Pearl Williams

Born Pearl Wolfe, Williams started out as a secretary, but quickly turned to playing the piano by ear and became an accomplished player. In 1938 she went to an audition for a singer as accompaniment. She was hired on the spot and that same night went on stage at the Famous Door on 52nd Street with Louis Prima's band. But it took 14 years and a heckler to make her find her calling. One night, in 1952, a heckler was consistently telling her to get off and that her jokes were horrible, and she said to him, "Oh, fuck off!" The audience howled, and she quickly became a hit. {{citation needed|date=January 2010}}

{{anchor|Patsy Abbott}}

"What Patsy Abbott?{{cite news |last1=Bronski |first1=Michael |author1-link=Michael Bronski |title=Funny girls talk dirty |url=https://bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/03090915.asp |access-date=24 October 2023 |work=Boston Phoenix |date=August 15, 2003}}{{cite news |last1=Kafrissen |first1=Rokhl |title=Red Hot Yiddishe Mamas |url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/red-hot-yiddishe-mamas |access-date=24 October 2023 |work=Tablet Magazine |date=May 6, 2020}}{{cite journal |last1=Mock |first1=Roberta |title=15. 'Shut Your Hole, Girlie. Mine's Making Money, Doll': Creative Practice-Research and the Problem of Professionalism |journal=Creative Practice Research in the Age of Neoliberal Hopelessness |date=22 July 2020 |pages=221–241 |doi=10.1515/9781474463584-020 |isbn=9781474463584 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343207458 |access-date=24 October 2023 |quote=Williams’ closest professional associates were Patsy Abbott (1921-2001), who started her career as a vocalist, and Belle Barth (1911-1971), who billed herself the ‘Hildegard of the Underworld’ and the ‘doyenne of the dirty line’.}}{{open access}}{{cite web |title=Patsy Abbott |url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/patsy-abbott-mn0002845160 |website=AllMusic |access-date=24 October 2023 |language=en}}{{cite web |last1=Brandman |first1=Mariana |title=The Trailblazing Women of Stand-Up Comedy |url=https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/trailblazing-women-stand-comedy |website=National Women's History Museum |access-date=24 October 2023 |language=en |date=1 September 2021}}{{cite web |title=Borscht Capades |url=http://mickeykatz.cdh.ucla.edu/borscht-capades/ |website=The Mickey Katz Story |publisher=mickeykatz.cdh.ucla.edu |access-date=24 October 2023}}{{cite web |title=Abbott, Patsy |url=https://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/freedman/lookupartist?hr=&what=14 |website=Freedman Catalogue lookup: artist |publisher=digital.library.upenn.edu |access-date=24 October 2023}}{{cite book |last1=Gaw |first1=Melanie |title=Joan Rivers: Comedy and Identity on the Road to Fashion Police |date=2021 |publisher=University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Theses and Dissertations. 2783. |url=https://dc.uwm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3788&context=etd |access-date=24 October 2023}}{{open access}}{{cite journal |last1=Del Negro |first1=Giovanna P. |editor1-last=Greenspoon |editor1-first=Leonard |title=The Bad Girls of Jewish Comedy: Gender, Class, Assimilation, and Whiteness in Postwar America |journal=Jews and Humor - Studies in Jewish Civilization |date=2011-10-15 |url=https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=sjc |access-date=24 October 2023 |quote=In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the bawdy humor of Belle Barth, Pearl Williams, and Patsy Abbott, a trio of working-class Jewish stand-up comics, enjoyed enormous popularity in the United States.}}{{open access}}{{cite web |title=Patsy Abbott |url=https://music.apple.com/us/artist/patsy-abbott/497000839 |website=Apple Music |access-date=24 October 2023}}{{cite web |last1=Comfort |first1=Stephanie |title=U. S. Miami Beach Florida Jewish Patsy Abbott 10889 |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/9679871@N04/13340883103 |website=flickr |access-date=24 October 2023 |date=22 March 2014 |quote=Matchbook cover. A Concert in Comedy - Twice Nightly. 1950's.}} She’s not in our class; what are you crazy? Where she belong with us? She’s a nice girl."— Pearl Williams, The Cabaret nightclub, Miami Beach, 1961Josh Kun [https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=casden 'If I Embarrass You, Tell Your Friends' The Musical Comedy of Belle Barth and Pearl Williams]{{open access}}

In 1961, signed by Stanley Borden, the owner of After Hours Records, she recorded her first album, A trip around the world is not a cruise. Known for her bawdy humor and aggressive manner, she released nine best-selling "party" records during her career, including:

• All the Way
• Bagels & Lox!
• She's Doin' What Comes Naturally!
• A Trip Around the World is Not a Cruise
• You'll Never Remember it, Write it Down!
• Battle of the Mothers! (with Belle Barth)
• Party Snatches – the Best of . . . (featured)

