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Candace Bushnell is the notorious author of the Sex and the City book and column that inspired the hit HBO series, and recently the 54 year old native New Yorker told Elle magazine how the show’s characters initially “came to be”.
Carrie Bradshaw and “Mr Big” Creating Carrie Bradshaw as her alter ego, so that her conservative parents wouldn’t realize that her dating column in The Observer was all about her own private (and exposed) life.
“At first I was writing the column in the first person. Then my parents, who were conservative, announced they were getting a subscription to The Observer. That’s when Carrie Bradshaw was born!” she explained.
Some of the show’s other characters were also taken from Ms Bushell’s own life, revealing in the past that “Mr Big” was based on publishing executive Ron Galotti who she dated in the 90’s, and the character of Aleksandr Petrrovsky who was Carries Russian artist beau in the shows final series also bore a parallel with her personal life.
But not all of the characters can be traced back to reality. “There was no Aiden” she says. And Carries best friends in the show: Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha were also not based on real people, but instead “composites” of her own friends, she said.
The author told Elle that she had met with Sarah Jessica Parker, a few times to help mold her character into her alter ego “Carrie Bradshaw”. “I think at first Sarah Jessica did pick up a lot of my mannerisms-Like my way of holding a cigarette. And there was a ring I always wore – and a watch.”she said.
Early Day-Sex and the City Still the fictional character and real life Candace had their fair share of differences. Carrie was famous for her love of Manolo Blanik shoes, but Ms Bushnell told the magazine that in her day, ThierryMulger, Calvin Klein, Betsy Johnson and vintage stores were her go-to fashion choices. Talk about drastic differences! and as far as dating goes, the author is much less concerned about the opposite sex than Carrie was. “Spend more time working on your career than worrying about men” she said.
While the HBO series ended in 2004, Ms Bushnell is now the co-executive producer of the spin off show-The Carrie Diaries, which is about Carries high school years in the 80’s. “I read the different versions of the script and watch the cuts of the episodes” she said about her role on the CW network series.
As far as the overall success of Sex and The City, Ms Bushnell says she thinks it was all down to good timing. “In the past 30 years…there has been a real change in the possibilities of how women live their lives” she said.
