Toyah Willcox

Music Home >> Music Genres >> Alternative Music



< < < < < > > > > > More Info on Toyah Willcox Similar Alternative Music Search Artistopia

Biography

Toyah Ann Willcox (born 18 May 1958, Kings Heath , Birmingham ) is an English actress and singer. In a career spanning more than thirty years, Toyah has had 13 Top 40 singles, released 22 studio albums, written two books, appeared in over forty stage plays and ten feature films, and voiced and presented numerous television shows, including Brum (TV series)|Brum , Watchdog (TV series)|Watchdog and Songs of Praise .

Biography

Toyah Willcox was born in Kings Heath , Birmingham. Her father Beric Willcox ran a successful joiner y business and owned three factories. Her mother Barbara Joy (née Rollinson) @ www.nndb.com was a professional dancer whom he fell in love with after seeing her on stage in Weston-super-Mare , with Flanagan and Allen and married in 1949. Barbara Willcox had to give up her career after giving birth to Nicola (b. 1950) and Kim (b. 1953), Toyah's older sister and brother, respectively. Asked why her parents might have called her so, Toyah said in a 1981 interview: "I don’t know, they won’t tell me, but its definitely my birth name. There is a town in Texas, called Toyah, and Toyah in Red Indian means 'water'. My parents deny that's where they got it from".

Toyah was born with a twisted spine, clawed feet, a clubbed right foot, one leg two inches shorter than the other and no hip sockets. Because of this she endured years of painful operations and physiotherapy. Her physical condition was a cause of difficult times at school. "When I was bullied at school, it was coz of my character. I was a weak child, I was incredibly small. I had a speech impediment, I was the perfect bait for bullying. My dad took me out the back and taught how to punch the hell out of someone and from then on I was never bullied again", Toyah recalled.

Years later she described her relationship with her mother as complicated, saying she "hasn't hugged her mother since she was 12 and can't see it ever happening". Later she gave much credit to her parents, though. "I've never gone hungry. I never suffered though lack of money in any way. Not because of my parents, anyway. They wanted the best for me, like all parents do for their children. They wanted me to have a very good education, to be polite child, to be taught good manners and have a future", she recalled in 1980. In fact, until the age of seven Toyah remembered having been very close to her mother, if only for the reason of being very ill and having to be taught how to walk and talk. Then Barbara had another child, a daughter called Fleur, who died. "When she came home from hospital there was a bit of a distance between us. It was never talked about again," Toyah remembered. At the launch of her autobiography in 2000, the singer said: "We had a very violent relationship together. I was the violent person. And I didn't want her to kind of suffer by the book and I hope I represented her very well. Coz she really was a wonderful woman with a child from hell ." In another interview of the time, Toyah said: "My mother ... taught me how to walk, she was one that was trained to give me the physiotherapy to straighten my own spine so twice a day we would go through this routine. So she was disciplinarian in my life from a very – well right from when I can remember. So it was natural she was the first person I should rebel against. And I regret that our relationship was very often violent. ... And I feel very strongly towards my mum that she sacrificed everything to give me the freedom I have today".

Years of alienation and rebellion

Toyah attended a private girls' school where she was noted for absence from the class room and setting off alarm clocks during a speech by a visiting MP, one Margaret Thatcher . Suffering from dyslexia , which, by her own admission, turned her into an "angry, rebellious" teenager, she achieved just one 'O' Level pass in music. The ambition to sing and act started at about nine. "I was incredible dreamer when I was at school. ...I just felt trapped. ...I wanted to escape, really," she remembered. This had to do also with her upbringing which she described as "very strict".

As a teenager, obsessed with aliens and the concept of alienation, Toyah felt she could not fit in with anything. "I loathed suburbia, I loathed the idea of getting married and having kids. I just thought, Where the hell do I belong? " she recalled. In 1974 Toyah started to exercise her rebel instincts in experimenting with hair. "I just looked like something off another planet. And I was very very lonely. No-one would come near me. Buses wouldn't pick me up, boys wouldn't come near me", she remembered. In the mid-1970s, as the punk movement started to gain ground, Toyah saw something she might belong to, even if she understood little about punk politics. A friend suggested that she should see the Sex Pistols . "It wasn’t that I saw Sex Pistols and thought Oh that changed my life. I saw them and my reaction was, I can do better, I go to London to do it. ... From then on I knew I didn’t have to behave in a social norm. Because I wasn't alone". By the time she formed her first band, though, Toyah was already an aspiring young actress.

