Early life: 1922–1945 Cameron was born in
Belle Plaine, Iowa, on April 23, 1922. Her father, railway worker Hill Leslie Cameron, was the adopted child of a
Scots-Irish family; her mother, Carrie Cameron (
née Ridenour), was of Dutch ancestry. She was their first child, and was followed by three siblings: James (b. 1923), Mary (b. 1927), and Robert (b. 1929). They lived on the wealthier north side of town, although life was nevertheless hard due to the
Great Depression. Cameron attended Whittier Elementary School and Belle Plaine High School, where she did well at art, English, and drama but failed algebra, Latin, and civics lessons. She also participated in athletics, glee club, and chorus. Relating that one of her childhood friends had committed suicide and that she too had contemplated it, she characterized herself as a rebellious child, claiming that "I became the town pariah ... Nobody would let their kid near me". She had sexual relationships with various men; after Cameron became pregnant, her mother performed an illegal home abortion. In 1940, the Cameron family relocated to
Davenport so Hill could work at the
Rock Island Arsenal munitions factory. Cameron completed her final year of high school education at
Davenport High School. Leaving school, she worked as a display artist in a local department store. Following the United States' entry into the
Second World War, Cameron signed up for the
Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, a part of the
United States Navy, in February 1943. Initially sent to a training camp at
Iowa State Teachers College in
Cedar Falls, she was subsequently posted to Washington, D.C., where she served as a cartographer for the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the course of these duties, she met U.K. Prime Minister
Winston Churchill in May 1943. She was reassigned to the Naval Photographic Unit in
Anacostia, where she worked as a
wardrobe mistress for propaganda documentaries, and during this period met various
Hollywood stars. When her brother James returned to the U.S. injured from service overseas, she went
AWOL and returned to Iowa to see him, as a result of which she was
court–martialed and confined to barracks for the rest of the war. For reasons unknown to her, she received an honorable discharge from the military in 1945. To join her family, she traveled to
Pasadena, California, where her father and brothers had found work at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Jack Parsons: 1946–1952 In Pasadena, Cameron ran into a former colleague, who invited her to visit the large
American Craftsman-style house where he was currently lodging, 1003 Orange Grove Avenue, also known as "The Parsonage". The house was so-called because its lease was owned by
Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist who had been a founding member of the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory and who was also a devout follower of
Thelema, a
new religious movement founded by English occultist
Aleister Crowley in 1904. Parsons was the head of the Agape Lodge, a branch of the Thelemite
Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). Unbeknownst to Cameron, Parsons had just finished a series of rituals using
Enochian magic with his friend and lodger
L. Ron Hubbard, all with the intent of attracting an "elemental" woman to be his lover. Upon encountering Cameron with her distinctive red hair and blue eyes, Parsons considered her to be the individual whom he had invoked. After they met at The Parsonage on January 18, 1946, they were instantly attracted to each other and spent the next two weeks in Parsons' bedroom together. Although Cameron was unaware of it, Parsons saw this as a form of
sex magic that constituted part of the
Babalon Working, a rite to invoke the birth of Thelemite goddess
Babalon onto Earth in human form. During a brief visit to New York City to see a friend, Cameron discovered that she was pregnant and decided to have an abortion. Parsons meanwhile had founded a company with Hubbard and Hubbard's girlfriend
Sara Northrup, Allied Enterprises, into which he invested his life savings. It became apparent that Hubbard was a
confidence trickster, who tried to flee with Parsons' money, resulting in the end of their friendship. Returning to Pasadena, Cameron consoled Parsons, painting a picture of Northrup with her legs severed below the knee. Parsons decided to sell The Parsonage, which was then demolished for redevelopment, and the couple moved to
Manhattan Beach. On October 19, 1946, he and Cameron married at the
San Juan Capistrano courthouse in
Orange County, in a service witnessed by his best friend
Edward Forman. Having an aversion to all religion, Cameron initially took no interest in Parsons' Thelemite beliefs and occult practices, although he maintained that she had an important destiny, giving her the magical name of "Candida", often shortened to "Candy", which became her nickname. .|alt=A bald, middle-aged white man staring straight at the viewer. In the winter of 1947, Cameron travelled from New York to Paris aboard the SS
America with the intention of studying art at the
Académie de la Grande Chaumière, which she hoped would admit her with a letter of recommendation from Pasadena's
Art Center School. She also wanted to visit England and meet with Crowley and explain to him Parsons' Babalon Working. Cameron learned upon her arrival in Paris that Crowley had died and that she had not been admitted to the college. She found post-war Paris "extreme and bleak", befriended
Juliette Gréco, and spent three weeks in Switzerland before returning home. When Cameron developed
catalepsy, Parsons suggested that she read
Sylvan Muldoon's books on
astral projection and encouraged her to read
James Frazer's
The Golden Bough,
Heinrich Zimmer's
The King and the Corpse, and
Joseph Campbell's
The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Although she still did not accept Thelema, she became increasingly interested in the occult, and in particular the use of the
tarot. Parsons' and Cameron's relationship was deteriorating and they contemplated divorce. While Cameron visited the artistic commune at
San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and befriended the artist
Renate Druks, Parsons moved into a house in
Redondo Beach and was involved in a brief relationship with an Irishwoman named Gladis Gohan before Cameron returned. By March 1951, Parsons and Cameron had moved to the coach house at 1071 South Orange Grove, while he began work at the Bermite Powder Company, constructing explosives for the film industry. They started holding parties once more that were attended largely by
bohemians and members of the
beat generation, and Cameron attended the jazz clubs of Central Avenue with her friend, the sculptor
Julie Macdonald. Cameron produced illustrations for fashion magazines and sold some of her paintings, including some purchased by a friend, the artist
Jirayr Zorthian. Parsons and Cameron had decided to travel to Mexico for a few months. On the day before they planned to leave—June 17, 1952—he received a rush order of explosives for a film set, and began work on the order at his house. In the midst of this project, an explosion destroyed the building, fatally wounding Parsons. He was rushed to hospital, but was declared dead. Cameron did not want to see his body and retreated to San Miguel, asking her friend George Frey to oversee the cremation.