Williams is one of several female Jewish comedians (along with Belle Barth, Patsy Abbott, Rusty Warren and Totie Fields) who traced their "bawdy" performance style back to Sophie Tucker. The back cover of A Trip around The World is Not a Cruise repeats the anecdote that when they met, Tucker told Williams that "You're me at your age, only better." An echo of Tucker can be discerned when Williams says in her act, "I get broads come in here, they sit in front of me and they stare at me. Everything I do, they stare at me. Then they walk out saying, 'She's so dirrr-ty!' If they're so refined how come they understand what I'm saying?" {{citation needed|date=January 2010}}

Williams performed for 18 years at the Place Pigalle in Miami, Florida, before retiring in 1984, commenting "I'm tired, I need a rest. After 46 years in show business, night after night, day after day, non-stop, I'm tired". She hung up her microphone for good in April of that year. She lived out her final years in North Miami Beach and Long Island.

On September 18, 1991, aged 77, she died in her sleep from heart disease.

In 2007, clips of Williams, along with those of Betty Walker, Belle Barth, Totie Fields, and Jean Carroll, were featured in the Off-Broadway production The J.A.P. Show: Jewish American Princesses of Comedy, which included live standup routines by four female Jewish comics juxtaposed with the stories of legendary performers from the 1950s and 1960s.{{Cite web|url=https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/jap-show-jewish-american-princesses-comedy-44577/|title=The J.A.P. Show: Jewish American Princesses of Comedy |website=backstage.com |date=18 April 2007 }}{{Cite web|url=https://www.broadwayworld.com/shows/The-J.A.P.-Show,-Jewish-American-Princesses-of-Comedy-329237.html|title=The J.A.P. Show, Jewish American Princesses of Comedy - 2007 Off-Broadway |website=Broadway World .com}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatermania.com/shows/new-york-city-theater/off-broadway/the-j-a-p-show-jewish-american-princesses-of-comedy_131471/|title=The J.A.P. Show, Jewish American Princesses of Comedy |website=Theatermania|date=March 8, 2023}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.iobdb.com/production/4508|title=The J.A.P. Show, Jewish American Princesses of Comedy|website=iobdb.com}}{{cite news |last1=Van Gelder |first1=Lawrence |title=Jewish Women Joking, and Nodding to the Past |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/theater/reviews/23come.html |access-date=24 October 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=April 23, 2007}}[http://www.thejapshow.com The J.A.P. Show: Jewish American Princesses of Comedy] website

• The Actors' Temple

• {{cite news |last1=Bronski |first1=Michael |author1-link=Michael Bronski |title=Funny girls talk dirty |url=https://bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/03090915.asp |access-date=24 October 2023 |work=Boston Phoenix |date=August 15, 2003}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Mock |first1=Roberta |title=15. 'Shut Your Hole, Girlie. Mine's Making Money, Doll': Creative Practice-Research and the Problem of Professionalism |journal=Creative Practice Research in the Age of Neoliberal Hopelessness |date=22 July 2020 |pages=221–241 |doi=10.1515/9781474463584-020 |isbn=9781474463584 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343207458 |access-date=24 October 2023 |quote=Williams’ closest professional associates were Patsy Abbott (1921-2001), who started her career as a vocalist, and Belle Barth (1911-1971), who billed herself the ‘Hildegard of the Underworld’ and the ‘doyenne of the dirty line’.}}{{open access}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Del Negro |first1=Giovanna P. |editor1-last=Greenspoon |editor1-first=Leonard |title=The Bad Girls of Jewish Comedy: Gender, Class, Assimilation, and Whiteness in Postwar America |journal=Jews and Humor - Studies in Jewish Civilization |date=2011-10-15 |url=https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=sjc |access-date=24 October 2023 |quote=In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the bawdy humor of Belle Barth, Pearl Williams, and Patsy Abbott, a trio of working-class Jewish stand-up comics, enjoyed enormous popularity in the United States.}}{{open access}}

:* {{cite book |last1=Negro |first1=Giovanna P. Del |editor1-last=Diner |editor1-first=Hasia |editor2-last=Kohn |editor2-first=Shira |editor3-last=Kranson |editor3-first=Rachel |title=A Jewish Feminine Mystique? |date=10 September 2010 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-5030-5 |pages=144–159 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.36019/9780813550305-010/html |language=en |chapter=8. The Bad Girls of Jewish Comedy: Gender, Class, Assimilation, and Whiteness in Postwar America|doi=10.36019/9780813550305-010 |s2cid=242249322 }}

