Candis Cayne (born August 29, 1971) is an American actress and

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

ist. Cayne performed in New York City

nightclub A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs gen ...

s in drag since the 1990s, and came out as transgender in 1996; Cayne came to national attention in 2007 for portraying

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

mistress Carmelita on ABC's prime time drama ''

Dirty Sexy Money ''Dirty Sexy Money'' is an American prime time drama television series created by Craig Wright. It ran on ABC from September 26, 2007, to August 8, 2009. The series was produced by Berlanti Television and ABC Studios. Wright served as an ex ...

''. The role makes Cayne the first transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character in primetime. She is perhaps best known for her recurring role as the Fairy Queen on the fantasy series '' The Magicians''.

Early life

Cayne has a fraternal twin brother named Dylan. Their parents taught at a

Waldorf School Waldorf education, also known as Steiner education, is based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. Its educational style is holistic, intended to develop pupils' intellectual, artistic, and practical ...

, and the family lived on campus.Venus, Michael (2002). Michael Venus Profiles: Candis Cayne. ''YouTube'' She graduated from Henry Perrine Baldwin High School in Hawaii in 1989 and then spent a year in Los Angeles, where she trained as a dancer.

Career

Cayne then moved to New York in the early 1990s, making a name for herself as a choreographer and

drag performer The term "drag" refers to the performance of exaggerated masculinity, femininity, or other forms of gender expression, usually for entertainment purposes. A drag queen is someone (usually male) who performs femininity and a drag king is someone ( ...

. About three years after her arrival in NYC, Cayne realized that the term

described how she felt about herself. Already performing as "Candis Cayne" at New York

gay bar A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) clientele; the term '' gay'' is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBT communities. Gay bars once serv ...

Boy Bar and as a featured performer at Tour in New York's Chelsea, the entertainer also participated in

Wigstock Wigstock was an annual outdoor drag festival that began in 1984 in Manhattan's East Village that took place on Labor Day. Continuing, with a few gaps, until 2005, the festival would traditionally act as the unofficial end to the summer for the ...

, the annual drag festival in Manhattan's East Village. In 1995 Cayne appeared in the related documentary film '' Wigstock: The Movie'', the comedy-drama film '' Stonewall'', and the

Universal Studios Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

comedy feature film ''

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar ''To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar'' is a 1995 American road comedy film directed by Beeban Kidron and starring Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and John Leguizamo as three New York City drag queens who embark on a road trip. ...

'', for which she also did choreography. In 1996, she had a supporting role in the comedy-drama film ''Always Something Better'' (a.k.a. ''Never Look Back''). In 1997 Cayne was in a documentary called Drag Time on HBO along with many other famous New York nightlife performers. Candis also co-starred in the music video for

RuPaul RuPaul Andre Charles (born November 17, 1960; stylized as RuPaul) is an American drag queen, television personality, actor, musician, and model. Best known for producing, hosting, and judging the reality competition series '' RuPaul's Drag Race ...

's " A Little Bit of Love" with

female impersonator A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and part of ...

Jazzmun Jazzmun (born February 10, 1969) is the stage name of Jazzmun Nichala Crayton who is an American actress and nightclub performer, often working in the Los Angeles Area. Background Originally from San Diego, California, Jazzmun made her first n ...

. Cayne also starred as the title character in the 1998 independent film ''

Mob Queen ''Mob Queen'' is a 1998 American romantic comedy directed by Jon Carnoy and written by Mike Horelick. Plot The film is set in Brooklyn in 1957. After the consigliere (assistant) to the Mafia Don dies, crushed by a crate of tuna-fish cans, small ...

'', and won the 2001

Miss Continental Miss Continental is an annual female impersonation pageantry system founded in 1980 by Jim Flint. It takes place at the Baton Show Lounge in Chicago, Illinois, and is usually held over Labor Day weekend. In 1991, the Miss Continental Pageantry Sy ...

pageant. In 2007 Cayne was cast as Annaka Manners in the 2007 RuPaul film ''

Starrbooty ''Starrbooty'' is a 2007 film written by and starring drag queen RuPaul. It is the fourth in a series of films starring the title character, a top secret government agent and supermodel. The original three films (collectively titled RuPaul Is: St ...