Acting career

After her O-levels (which she took late, having lost a year to have corrective surgery on her feet) Toyah left school at about 17 and I went straight to Old Rep Drama School in Birmingham. "Already by then I was known in Birmingham for being the oddball that walked around with dyed hair. And you’ve got to remember that this is pre-punk, this was about 1973–74", she later recalled. While in drama school she had to earn her own way to pay her fees because in here, ironically, she proved to be the one member of her year who didn’t get a grant (the man who took her grant meeting wrote down on a piece of paper, which she saw: "She has a lisp and isn’t attractive"). "I worked in all the theatres in Birmingham so I'd go to drama school from 10 to 5 , then I'd go to the Alex Theatre or the Hippodrome Theatre and I'd dress the stars who were on tour", she recalled. All of those stars without exception, including Judy Geeson , Simon Williams (actor)|Simon Williams and Sylvia Sims , took a liking to her; by this time she was known in the theatre clique as the "Bird Of Paradise".

After one year at the Old Rep, 18-year-old Toyah had done some extra work at a BBC Pebble Mill TV station. A month later director and playwright Tony Bicat was looking for a girl to play the leading role in the BBC "Second City Firsts" play Glitter (along with Noel Edmonds and Phil Daniels ). And so Toyah has got the part of Sue, the girl who sang with the band called Bilbo Baggins and was dreaming of appearing on Top of the Pops . In the course of the 30-minute play Toyah performed two songs (she co-wrote): "Floating Free" (an acoustic ballad, with Phil Daniels accompanying her on guitar) and "Dream Maker". In the 1981 interview, having learned the play's footage had been wiped, Toyah commented: "It's the best thing they could have done with it, really. It was the first time I ever sung in public, and I was shaking like a leaf ... and I was so fat!" It was Glitter , though, that launched Toyah's career: it appeared that Kate Milligan and Maximilian Schell were watching that play. They offered her a place with the Royal National Theatre|National Theatre in London, where she's got the part of Emma in Tales from the Vienna Woods . "So I got a phone call the following day saying come down to London and I went down to London with a carrier bag and never went back," Toyah remembered. It was at this time that she formed a band, Toyah. In the National Theater Toyah was known as The Animal, the nickname John Gielgud gave her after she with a girlfriend "discovered you could have a backwards wheelchair race" and she wheeled herself "into John’s private parts".

In the summer of 1977 a National Theatre actor, Ian Charleson (best known for his later role in Chariots of Fire ), thought that Toyah was someone that his friend, film director Derek Jarman , should meet and took her to tea on Tregunter Road in Fulham at Derek's flat. The director picked the script of what later proved to be a seminal punk epic Jubilee (film)|Jubilee (called Down With The Queen at the time), said "it’s a punk movie and I don’t know what we’re going to call it. But it's fun, it anarchic", and threw it on Toyah's lap, saying: "Pick any part you want." "So I picked Mad because she had the most lines in the film. And Derek then said 'of all the characters if any have to be cut because of lack of money, it's going to be Mad. Because she is superficial, she doesn’t serve a purpose', and I said 'how wonderfully anarchic, I still want it'", Toyah remembered. In a month's time he did have to cut Mad from the film, but, seeing Toyah greatly upset, gave up his fee on the film so that she could play the role she was craving for. "After that Derek became like a surrogate father because he knew what it was like to go hungry and so did I", Toyah recalled. Later she cited Jarman as one of her greatest inspirations: Psychologically, though, the filming was difficult. "I'd never seen a nude person before. ...And there was this scene where I jump into bed with two brothers and get the lighter out and the first time we did it they had their clothes on and then we did the take and I jumped into bed and they had nothing on& #33; I completely freaked out. I'd never seen a nude man before!", she told Paul Morley in a 1980 interview.

