Wendy O. Williams

While she never earned the critical acclaim of artists like Patti Smith, Siouxsie Sioux, or Exene Cervenka, for many Wendy O. Williams was the first female face of punk rock. As the lead singer of the Plasmatics, Williams proved a woman could dish out on-stage mayhem as well as any man -- hoisting a chainsaw or a sledgehammer, Williams routinely destroyed guitars, smashed televisions, blew up automobiles, and generally left a trail of destruction in her wake. Williams also blended sex with anarchy, often appearing on stage stripped to the waist with shaving cream or electrical tape covering her nipples as a towering Mohawk bloomed from her scalp, creating a vision of a wildly empowered outlaw woman whose echoes would be felt in music and culture long after the Plasmatics called it quits. Wendy Orlean Williams was born on May 28, 1949, in Rochester, NY. Williams's parents were strict and straight-laced, and her earliest exposure to performing came from taking tap-dancing lessons and appearing in the Peanut Gallery on The Howdy Doody Show at age seven. After completing ninth grade, Williams let her independent side take over; she quit school and traveled through Europe and the United States, taking odd jobs to support herself along the way. In 1976, Williams arrived in New York City and met Rod Swenson, a dada-influenced performance artist who was running an experimental erotic theater in Times Square as "Captain Kink." Williams became a performer in Swenson's shows and as he grew interested in the punk rock scene exploding in Manhattan and on the Bowery, they decided to form a rock band with Williams as lead singer. The band became the Plasmatics, who made their debut at CBGB in 1978; merging the simplicity of punk and the guitar attack of heavy metal, the Plasmatics...