Wendy Orlean Williams (May 28, 1949 – April 6, 1998), better known as Wendy O. Williams, was the lead singer for the punk band the Plasmatics, whose stage theatrics included blowing up equipment, near nudity and chain-sawing guitars.
Dubbed "The Queen of Shock Rock," Williams was widely considered the most controversial and radical woman singer of her day. She often sported a trademark Mohawk haircut.
Williams was nominated in 1985 for a Grammy in the Best Female Rock Vocal category during the height of her band's popularity.
Her onstage antics, both solo and with the Plasmatics, earned her a reputation. She was most often seen sawing a guitar in half with a chainsaw, or demolishing a car (once she even destroyed a car before chucking it into a nearby river).
Musically, she was one of the first persons to blur the line between metal and punk. In her reining days in the 80s, the two genres were not as close. At Plasmatics shows you would often see the mohawked punks and the long haired metalheads starting fights in the circle pits.
Wendy O was arrested during a show one night, for lewd acts with a sledge hammer, and later had the crap beat out of her by the arresting officers. The Plasmatics broke up shortly afer the long trial.
Wendy went solo in 1984, and even had Gene Simmons producing that first record. But she never reached the same popularity she had with the Plasmatics, and soon faded into obscurity.
She released her final album Deffest! And Baddest! under the name Ultrafly and the Hometown Girls in 1988.
She enjoyed a brief acting career even after her retirement from recording. She most notably appeared in 1986 camp prison film Reform School Girls as Charlie Chambliss and performed the main theme. She also appeared in MacGyver, Pucker Up and Bark Like a Dog, The New Adventures of Bean Baxter and adult film Candy Goes to Hollywood.
Williams died at age 48 in 1998 in a wooded area near her home of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. While some argued she committed suicide rather than compromise her art, Rod Swenson (her long-time companion and former manager) reportedly described her as "despondent" at the time of her death. This is what she is said to have written in a suicide note regarding her decision:
I don't believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time. 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.
On Motörhead's 1999 live album Everything Louder Than Everyone Else, before the song No Class, Motörhead vocalist and Williams' longtime friend Lemmy said that he wanted to dedicate this song officially to Wendy. .