Background and career
Toyah Ann Willcox (born 18 May 1958) is an English singer-songwriter, actress, and television presenter. In a career spanning more than five decades, she has had eight top 40 singles, released more than 20 albums, written two books, appeared in more than 40 stage plays and 10 feature films, and voiced and presented numerous television shows. Between 1977 and 1983, Willcox fronted the eponymous band Toyah, before embarking on a solo career in the mid-1980s. At the Brit Awards 1982, Willcox was nominated for British Breakthrough Act, and Best Female Solo Artist. She was nominated a further two times in this category in 1983, and in 1984. Her hit singles, which she co-wrote, include "It's a Mystery", "Thunder in the Mountains" and "I Want to Be Free". Willcox is married to English guitarist Robert Fripp.
Willcox was born on 18 May 1958 in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Her father Beric Willcox ran a successful joinery business and owned three factories. Her mother Barbara Joy (née Rollinson), was a professional dancer, with whom he had fallen in love after seeing her on stage in Weston-super-Mare with singing and comedy double act Flanagan and Allen, and married in 1949. Her mother gave up her career after giving birth to Willcox's elder sister and brother. Willcox has suggested her first name could be a reference to the town of Toyah, Texas, or to the Native American word "toyah" meaning water, although she notes her parents deny both origins. Willcox enjoyed a financially comfortable childhood, attending a private girls' school, but was bullied. Requiring physiotherapy for a spinal condition, she behaved violently towards her mother, to whom she was close. An absentee pupil and frequently rebellious, she sat O-levels a year late owing to corrective surgery on her feet. She achieved one O-level pass, in music. Alienated by her background and surroundings, her rebellious behaviour led to her shunning male company and adopting an aggressive and flamboyant identity. Her early interest in music, dance and acting, combined with her alienation, and her uncertainty regarding her sexuality, led Willcox to seek an outlet, initially in acting and then in music. She attended the Old Rep Drama School in Birmingham, paying privately because she was denied a grant, the assessor noting: "She has a lisp and isn't attractive." She began working as a dresser in local theatres, including The Alexandra, Birmingham, and the Birmingham Hippodrome. Because of her distinctive appearance and gaudily dyed hair, repertory actors referred to her as "The Bird of Paradise." A friend's suggestion that she should see the Sex Pistols led to her being attracted to the punk movement, but she resolved to do better, travelling to London to take up a career in acting and music.
After appearing as an extra in a drama being made at the BBC Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham, an opening came to take a role in Glitter (1976), a play in the BBC Second City Firsts series, alongside Noel Edmonds and Phil Daniels. Recommended to the play's director by a member of the wardrobe department because of her distinctive appearance and oddball character, Willcox was given the role of Sue, a girl who sang with the band Bilbo and who dreamed of appearing on Top of the Pops. In the course of the 30-minute play, Willcox performed two songs she had co-written: "Floating Free" (an acoustic ballad, with Phil Daniels accompanying her on guitar) and "Dream Maker". The play was seen by Kate Nelligan and Maximilian Schell, who offered her work with the National Theatre in London, where she got the part of Emma in Tales from the Vienna Woods, directed by Schell. The opening led to her relocating to London. In 1977, while playing Emma in Tales from the Vienna Woods at the National Theatre, Willcox, inspired by her role as a musician in Glitter, fronted a band called Toyah which featured Joel Bogen on guitar, Mark Henry on bass, Steve Bray on drums, Peter Bush on keyboards, and herself on vocals. Having never considered herself a musician, she found herself lead singer of a successful band, although still uncertain about her own sexuality and repelled by her bandmates' antics with groupies. Introduced by actor Ian Charleson to director Derek Jarman, Willcox was offered 'any part you want' in Jubilee (called Down with the Queen at the time). Plagued by budgetary issues, the film featured Willcox as the murderous 'Mad', as well as a number of other prominent figures from the punk scene, including Siouxsie Sioux, Adam Ant and Richard O'Brien. She went on to play 'Monkey' in the 1979 film of The Who's Quadrophenia, having been introduced to director Franc Roddam through an association with John Lydon. Willcox demanded the part of Monkey from Roddam. She completed filming despite requiring medical attention for pneumonia. The possibility of a role in the Sex Pistols' film, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle under director Russ Meyer having fallen through, Willcox went on to play Miranda in Jarman's film The Tempest which won her a nomination as Best Newcomer at the 1980 Evening Standard Awards. Continuing a stage career alongside film work, in 1979, on London's Royal Court Theatre stage, Willcox played Sharon in Nigel Williams' Sugar and Spice, Tallulah in Stephen Poliakoff's American Days at the ICA, playing alongside Mel Smith, Antony Sher and Phil Daniels and taking a film role opposite Katharine Hepburn in the made-for-television film The Corn Is Green, directed by George Cukor. Willcox found her dual careers as a musician and actress frequently in conflict, leading to confusion as to which role constituted a 'compartment' to put her into. Feeling her musical career was not taken as seriously as her acting, she nevertheless viewed her acting role as 'highbrow' and her musical career as 'lowbrow'.