''. From 2007 to 2008 Cayne played Carmelita Rainer, a

trans woman A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and s ...

having an affair with married New York Attorney General Patrick Darling (played by

William Baldwin William Joseph Baldwin (born February 21, 1963), Note: While birthplace is routinely listed as Massapequa, that town has no hospital, and brother Alec Baldwin was born in nearby Amityville, which does. known also as Billy Baldwin,is an American ...

), on the ABC prime time drama ''

''. She had a recurring role as the transgender character Alexis Stone in season six of ''

Nip/Tuck ''Nip/Tuck'' is an American medical drama television series created by Ryan Murphy that aired on FX in the United States from July 22, 2003, to March 3, 2010. The series, which also incorporates elements of crime drama, black comedy, family dra ...

''. Cayne has appeared as a judge and Dean of Dance on ''

RuPaul's Drag U ''RuPaul's Drag U'' (as in "Drag University") is an American reality television series that debuted July 19, 2010, on Logo TV. Its final episode aired in August 2012. It was hosted by RuPaul and a team of drag queen "professors". ''Drag U'' was ...

''. As a dance teacher, she taught contestants original choreography to "

No Scrubs "No Scrubs" is a song recorded by American girl group TLC as the lead single from their third studio album, ''FanMail'', on February 2, 1999, by LaFace Records and Arista Records. The song was written by producer Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs, ...

" by TLC and

Kelis Kelis Rogers-Mora (; born August 21, 1979), known mononymously as Kelis, is an American singer, songwriter and a professionally trained chef. At age 14, she was admitted to New York's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Perform ...

's song "

Milkshake A milkshake (sometimes simply called a shake) is a sweet beverage made by blending milk, ice cream, and flavorings or sweeteners such as butterscotch, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, fruit syrup, or whole fruit into a thick, sweet, cold mixtu ...

". In 2011, she guest-starred on the TV show '' Necessary Roughness'' as Geraldine. In 2015, Cayne started making appearances in seasons 1 and 2 of

Caitlyn Jenner Caitlyn Marie Jenner (born William Bruce Jenner; October 28, 1949) is an American media personality and retired Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete. Jenner played college football for the Graceland Yellowjackets before incurring a knee ...

's reality show ''

I Am Cait ''I Am Cait'' is an American television documentary series which chronicles the life of Caitlyn Jenner after her gender transition. The eight-part one-hour documentary series debuted on July 26, 2015, on the E! network. The series focuses on th ...

''. From 2017 to 2018, Cayne played the role of The Fairy Queen in the

Syfy Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. La ...

series The Magicians. Cayne appeared in the 2020 documentary '' Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen''. She also hosted the third edition of

Werq the World The Werq the World tour is an ongoing tour featuring drag queens from ''RuPaul's Drag Race''. The tour, created by Brandon Voss and some input by Shangela, is produced by Voss Events in collaboration with VH1 and World of Wonder. It is known for ...

's livestreamed series.

Activism and personal life

Cayne began transitioning circa 1996. Cayne has stated, "I'm not trying to be a spokeswoman for the transgender community; I just want to be looked at as a living, breathing, happy human being." She calls the

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

community "the last great minority" and supports LGBT+ rights charity

GLAAD GLAAD (), an acronym of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayal ...

. In August 2015, Candis Cayne teamed up with the global LGBT social network MOOVZ as the new global creative director. For over eight years, ending in 2010, Cayne was in a relationship with DJ Marco McDermott, to whom she referred as her husband. During that time, she helped raise McDermott's daughter, Satori, from a previous relationship. In 2016, during season 2 of the reality show ''

'', Cayne explored the possibility of

adopting Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...

as a single mom.

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

References

External links

* *
Candis Cayne profile
at QueenMother.tv
Candis Cayne hosts NewNowNext Awards for LOGO
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cayne, Candis 1971 births Living people Actresses from Maui American drag queens American film actresses American television actresses LGBT people from Hawaii LGBT choreographers LGBT rights activists from the United States Transgender actresses Transgender female models American twins Waldorf school alumni Transgender drag performers American LGBT actors