Toyah continued to gain strong roles, notably, Monkey in 1979's The Who|Who album-inspired Quadrophenia (film)|Quadrophenia , which boosted her reputation of a provocative and anti-establishment figure. Later she recalled the circumstances: Later she admitted of her awareness of it being a strong career move. "I wouldn't have stayed otherwise. Getting up at five, catching pneumonia. I didn't have a day off. I had to keep going, there was this nurse with me the whole time. I really was very ill. But I realised the film was ... benefiting me", Toyah said.

Then the Sex Pistols started on their own film, " The Great Rock And Roll Swindle and for a while, when Russ Meyer was due to direct, Toyah was going to take part in the movie. Then, her role fell through. Instead, she teamed up with Derek Jarman again to play Miranda in his innovative version of The Tempest , which won her a nomination as Best Newcomer at the 1980 Evening Standard Awards. "Derek offered me Miranda which was the first time I've really ever experienced Shakespeare and was very frightened of doing it but refused to give it up because I like a challenge and that was the biggest challenge in my acting career yet", Toyah recalled. Her 'wild child' performance, described as "naive and knowing", exotically "puffed out" her image, according to Paul Morley. "I knew it would benefit my acting career within the acting world. ...Punk rock star Toyah Willcox doing Shakespeare. It had that sensationalist aspect about it. But not only has it benefited my acting career. It's opened up a new audience for me", Toyah commented.

In 1979 on London's Royal Court Theatre stage Toyah played Sharon in Nigel Williams (author)|Nigel Williams ' Sugar And Spice , the play about "hate, despair and sexual derision", climaxing with an unsettling jab of physical violence (the main character Steve having his genitals twisted out by the broken whisky bottle). "I was offered the part of Carol, who is the bird that ends up naked, and I instantly refused it. I just couldn't handle a part like that. I sent the script back, and was offered the part of Sharon, which I was quite happy to take. ... The nudity would freak me out. Completely", she explained in the 1980 NME interview. The part took six weeks to learn and still proved demanding, lots of words Toyah muffled on stage. "You get to the point where if you're not concentrating I find I'm talking a load of gibberish because I'm missing certain words out. I'm not thinking about what I'm saying, and the cast are looking at me in horror. You do things like that 'cos there's so many lines, you forget you are talking sense", she explained. Still she insisted on having at least one stage play a year, merely as a mental stimulant. "'Cos it's training, really good training. ...Film can be so related and you don't have to concentrate so much. I just find it a good refresher course. It just makes you think", she told ZigZag in 1980.

Also in 1979 Toyah appeared as Tallulah in Stephen Poliakoff 's American Days at the Institute of Contemporary Arts|ICA , playing alongside Mel Smith , Antony Sher and Phil Daniels and, the same year, opposite Katharine Hepburn in the made-for-television movie The Corn is Green (1979 film)|The Corn is Green , directed by George Cukor . Toyah remembered how she had to go and do an audition with 2000 other hopefuls for the film after the Emlyn Williams book: "Katherine Hepburn just fell in love with me the first time I met her and I say that modestly because she actually admitted she did... She loved my eyes, she said they were full of fire", Toyah was saying in her 2000 interviews.

Toyah played Calamity Jane at the Shaftesbury Theatre and was a guest vocalist in the anniversary tour of The Rocky Horror Show at the Royal Court Theatre . She had many television roles, including series such as Quatermass (TV serial)|Quatermass (1979) and Minder (TV series)|Minder . She starred opposite Laurence Olivier in The Ebony Tower (1984), also appeared on Kavanagh QC and Secret Diary of a Call Girl .

During the late 1980s and 1990s Toyah 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 and a Horse (winner of Olivier Award for Best New Comedy), the UK tour of Arthur Smith's Live Bed Show . In 1990 she played Costanza in the national tour of Amadeus . She has also appeared as a presenter of programmes such as Songs of Praise , Holiday (TV series)|Holiday ( BBC ), and Good Sex Guide Late as well as being a guest on several shows such as The Heaven and Earth Show , Through the Keyhole and Loose Women .

In 1999 she took the lead in the children's television series Barmy Aunt Boomerang . She also provided the voices for the children's television programmes Teletubbies and Brum (television)|Brum . She has also appeared in the reality television series '' I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! and I'm Famous and Frightened! .