The Children, Kenneth Anger, and Curtis Harrington: 1952–1968 While in Mexico, Cameron began performing blood rituals in the hope of communicating with Parsons' spirit; during these, she cut her own wrists. As part of these rituals, she claimed to have received a new magical identity, Hilarion. When she heard that an
unidentified flying object had allegedly been seen over Washington D.C.'s
Capitol Building, she considered it a response to Parsons' death. After two months, she returned to California and attempted suicide. Increasingly interested in occultism, she read through her husband's papers. Embracing his Thelemic beliefs, she came to understand his purpose in carrying out the Babalon Working and also came to believe that the spirit of Babalon had been incarnated into herself. She came to believe that Parsons had been murdered by the police or
anti-Zionists, and continued her attempts at astral projection to commune with his spirit. Her mental stability was deteriorating, and she became convinced that a nuclear test on
Eniwetok Atoll would result in the destruction of the California coast. There is inconclusive evidence that she was institutionalized in a psychiatric ward during this period, before having a brief affair with African-American jazz player Leroy Booth, a relationship that would have been illegal at the time. At some point in this period, she stayed with the Thelemite
Wilfred Talbot Smith and his wife, although he thought that she had "bats in the belfry" and ignored what he described as her "Mad Mental Meanderings". In December 1952, Cameron moved to a derelict ranch in
Beaumont, California, about from Redondo Beach. With the aid of Druks and Paul Mathison, she gathered a loose clique of magical practitioners around herself which she called "The Children". Intentionally comprising members from various races, she oversaw a range of sex magic rituals with the intent of creating a breed of mixed-race "moonchildren" who would be devoted to
Horus. She became pregnant as a result of these rites, and termed her forthcoming child "the Wormwood Star", although the pregnancy ended in
miscarriage. Over time, many of Cameron's associates within The Children distanced themselves from her, in particular because of her increasingly apocalyptic pronouncements; she claimed that Mexico was about to conquer the U.S., that a
race war was about to break out in the
Old World, that a comet would hit the Earth, and that a
flying saucer would rescue her and her followers and take them to
Mars. During her magical rituals she used a range of drugs, including
marijuana,
peyote, and
magic mushrooms, and in June 1953 she visited Los Angeles to attend a
Gerald Heard lecture on the mind-expanding uses of hallucinogens. Cameron was suffering from auditory hallucinations, frequent bouts of depression, and dramatic mood swings. During this period, she corresponded with the Thelemite
Jane Wolfe, although other Thelemites and Crowley associates such as
Karl Germer and
Gerald Yorke deemed her insane. After using the Chinese
divination text the
I Ching, Cameron returned to Los Angeles, moving in with Booth until the duo were arrested for illegal drug possession. Released on bail, she moved into Druks' Malibu home, and through her joined the avant-garde artistic circle surrounding the socialite
Samson De Brier. It was through this circle that Cameron met the Thelemite film maker
Kenneth Anger, and after a party titled "Come As Your Madness" which was organised by Mathison and Druks, he decided to produce a film featuring Cameron and others in the group. The resulting film was
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. After seeing the film, the English Thelemite
Kenneth Grant wrote to Cameron hoping that she might move to England and join his London-based group, the New Isis Lodge; Cameron never responded. Through common friends Cameron met Sheridan "Sherry" Kimmel, and the two entered a relationship. A veteran of the Second World War from Florida, Kimmel suffered from
posttraumatic stress disorder, often causing him severe mood swings. He developed an interest in occultism and became intensely jealous of Parsons' continuing influence over Cameron, destroying Parsons' notes on the Babalon Working that she had kept. Cameron again became pregnant, although she was unsure who the father was. She gave birth to a daughter, Crystal Eve Kimmel, on Christmas Eve 1955. She allowed her daughter to behave how she pleased, believing that this was the best way for her to learn. With her friend, the film-maker
Curtis Harrington, Cameron then produced a short film,
The Wormwood Star, which was filmed at the home of multi-millionaire art collector
Edward James; the film features images of Cameron's paintings, and recitations of her poems. In autumn 1956, Cameron's first exhibition was held, at
Walter Hopps's studio in
Brentwood; several paintings were destroyed when the gallery caught fire. Around this time, Cameron was introduced to the actor
Dean Stockwell at a public recital of her poetry; he then introduced her to his friend and fellow actor
Dennis Hopper. She was also an associate of the artist
Wallace Berman, who used a photograph of her on the front of the first volume of his art journal,
Semina. The volume also included Cameron's drawing,
