sixties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God.

Dr. Candy Campbell: So I threw a couple of tablets in the thing and it went fizz and, and I was playing on it saying, oh, it so bubbly.

Dave: Oh my God.

I had to be on the debate team 'cause it was assumed I'd either be a speech pathologist or probably a, a high school speech coach. And, um. There were only two of us women on the debate team. So that's, she was

Dave: Famous debate team. The famous debate team. God.

Dr. Candy Campbell: famous debate team story. So she, uh, whatever her name was, was a sweet thing.

'cause you've

Dave: Yeah, like a speech impairment. Okay.

Dr. Candy Campbell: I don't know if she had an impediment, but I know she was incredibly shy. I don't remember if she did.

Dave: Okay.

Dr. Candy Campbell: But anyway, it was resolved. And remember, this is all without AI or, or digital, anything resolved that the United States should substantially reduce its foreign policy commitments.

It was not glamorous. And then, then we'd have to go debate at some other college. And the outcome of course, is that my little partner and I, the only women on the team only ever won, won debate. And that's because they didn't show up. So by, by Thanksgiving I was so. Upset because, oh, the second part about that is that every other weekend I was gone and my roommate was going to all these dances and weekend, you know, football games and all the fun that you go to college for, especially as a freshman.

Dave: Only, there's only one.

Dr. Candy Campbell: was that. There was an animal cast and it is bossy. The cow

Dave: They had a cow. They have a full-fledged living cow.

Dr. Candy Campbell: a cow costume. And so

Dave: Oh, a cow costume. Okay. Phew. You scared me.

Dr. Candy Campbell: No,

Dave: Okay. Phew.

Dr. Candy Campbell: a

Dave: Oh my goodness.

Dr. Candy Campbell: And Fred Ryerson, I've lost contact with him now, but he was a great guy, was cast the head of the cow and he had lines, you know, he could put his head in the head and he, and it was a big, it was a big head.

Anyway, director, very, um, very strict, very professional. He came from Broadway. um, so I tole up to the stage and imagine it's a huge stage. And I come up to the back wall and there's people on like 20 foot ladders, I mean, really high. And Nordholm always. Um, he was a short man. He always wore, um, a whistle, an athletic coach.

He had a whistle because he didn't

Dave: Oh God.

I gotta fit the costume. He goes, what? Wait, what did you say? I said, who's the back end of the cow? He goes, wait, stay there, everybody listen up. And then he points to me and he says, say it again, loud and clear. I'm like, who's gonna be the back end of the cow? And he got this big grin on his face, took his arm like this and went, and

Dave: I had a feeling.

Dave: good.

Dr. Candy Campbell: Made famous by the way, because,

Dave: end. Yeah.

Dr. Candy Campbell: because of that.

Because then I got to wiggle and, and Fred and I got to do, you know, little dance moves you. The kids, the children from the schools. And we did, you know, a whole week of matinee. And they would say, the teachers would do the talk back afterwards and who was your favorite character? And they'd go, it was hilarious.

Dr. Candy Campbell: Yep.

Dave: they were, they put on a horse's costume, I think it was. I love Lucy.

Dr. Candy Campbell: Oh, that sounds like it could be. I don't remember

Dave: I, I think what happened was Lucy had to be the backend backend of the horse. Yeah. She was the backend of the horse.

Dr. Candy Campbell: gosh. I'm gonna have to look for that.

Dave: Yeah. And was was heli just you telling me this, like I'm just remember re watching the episode and Lucy, you know, obviously like has to be Lucy, you know, and she has to be like, you know, so the backend of the horse is like making all these poses and the legs are flipping up and going all these different directions.

You're just like, what? Front end.

And I said, okay, sure, why not? So there was three of us in this one act. I don't remember what one act it was, it was only about five minutes at most of the scene. And I was gonna play kind of a saloon gal. And there was a, a bartender. There was a gunslinger who's gonna come in and, um, it was a short scene.

It's always been my assumption. So I pretty much knew the lines that's going into it, hoping I'd not have to say it, but as soon as the curtain opened and the bartender was there, you know, the bar as they do, and, um. The, the curtain opened and I think maybe the bartender said to me, how are you doing today, Sally?

That's great. And he said to me, I'm doing a senior play. I want you win it. So it started that way. It started that way, and then the play that I was in was the worst play I've ever read or ever been in. Are you familiar with the playwright named Luigi Pi?

Dave: I don't think so, but I think if you, you start telling me, I might get an idea of, walk me through that a little bit please.

Dr. Candy Campbell: he's an existential nihilist and if you're, if you remember the play, no Exit and things like that, you know, waiting for

Dave: Okay.

There's maybe eight lines or something left. this is how, you know, actors judge parts. How many lines do you have? And uh, so between the two of us, we got all the rest of the lines and it was a terrible show. But my roommate stopped talking to me. She was so angry.

You know, something like, I hate to say this, sometimes people sometimes show their true colors. You know, it's not necessarily of anything that you've done or anything that you've been through, it's just you reach the crossroads, as you say. And sometimes some people go, right, and other times people go left.

