In Memoriam: Toots DeVille (Susan Berlinsky, 19 February 1950 -12 August 2004) died on this day. I wasn’t au fait with Toots until Lydia Lunch mentioned her in her weekly podcast The Lydian Spin years ago. The perma-scowling literary bad girl made the sweeping statement that she was unimpressed by the personal style of ALL her 1970s New York punk female contemporaries – with maybe three exceptions. One was doomed No Wave It Girl Anya Phillips. Lunch’s friend Viki Galves. And the third? Toots DeVille, the tough-as-nails first wife and muse of musician Willy DeVille – which prompted me to do some Googling. What a character! A real-life Dawn Davenport, Toots was notorious for her voracious heroin addiction and hostile, frequently violent conduct (she’d pull a knife and threaten any woman who deigned to flirt with her rock star husband. One – hopefully apocryphal! – anecdote has Toots stubbing-out a lit Marlboro in the eye of a woman she caught staring at DeVille). Toots also acted as DeVille’s manager in his early years and terrorized promoters and publicists on both sides of the Atlantic. On the plus side, her “gothic Ronettes” signature look (kabuki-white make-up, Cleopatra-style eyeliner, ratted-up beehive and an ahead-of-her-time embracing of nose piercings and tattoos) – was Vampira-level fierce. Following her divorce from DeVille in 1984, Toots finally kicked heroin and worked as a health care worker but sadly died of cancer aged just 54. Pictured: fun couple Toots and Willy DeVille backstage at a punk club in Los Angeles, July 1977.
