Born on May 28: Wendy O'Williams (Plasmatics), fragile queen of provocation

Wendy Orlean Williams was born in Rochester, New York, in 1949. A punk-metal icon and convinced environmentalist, her flaws and antics make her one of the most misunderstood women in American rock.

Raised in a modest household, she left home at sixteen. We're not sure what her parents thought of her taking off as a teenager, but Wendy has always maintained that this was by no means a long-term runaway. She traveled the country (by hitchhiking or Greyhound bus), works as an exotic dancer, as an adult film actress (like Catherine Ringer in her early days) as well as a shop assistant. Nothing glamorous about her rather bumpy start in life, but she learnt how to survive before grabbing the microphone.

She arrived on the music scene as a grenade with its pin pulled, rather than a bizarre UFO. With her platinum-blond mohawk hairdo, chainsaw in hand and clothes pegs on her modestly taped nipples, she's not one to go unnoticed, and the leagues of decorum are quickly spring into action.

By the time she entered manager Rod Swenson's orbit in the late 1970s, she was already a survivor. While he also became her partner in life, he was also the architect of a band that made headlines more for its excesses than for its music. Formed in New York in 1977 as the Plasmatics, the band certainly boasted a sharp guitarist, Jean Beauvoir, but Wendy played more the role of a madcap showgirl than a singer in the true sense of the word. With titles as explicit as Destroyers and Butcher Baby, it's fair to say that she belches more than she sings. Compared to the Plasmatics, Iggy Pop's Stooges almost seem like friendly troubadours!

Although they never came close to popular recognition, the albums followed one another at machine-gun speed:"New Hope For The Wretched" (1980) and "Beyond The Valley Of 1984" (1981) punctuated the band's releases. It's hard to keep up, of course, and Wendy's chainsaw eventually jams when the singer runs out of carcasses to cut up. And this is no metaphor! In fact, the band's career has been punctuated by as many conflicts with the authorities as albums.

In January 1981, the Milwaukee police arrested her on stage for indecent conduct after she simulated a sexual act with... a hammer. It's a safe bet that some of the audience thought it was just another staging gimmick.

While Kiss' sharp-tongued bassist Gene Simmons produced her first solo album "WOW" (1984), Wendy still managed the feat of being nominated for a Grammy Award in 1985 in the hard rock category. In an interview with Spin magazine in 1984, she declared - believe it or not: "I never set out to shock. But rather to shake people out of their torpor." Mission accomplished on that note...

After two more unsuccessful albums, she moved to a farm in Connecticut and devoted herself to nature, animals and ecology. In particular, she cares for injured squirrels. The rustle of the wind in the trees replaced the thunderous decibels in her daily life.

On April 6, 1998, she took her own life in the woods near her property. She was only 48 years old. Her partner Rod Swenson published a letter in which he explained her action: "I simply decided the time had come."

Two years later, a posthumous Plasmatics album was released in 2000, the aptly named"Coup de grâce".

Photo: Wendy O'Williams with The Plasmatics on stage at the VUB aura Q in Brussels (Belgium), February 8, 1981.