Dr. Candy Campbell: Oh yeah, she had a, a great career as a high school speech or a drama coach. She was terrific. Uh, not as an actor, but as a coach. And, and she was terrific. But know, the thing is, and this is maybe what you remember, is that after that I went to the department, head of speech department and said, I wanna switch majors to acting 'cause I'm not having fun and I hate this debate thing and I don't want to teach it.

And they didn't. And I happened to be having a, a, a friendly relationship with somebody who lived or who was going to the Crosstown Rival school, the University of Puget Sound. And he said, well, I, I've seen you act and I think, you know, uh, I think what you should do is come over to UPS because it's a small drama department, and let me get you an interview. So he did, and they gave me the scholarship, and that's why I graduated from the University of Puget Sound with a degree in theater and acting

Once you started putting yourself more in there and started realizing what was what was expected from it, you found a way of being able to actually pursue a career for that you're actually passionate about something that you really wanted to spend your time with and

Dr. Candy Campbell: Well,

Dave: Yep.

Dave: It was a lot of books.

Dr. Candy Campbell: Well, you know, at least skimmed a lot of books. And the, and here's the point. One of these books I loved because I was taking a directing class by that point, and it was a book on directing that was much better than the textbook that we were using in that class.

I have never gotten a fan medal for anything in my whole life. No less a book that was part of my PhD. So he said, tell me about yourself. Who are you and what are your plans? 'cause I told him I was a senior by that time, and I said, I don't know my plans. I don't have any plans. I live in Oregon. I, it would be nice to work for the, uh, Ashland, Shakespearean Festival, but I don't know.

Dr. Candy Campbell: Yes, I have some

Dave: Yeah,

Dr. Candy Campbell: we talked,

Dave: yeah.

Dr. Candy Campbell: I do not know, 'cause I can't remember if we talked about the, um, the eighth book that I'm writing based on the screenplay and all of these interviews that I did with people who worked in

Dave: Uh, I,

Dr. Candy Campbell: during the

Dave: I, I think so. Yeah. I think, I think you did touch on that before we, we, we wrapped up the last time. Yeah.

Dave: I've been on planes where people have gotten sick and I'm like, stop coughing on me please. Stewardess, can I please move seats please.

So anyway, I wanted to talk to this lady. Turns out it was a crowded flight and we got into Honolulu and that was that, you know, but the next day, or maybe, maybe we had a day layover, I don't remember. But the next time that we got on the plane to go, we were gonna finish the charter. With it. As it turned out, half the people got off in for r and r in Hawaii and the rest were going home.

Dave: With this champagne? Yes, please.

Dave: And.

Dr. Candy Campbell: I could see him up there and he reared back and hawked deluge. Hit her with a big wad of spit right on her cheek. And, you know, she didn't miss a step. She went into her pocket, she pulled out she wiped her cheek, it back in her pocket and kept going, and then stopped in front of the carousel. The bags are coming out, and I ran up next to her apologizing profusely, she never looked at me again. Um,

Dave: Oh wow. Oh wow.

And oh, by the way, I had, interviewed about 20 people, uh, to get the real life stories. So I hung it up, I put it in the back burner, and during COVID I dusted it off I only recently got the nerve to put it out there and enter it in film contests. The first one passed and the next two big film screenwriting contests. I've won big awards and that's why I'm writing finally the book to match the screenplay.

Like, how do you, how do you not allow that to be a story? How do you not take that and use your creativity and artistry and showcase that story? You know what I mean?

Dr. Candy Campbell: Well, thank you. And I'll tell you, it haunted me for 20 years before I even it creds. Um, I had, uh, was in counseling and the counselor said, what about this dream you keep having? And I told her and she said, let's pray and ask the Lord to either take away the dream or show you what to do with it. And then a year later I started film school and that's how it happened.

So break that down for me. Um, what are the kind of stuffs besides your book that you're working on? Where can people find you?

Dr. Candy Campbell: Okay.

Dave: wanna get a little bit of candy.

Dr. Candy Campbell: I'm, I'm touring with my third solo show, which is a characterization of the life of Florence Nightingale, excuse me, getting over a cold.

Dave: That's okay.

Dave: Oh wow,

Dr. Candy Campbell: is Candace, C-A-N-D-A-C-E, Campbell fine art.com. And I've been happily winning some wonderful, um, awards from the art that I've been producing the last two years.

We always go out the same direction that we want to, but it's the way that we shape it and make it our own. That is so important.

Dr. Candy Campbell: Well, I appreciate your ability to see the theme that's been winding around here and, uh, thank you very much for the opportunity to be your guest. I wish you all the best because I know you are doing some weaving in that in your life right now too.

Dave: Like a lot of other people. Again, tha thank you so much Candy for just taking the time.

Dr. Candy Campbell: welcome.

Dave: anybody out there, if you want to check out more of the podcast, you can find us at Lost in the Groove Pod. Um, we are available on Rumble and as well as on Substack. So with that, we will catch you on the next one.