Peyote Vision. This artwork was featured in Berman's 1957 exhibition at Los Angeles' Feris Gallery, which was raided and shut down by the police. Investigating officers claimed that
Peyote Vision, which featured two copulating figures, was pornographic and indecent, thus legitimising their actions. In late 1957, Cameron moved to San Francisco with her friends Norman Rose and David Metzer. There she mingled within the same bohemian social circles as many of the beat generation of artists and writers, and was a regular at avant-garde poetry readings. She began a relationship with the artist Burt Shonberg of
Cafe Frankenstein, and with him moved into a ranch outside of
Joshua Tree. Together they began exploring the subject of
Ufology, and became friends with the ufologist
George Van Tassel. After Kimmel was released from a psychiatric ward, Cameron re-established her relationship with him, and in 1959, they were married in a civil ceremony at Santa Monica City Hall; their relationship was strained and they separated soon after. In 1960, Cameron appeared alongside Hopper in Harrington's first full-length film,
Night Tide. The film was a critical success and—despite not receiving a wide distribution—became a
cult classic. She was invited to appear in Harrington's next film,
Games, although ultimately never did so. After Cameron moved to
Venice, Los Angeles, a local arts shop exhibited her work in August 1961. On his return to the U.S. from Europe, Anger moved in with Cameron for a time, before the duo moved into a flat on Silverlake Boulevard in early 1964; Anger remained there before departing for New York City. According to Anger biographer Bill Landis, Cameron had become "a rather formidable maternal figure" in Anger's life. In October 1964, the Cinema Theatre in Los Angeles held an event known as The Transcendental Art of Cameron, which displayed her art and poetry and screened some of her films; Anger arrived and disrupted the event by objecting to the screening of
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome without his permission. He then launched a poster campaign,
The Cameron File, against his former friend, labelling her "Typhoid Mary of the Occult World". The pair later reconciled, Cameron visiting Anger in San Francisco, where he introduced her to
Anton LaVey, the founder of the
Church of Satan. LaVey was delighted to meet her, having been a fan of
Night Tide.
Later life: 1969–1995 In the latter part of the 1960s, Cameron and her daughter moved to the
pueblos of
Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she developed a friendship with sculptor
John Chamberlain and appeared in his art movie,
Thumb Suck, which was never released. While in New Mexico she suffered a
collapsed lung and required hospitalization. Her health was poor, as she suffered from chronic bronchitis and
emphysema (both of which were exacerbated by her chain smoking), while hand tremors prevented her from being able to paint for four years. Returning to California, by 1969 she was living in the Pioneertown sector of Joshua Tree. From there she and her daughter moved to a small bungalow on North Genesee Avenue in the
West Hollywood area of Los Angeles, which at the time had become impoverished and associated with crime,
sex stores, and
adult movie theatres; she remained there for the rest of her life. By the mid-1980s, Cameron was focusing to a greater extent on her family life, particularly in looking after her grandchildren, who were known to go
joyriding in her jeep. Neighbors recall her playing a
Celtic harp in her garden and slowly walking her dog around the block while smoking a joint of marijuana. At one point, she was arrested for cultivating cannabis in her home. Cameron became a regular practitioner of
Tai chi, took part in group sessions in
Bronson Park under the tutelage of
Marshall Ho'o, and earned a teaching certificate in the subject. She became very interested in
José Argüelles'
The Mayan Factor and
Charles Musès'
The Lion Path, and undertook the
Neo-shamanic practices endorsed in the latter. She was also influenced by claims made in the writings of archaeologist
Marija Gimbutas about a prehistoric
matriarchal society devoted to a goddess. Cameron was very interested in
A. S. Raleigh's
Woman and Superwoman, taped her own reading of it, and sent copies to her friends and local public radio for broadcast. Throughout all of these disparate spiritual interests, she retained faith in the Thelemic ideas of Crowley. As well as entertaining old friends who came to visit her in her home, Cameron also met with younger occultists, such as the Thelemite
William Breeze and the
industrial musician
Genesis P-Orridge. Cameron aided Breeze in co-editing a collection of Parsons' occult and
libertarian writings, which were published as
Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword in 1989. Cameron was acquainted with the experimental film-maker
Chick Strand and appeared in the latter's 1979 project
Loose Ends, during which she narrated the story of an
exorcism. In 1989, an exhibition of her work titled
The Pearl of Reprisal was held at the
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. It included a selection of her paintings and a screening of
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome and
The Wormwood Star, while Cameron attended to provide a candle-lit reading of her poetry. ==Death==