In London, Willcox lived in a place called "Mayhem", a converted British Rail warehouse serving as a studio. It was here the band Toyah recorded their first demos. For the lack of proper bed she slept for a while in a "second-hand" coffin, reportedly used by the French Red Cross to transport victims of fatal accidents. Citing her role in Quadrophenia as a boost to her musical career, with growing audiences Toyah signed to Safari Records, releasing a debut single "Victims of the Riddle", which topped the UK Indie Chart. This was followed by the Sheep Farming in Barnet EP, produced by Steve James and Keith Hale. Initially released in Germany, in 1979 it was re-released as an LP, comprising the original six tracks, "Victims of the Riddle" A and B sides and three tracks that were previously unavailable on vinyl. Willcox's second album, The Blue Meaning, went to no. 40 in the UK Albums Chart in June 1980. By this time, she is reported as announcing she had severed all ties with punk aesthetics. In January 1981, the live album Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!, recorded at the Lafayette Club in Wolverhampton the previous June, made it to the Top 30, backed up by a TV documentary Toyah. By now the original band had broken up and a new lineup was in place, consisting of Phil Spalding, Nigel Glockler and Adrian Lee, only Joel Bogen and Willcox remaining. 1981 saw Willcox's strengthened presence in the UK chart with hits such as Four from Toyah EP (no. 4, February 1981, including "It's a Mystery"), the third studio album Anthem that went to no. 2 in May 1981, to be later certified platinum, "I Want to Be Free" (no. 8, June 1981), "Thunder in the Mountains" (no. 4, October 1981) and Four More from Toyah EP (no. 14, November 1981). She became one of the first acts to score regularly in the UK Singles Chart with EPs, which were also successful on an international level. At the end of the year Willcox won the Smash Hits' reader's poll in two categories: Best Female Singer and Most Fanciable Female (beating Kim Wilde to the second place). In 1981 she alone, according to Safari, sold in the UK more units than the whole of the Warner Bros. put together. In 1982, The Changeling album was released, produced by Steve Lillywhite, marking a turn for a more goth-tinged sound, it went up to no. 6 in the UK. The Changeling was followed in the same year by a double live album Warrior Rock: Toyah on Tour. Also in 1982, Willcox appeared in Urgh! A Music War, a British film released in 1982 featuring performances by punk rock, new wave, and post-punk acts, filmed in 1980, in which she performed "Danced". Three more of her singles, "Brave New World", "Ieya" and "Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard)" charted in the Top 50 of the UK Singles Chart. At the Brit Awards 1982, Willcox was nominated for British Breakthrough Act, and Best Female Solo Artist. The making of Love Is the Law (1983) was the happiest period of her life, according to Willcox, combining work in the critically acclaimed stage play Trafford Tanzi and the film The Ebony Tower with Laurence Olivier with work on the album. By this time, though, her popularity started to decline: the album reached no. 28 (with singles "Rebel Run" and "The Vow" peaking at no. 24 and no. 50 respectively), and with a 1984 greatest hits compilation, released by K-tel and called confusingly Toyah! Toyah! Toyah! All the Hits, failing to chart.
Willcox disbanded her group in 1983, and signed a recording contract with Portrait Records, and, in 1985, released the solo studio album Minx, which contained several cover versions including Alice Cooper's "School's Out", as well as her own hit, "Don't Fall in Love (I Said)".
Willcox secretly married British guitarist Robert Fripp, founding member of King Crimson, in Witchampton, Dorset on his 40th birthday (16 May 1986). Together they formed a new band, called Fripp Fripp on the initial tours, later changing its name to Sunday All Over the World, which released the critically acclaimed album Kneeling at the Shrine (1991). She referred to Fripp as her 'soulmate'. That same year, she also sang lead vocals on the track "Lion of Symmetry" by Tony Banks of Genesis. Her next solo studio album Desire (1987) was less successful although the single with her version of "Echo Beach" originally by Martha and the Muffins made it to the Top 50. Then in 1988 Prostitute came out, an album through which Willcox vented her frustrations which started to accumulate as a result of having made the transformation "from all-powerful artist to invisible woman" in the course of just one year of marriage. This experimental concept album, marking a considerable divergence from previous works, was released on E.G. Records. The attitude to Prostitute, according to Willcox, in the UK and the US was radically different: "In the UK, when my management tried to sell it to the music reps, an awful lot got up and walked out of meetings; all male I hasten to add. In America, Billboard magazine said it was the dawning of a new era for me as a producer and that it was an antidote to Madonna. I started to receive mail from professors at eminent universities telling me they played the album at their lectures as an example of the new way of thinking coming from contemporary women." She had many television roles, including series such as Quatermass (1979), Minder (1980), and the movie Quadrophenia. She starred opposite Laurence Olivier in The Ebony Tower (1984), and opposite the Who's Roger Daltrey in Murder: Ultimate Grounds for Divorce (1984). She also appeared on Kavanagh QC. During the late 1980s and 1990s, Willcox forged ahead with a career as a stage performer. Notable credits include Trafford Tanzi (at the Mermaid Theatre, leading role), Cabaret (Sally Bowles), Three Men on a Horse (recipient of the 1987 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy), and the UK tour of Arthur Smith's Live Bed Show. In 1990, she played Costanza in the national tour of Amadeus.