In the 2000s Toyah had a busy schedule with theatre commitments, including appearing on stage in London's West End of London|West End performing the title role of Calamity Jane (nominated for an Evening Standard Award for Best Musical) at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 2003. In June 2008 Toyah appeared on Living with the Dead (TV series)|Living With The Dead on LivingTV to share her experiences living in her haunted home. On 24 July 2008 Toyah appeared on UK ITV1 's This Morning (TV series)|This Morning to discuss her role as a vampire in rock musical Vampires Rock . More recently, Toyah played Queen Ivannah in Snow White|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Lyceum Theatre (Sheffield)|Lyceum in Sheffield for the 2009 Christmas season.

Career in music

Toyah's performance in Glitter (1976), which some years later she remembered as embarrassing, provided nevertheless a crucial impulse to start musical career of her own. "Inspired by the band, the equipment, the volume, the ambience ... my mind was set. I had to put a band together myself, or get into one ... quick!", she said. In 1977, while with the London's National Theatre playing Emma in Tales from the Vienna Woods , Willcox fronted a band called Toyah (band)|Toyah which featured Joel Bogen on guitar, Mark Henry on bass, Steve Bray on drums, Peter Bush on keyboards, and herself on vocals, cutting (according to AllMusic ) "a very striking visual image at this time with bright orange hair with pink tips". She never considered herself a musician. "I was writing poetry. Most of the poetry that went onto an album called Anthem . But I’ve never really been a musician. I’m a lyricist primarily. ...So back then I was writing poetry and learning what I loved about a song," she later recalled.

In London, Toyah lived in a place called "Mayhem", the converted British Rail warehouse serving as a studio that started off as a "sort of over ambitious multi-media idea and the whole idea was for anyone to go in there and try and create something", according to Toyah. It was there that 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.Insall, Roger. – Sunday People . May 1979.
While doing Quadrophenia Willcox was getting a lot of press and the band was doing well. Up to two thousand people would turn out at gigs, which were huge crowds for an unsigned band. They did a showcase for Safari Records and the label signed them on the spot. "Which amazed me, because I'm a live performer, I need my audience, I need my interaction and we were performing in a small rehearsal studio that smelt of beer and piss. But this worked well. It meant I could go back to Quadrophenia and say to Sting (musician)|Sting : I've just been signed!" Toyah remembered. The band had its first critical success with the debut single "Victims of the Riddle", which topped the UK Indie Charts. Then came 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. Toyah's debut album, The Blue Meaning , went up to No. 40 in the UK Albums Chart in June 1980. By this time she severed all ties with punk aesthetics. "I don't use punk whatsoever because my philosophies are so different, my morals are so straight. I'm not a punk, I'm a modern woman", Toyah said in a 1980 TV interview.

In January, the live album Toyah& #33; Toyah& #33; Toyah! , recorded at the Lafayette Club in Wolverhampton the previous June, made it to Top 30, backed up by a TV documentary "Toyah". By now the original band had broken up. "I played mother to that band for two years and they just walk out on me. It's left me bitter, but I know I can survive without them", Toyah said in an interview. The new line-up consisted of Phil Spalding, Nigel Glocker, and Adrian Lee, only Joel Bogen remaining and Toyah.

1981 saw Toyah's strengthened presence in the charts with hits such as Four from Toyah EP (#4, February 1981, including " It's a Mystery (Toyah song)|It's a Mystery "), the second album Anthem (Toyah album)|Anthem that went up to No. 2 in May 1981 to be later certified platinum, " I Want To Be Free " (#8, June 1981), " Thunder In The Mountains " (#4, October 1981) and Four More From Toyah EP (November 1981, #14). 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. In the end of the year Toyah won the Smash Hits Reader's Poll 1981 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. Records|Warner Bros. put together.

In 1982 the The Changeling (album)|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. " Changeling was a reaction because I wasn't ready to write.... I should have had another six or twelve months to address the album. It was all written in the studio. I think it's a good album, it says something very powerful. But it was a painful album and a very painful period in my life where I just had to move back into acting, which was Trafford Tanzi", Toyah remembered. Changeling was followed in the same year by a double live album Warrior Rock: Toyah on Tour . Also in 1982, Toyah appeared in Urgh& #33; 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 her hit, "Danced". Three more of her singles, "Brave New World", "Ieya" and "Be Loud Be Proud" have made it into the top 50. Later in the year Toyah was voted Best Female Singer at the British Rock and Pop Awards, since restyled as The BRIT Awards .

