Wendy O. Williams

1949–1976: Early life Williams was born to Robert F. Williams, a chemist at Eastman Kodak, and Audrey Stauber Williams (1921–2008) on May 28, 1949, in Webster, New York. She studied clarinet at the Community Music School program of the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music, and later was a clarinetist in her high school's concert band. At the age of six, she appeared tap-dancing on the Howdy Doody show as a member of the "Peanut Gallery". She had her first run-in with the law at the age of 15, when she was arrested for sunbathing nude. At the age of 16, Williams left her home and hitchhiked to Colorado where she earned money by selling crocheted string bikinis. Afterward, she headed for Florida, working as a lifeguard, and then to Europe, where she worked as a macrobiotic cook in London and as a dancer with a traveling dance troupe. Around that time, she was arrested on multiple occasions for shoplifting and passing counterfeit money. In November, an Illinois judge sentenced her to one year's supervision and fined her $35 () for attacking a freelance photographer who tried to take her picture as she jogged along the Chicago lakefront. 1984–1986: Solo career, WOW and Kommander of Kaos Williams recorded a duet of the country hit "Stand by Your Man" with Lemmy of Motörhead in 1982. In 1984, she released the W.O.W. album, produced by Gene Simmons of Kiss. Kiss members Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Eric Carr, also perform on the album. Gene Simmons brought in Michael Ray to play lead guitar; Ray was previously auditioning on Creatures of the Night studio solos. Simmons himself played bass but is credited as Reginald Van Helsing. In 1985, Williams starred in The Rocky Horror Show at the Westport Playhouse in St. Louis. The show played for over six months, but a nationwide tour fell through. In 1986, she starred in Tom DeSimone's indie-film Reform School Girls. Neither she nor manager Rod Swenson liked the film when it came out, but at this point the producers had heard Kommander of Kaos (her second solo album) and wanted to include three tracks from the album in the movie score. They approached Swenson about producing the title track for the film and having Williams sing it. The band reluctantly agreed to do it. Uncle Brian from the Broc joined Swenson as co-producer and also played sax. He also appeared in the video that the film company had asked Swenson to produce and direct, playing the sax and wearing a tutu. 1987–1990: Reunion with Plasmatics and Deffest! and Baddest! In 1987, Williams starred as the part-time friend/enemy in the underground spy world to the title character on Fox's The New Adventures of Beans Baxter. The Plasmatics' last tour was in late 1988. Williams appeared in Pucker Up and Bark Like a Dog, directed by Paul S. Parco, in 1990. In 1988, Williams put out another solo album, this time a "thrash rap" album called Deffest! and Baddest! under the name "Ultrafly and the Hometown Girls." Williams' last known performance of a Plasmatics song occurred due to the prompting of Joey Ramone. She performed "Masterplan" one final time with Richie Stotts, when Stotts' band opened for the Ramones on New Year's Eve, 1988. 1991–1998: Retirement and final years In 1991, Williams moved to Storrs, Connecticut, where she lived with her long-time companion and former manager, Rod Swenson, and worked as an animal rehabilitator and at a food cooperative in nearby Willimantic. She explained her move by saying that she "was pretty fed up dealing with people." == Personal life ==

Her teachers and other sources described Wendy Williams as a shy and soft-spoken child who was an average student, and who learned to play the clarinet very well in the junior high band—-although she herself at numerous times stated that she felt like an outcast and was misunderstood by her strict parents, whom she referred to as "cocktail zombies". She was said to have "experimented with drugs and furious sex" in her teenage years (though years later as an adult woman in 1979 into the early 1980s she would go on to become a "teetotaler", in the words of her partner). She continued to try different jobs and lifestyles in order to discover somewhere where she felt she belonged, until eventually finding the show-business magazine ad for Rod Swenson's Sex Fantasy Theater in 1976—he would go on to form and manage their band, the Plasmatics; the two remained lifelong romantic partners until her suicide in 1998. Swenson claims that Williams and he agreed together that they "didn't want to do things that sold, they wanted to do things that were interesting, new territory". from 1966 until her death, Williams worked at a food co-op – which could either be a true statement or a simple reference to the Plasmatics' onstage stunts at their concerts, that regularly involved acts of destruction and chainsawing through guitars. In several interviews, Williams spoke about her passion for tattoos. On her brief appearance in the adult film Candy Goes to Hollywood, Williams was quoted as saying: "It was just like working in a donut shop, except you didn't wear a paper hat". == Death ==

Williams first attempted suicide in 1993 by hammering a knife into her chest where it lodged in her sternum. However, she changed her mind and called Rod Swenson to take her to the hospital. She attempted suicide again in 1997 with an overdose of ephedrine. "Wendy's act was not an irrational in-the-moment act," he said; for four years she had contemplated suicide. Swenson reportedly described her as "despondent" at the time of her death. This is what she reportedly wrote in a suicide note regarding her decision: Joey Ramone and many others issued statements at the time of her death. On Motörhead's 1999 live album Everything Louder Than Everyone Else, before the song "No Class", Motörhead vocalist Lemmy said that he wanted to dedicate the song to her. A memorial was held at CBGB on May 18. Several of Williams' former Plasmatics co-members (Chosei Funahara, Richie Stotts, Wes Beech, Stu Deutsch, Jean Beauvoir and TC Tolliver) played a six-song set with four of them handling the vocals. ==Legacy==

In 1981, People magazine put Williams on their best dressed style list. She also appeared on the cover of Vegetarian Times issue 83, in July 1984. Williams was featured in a Playboy pictorial in 1986, skydiving naked, Various sources have referred to Wendy O. Williams as the "Queen of Shock Rock", "High Priestess of Metal", "Queen of Heavy Metal", "Evel Knievelette", "Dominatrix of the Decibels", etc. In the game Cyberpunk 2077, the character Johnny Silverhand expresses admiration for Williams and her legendary parties. He mourns her death which had a tremendous impact on him. The title of the in-game quest “The Damned” also shares its name with the song by the Plasmatics. == Discography ==

;With the Plasmatics: • New Hope for the Wretched (1980) • Beyond the Valley of 1984 (1981) • Metal Priestess (1981) • ''Coup d'etat'' (1982) • Maggots: The Record (1987) • Coup de Grace (2002) ;With Wendy O. Williams (band) • WOW (1984) • ''Fuck 'N Roll'' [live EP] (1985) • Kommander of Kaos (1986) • Maggots: The Record (1987) • Deffest! and Baddest! (1988) == Filmography ==

• Candy Goes to Hollywood (1979) • SCTV – Fishin' Musician Sketch (John Candy) (1981) • Hell Camp of the Gland Robbers (1985) • Reform School Girls (1986) • The New Adventures of Beans Baxter (1987) • Pucker Up and Bark Like a Dog (1990) • MacGyver (1990) • ==References==