Wendy O. Williams
Punk Rock Suicide
Groundbreaker Wendy O. Williams Took Her Own Life 4-7-98
Wendy O., ninth-grade dropout and former stripper, was founder
and lead singer of the punk band, The Plasmatics. She was arrested for punching
a paparazzi (ah, a lady before her time!), simulating sex on stage, performing
naked (if you don't count the shaving foam covering her naughty bits), and
beating an officer. She was a riot grrl before that meant crushes on Web celebs
and baby Tees (Wendy O. preferred duct tape on her nipples) - and she is surely
the only person in history to be featured on the covers of both Vegetarian Times
and Cream Shot (she was a raunchy vegetarian, got it?).
"All she did was eat carrots!" said filmmaker Kristine Peterson in a Tripod
interview last year. (Peterson worked with Wendy O. on the film Reform School
Girls.) "She did one scene where she's driving a bus and she is supposed to kick
the window out and jump on top of the bus wearing stiletto boots, a G-string,
and a little black leather bra. The first thing she says is, as she's driving
the bus going 40 miles an hour, 'Do I have to use my feet? Can I knock the
window out with my head?'"
In recent years Wendy O. lived in Connecticut and worked as an animal
rehabilitator - quite a tame day-to-day for someone once wild enough to be
banned from London. I guess you can't blow up cars in the studio of the Tomorrow
Show forever. Is there a lesson in her life? Besides the rather depressing one
that if you wrestle alligators in your twenties, feeding squirrels in your
forties might be something of a comedown? (Or the faintly amusing one that not
all vegetarians lead long, healthy lives.) Maybe not, but it's worth taking time
to honor a woman who rioted so hard she burned out. "I don't believe that people
should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a
considerable period of time," Wendy O. wrote in her suicide note. "I do believe
strongly, however, that the right to do so is one of the most fundamental rights
that anyone in a free society should have. For me much of the world makes no
sense, but my feelings about what I am doing ring loud and clear to an inner ear
and a place where there is no self, only calm."
As Jill "The Diva" Stempel writes in her tribute to Wendy O., "I guess old punks
never die, they just choose to blow their brains out with a shotgun."
News Account From When It Happened
Punk Singer Wendy O. Williams
Dies
The Associated Press (API)
STORRS, Conn. (AP) - Wendy O. Williams, whose stage theatrics as lead singer of
the punk band The Plasmatics included blowing up equipment and chain-sawing
guitars, has committed suicide. She was 48.
Williams' former manager and longtime companion Rod Swenson said he discovered
her body Monday in a wooded area near their home. The state medical examiner
said Williams died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Swenson said Williams had been despondent for some time.
Williams, dubbed the "queen of shock rock" sported a trademark Mohawk haircut
and was nominated in 1985 for a Grammy in the best Female Rock Vocal category
during the height of the band's popularity.
A native of Webster, N.Y., Williams with her on-stage antics quickly attracted a
following for the Plasmatics, who debuted in New York City clubs in 1978.
Police in Milwaukee arrested Williams and Swenson in 1981 after she allegedly
simulated a sex act in concert at a nightclub. Charges of battery to an officer
and obscene conduct against Williams were later dropped and a jury cleared
Swenson of obstructing an officer.
She was acquitted in April 1981 of an obscenity charge in Cleveland filed for
performing covered only with shaving cream and simulating sexual activity.
In November of that year, she was sentenced to one year supervision and fined
$35 by an Illinois judge for beating a free-lance photographer who tried to take
her picture while she was jogging along the Chicago lakefront.
The band made several international tours, was once banned in London, and
appeared on Tom Snyder's "Tomorrow" show, where they blew up a car in the
studio.
Swenson said he and Williams moved to Storrs in 1991, three years after the
group's last tour. She had not performed for several years and had worked most
recently as an animal rehabilitator, he said.
She is survived by her mother and two sisters.
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