ABILENE, Texas, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Stag film star and stripper Candy Barr, who dated mobster Mickey Cohen and was friends with Dallas club owner Jack Ruby, has died at age 70.
Barr died of pneumonia in an Abilene, Texas, hospital Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
The Edna, Texas, native born Juanita Dale Slusher trained actress Joan Collins for her role as an exotic dancer in the 1960 movie "Seven Thieves," the Times said.
Barr ran away to Dallas at the age of 13, married a safecracker at 14 and took up exotic dancing, prostitution and blue movies.
She became friends with Ruby, who was subsequently convicted of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy.
In 1957, she was arrested in Dallas for having less than four-fifths of an ounce of marijuana and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Cohen paid for her attorneys and she said, urged her to flee to Mexico.
Her appeal was denied and she went to jail. Then-Texas Gov. John B. Connally paroled her in 1963 and pardoned her four years later.
She tried briefly to restart her career as an exotic dancer in 1967 at age 32, then retired to live reclusively in Texas surrounded by pets, the Times said.
Texas Monthly had Barr listed alongside Lady Bird Johnson as one of history's "perfect Texans" in 1984. "Of all the small-town bad girls, (Barr) was the baddest," the magazine said.