• Del Negro, Giovanna P., '[https://academic.oup.com/liverpool-scholarship-online/book/38122/chapter-abstract/332721364 From the Nightclub to the Living Room: Gender, Ethnicity, and Upward Mobility in the 1950s Party Records of Three Jewish Women Comics]', in Simon J. Bronner (ed.), Jews at Home: The Domestication of Identity{{cite web |last1=Poll |first1=Carol |title=Review: 'Jews at Home: The Domestication of Identity, Jewish Cultural Series, Volume Two' |url=https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/jews-at-home-the-domestication-of-identity-jewish-cultural-series-volume-two |website=Jewish Book Council |access-date=24 October 2023 |language=en |date=August 30, 2011}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Aarons |first1=Debra |last2=Mierowsky |first2=Marc |title=Obscenity, dirtiness and licence in Jewish comedy |journal=Comedy Studies |date=3 July 2014 |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=165–177 |doi=10.1080/2040610X.2014.967017 |s2cid=159452975 |url=https://www.academia.edu/8765033/Obscenity_dirtiness_and_licence_in_Jewish_comedy}}
  • Josh Kun [https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=casden 'If I Embarrass You, Tell Your Friends' The Musical Comedy of Belle Barth and Pearl Williams]{{open access}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Mock |first1=Roberta |title=Jewish Women on Stage, Film, and Television |date=27 September 2016 |publisher=Springer Science+Business Media |isbn=978-1-137-06713-5 |doi=10.1007/978-1-137-06713-5 |language=en}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Gaw |first1=Melanie |title=Joan Rivers: Comedy and Identity on the Road to Fashion Police |date=2021 |publisher=University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Theses and Dissertations. 2783. |url=https://dc.uwm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3788&context=etd |access-date=24 October 2023}}{{open access}}
  • {{cite journal |last1=Overbeke |first1=Grace |title=Subversively Sexy: The Jewish "Red Hot Mamas" Sophie Tucker, Belle Barth and Pearl Williams |journal=Studies in American Humor |date=2012 |issue=25 |pages=33–58 |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220212065204id_/https://watermark.silverchair.com/studamerhumor_25_2012_33.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAzIwggMuBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggMfMIIDGwIBADCCAxQGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMCobXcP3iT2mnhEgYAgEQgIIC5WIK1UioUBVi4RD--epUqp-oTiaqTyww8wA68so5ICxXMMfd9qeXceYJlgUz_oKIIKm5oy08ELIcP715-TRBBXZ9bCQOHoKXAKkyMDfoPg8BVDJje2xoBK5j7Y7rO9ccHT_9nJ0AT8lw0rjBO147k4FEQXSbbVjSuQlzFtIwy4c93vOohzFhYwx9xYSQ_InaK5qYM8maYT2hpOyi1RNVJog1eRqVMZzLyWMbF11OGShzgg-73bzhx2jij83I2Y6v19c6MqYOzsz_bcvIN9N9YHmUG4z9oXQHPe2GAbYhFvi9q9u0OAWVyuO7cgu1MDObZFiXAlZ2YVzBLSZK63RPYCLSvrsarvEQAWkyQwEMXIxl8fnbKz1lC5WMR5pffnlTklzYZk4mQdArExppnQ8o6VnqErnbMrs49hGz6qGJNsljyqwU5bWARPnz3sR1HaDxUOBd77d-JMwIEz3YLLa_ZKCEs6skLdx7MdpkGTP6wcU33CHyFgqyjTsv-ENxoF1cXLUhZhevBH35fDFCdp6w4hZLUTnlwp0eB6OtUoW6u-dQt59Zwodo9P25kLl4b5yB1HmP7H69KK4dut7-UGcEBrG7pztv0FUnBhQxGeV18P6xC2qb0LUANvrf_17-PeZMfVKI9Tipu0uUS5meo7WM4X4Ewd40GP4vf-JyIcwL0s26QuzdW-bJUBv_4izWoTan9p9Tq531wwiiK2-_L7vC1XfF80fhqizdVXEu-6Hy86qmD6L1T9uQttltkG5iDpuEo7MIduLj97p4-D-H9j8YHcTA8FMSqmTco_Q9rwm_R_VKmXtNXkDl4WPmnJV11XS6gCedNe-YycXFm9L4cqTeKCUKoxI-Jz4yvy5ByZ1XdhzXmwPiDTDTqmLPuxzhiMXlYJsLQkERIL6JnEmZsIH1ZTVxBuDYuRaGMKq1ofQSpnNWk5DdD-PrW8B2-QlYK7J4DQw96nVx0vMHMzn0yfZBl7PbCmIEhA |access-date=24 October 2023 |issn=0095-280X |publisher=Penn State University Press |doi=10.2307/42573642 |jstor=42573642}}{{open access}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite web |title=Pearl Williams |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040907001422/www.comedystars.com/Bios/williams_pearl.shtml |website=EncycloComedia }}
• {{cite web |title=Pearl Williams |url=https://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/08/pearl_williams_.html |website=Beware of the Blog |publisher=WFMU |date=August 10, 2005}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Pearl}}

Category:1914 births

Category:1991 deaths

Category:20th-century American Jews

Category:People from Long Island

Category:People from North Miami Beach, Florida

Category:Place of birth missing

Category:20th-century American women pianists

Category:20th-century American pianists

Category:20th-century American women singers

Category:20th-century American comedians

Category:20th-century American singers