The making of Love Is the Law (Toyah album)|Love Is The Law (1983) was the happiest period of her life, according to Toyah, when "...everything was going right. I was starring in a stage play called 'Trafford Tanzi', which won me especially huge critical acclaim, and I was about to star in a film, 'The Ebony Tower' with Lord Laurence Olivier just as soon as the album was finished... It was a killer timetable but I loved it with a passion", she remembered. 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), but the 1984 greatest hits compilation, released by K-tel and called confusingly Toyah Toyah Toyah , failed to chart.

Solo career

In 1985 Toyah Willcox disbanded her group, signed to a major label, Portrait Records and released the solo album Minx (Toyah album)|Minx (#24, 1985) which contained several cover versions including Alice Cooper 's " School's Out (song)|School's Out ". In 1986 Willcox released The Acoustic Album on Aardvark Records, featuring strings from Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and produced by Oliver Davis.
The same year she also sang lead on the Tony Banks (musician)|Tony Banks track "Lion of Symmetry."

In 1986 Toyah married UK guitarist Robert Fripp and formed with him a new band Sunday All Over the World which released critically acclaimed Kneeling at the Shrine album. Her next solo album Desire (Toyah album)|Desire (1987) was less successful although the single with her version of " Echo Beach " made it top 50. Then in 1988 Prostitute (Toyah album)|Prostitute came out, an album through which Toyah 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 Toyah, in the UK and the US was radically different: Robert Fripp joined his wife on her 1991 album '' Ophelia's Shadow (1991) which, along with Dreamchild (album)|Dreamchild (1994), received good reviews.

In 2001 Toyah was awarded a prestigious Honorary Doctorate by the University of Central England in recognition of her distinguished achievements in performing arts, media and broadcasting. The 2001 May issue of Q (magazine)|Q magazine named Toyah number 48 in their top 100 Greatest Women in Music poll, as voted for by readers of the magazine. She returned to music in 2002 with new material for a limited edition Little Tears of Love EP and a one-off preview concert at Ronnie Scotts . The same year she sold out eleven stadium gigs for the Here and Now Tour. She continued to perform with her band, releasing a mini-album Velvet Lined Shell (2003, Little Tears of Love material included) on her own record label, Vertical Species Records, showcasing a darker, edgier direction. In 2004 she performed as part of The Best of the 80s Tour in the UK alongside Nick Heyward , Curiosity Killed the Cat and Altered Images . A live DVD followed in 2005, the year that also saw The Safari Singles Collection , parts I & II (1979–1981/1982–1983) being issued.

In May 2007 she collaborated with Bill Rieflin as The Humans (band)|The Humans for live dates in Estonia where she had been invited personally by the Estonian President. According to the Northern Echo , that resulted "from reading one of her husband's emails". The invitation was for him to go, but he wasn't keen, so Toyah accepted. "In England, that doesn’t have much of a career prospect because people want me to sing like the Toyah they’ve known for 30 years. But in other places I can step away from that," she later commented.. 2009 interview.

Also in 2007 Toyah signed a new worldwide publishing deal with Zomba Music . She continued to write and record solo material with long-term collaborator Simon Darlow. On 29 October 2007 a new single " Latex Messiah " came out, followed by the In The Court Of The Crimson Queen album, written and produced in collaboration with Darlow and released by Willow Recordings Ltd. on 15 September 2008. @ Discogs.

As part of Liverpool's European Capital Of Culture year, she performed for the first time ever at the newly opened Liverpool Echo Arena Report with Toyah Willcox and Steve Steinman. and Conference Centre. In 2009 a new version of Vampires Rock was created, called Vampires Rock Christmas, and Toyah was back in her role as the Killer Queen, alongside the writer and one of the stars of the show, Steve Steinman .

On 5 July she played at Bents Park, South Shields, in a live outdoor concert, and in October 2009 she made a guest appearance in the BBC1 drama series Casualty (TV series)|Casualty .

In 2009 Toyah continued to perform with The Humans, featuring Bill Reiflin, Chris Wong and occasionally husband Robert Fripp. Described as "European experimental meets West Coast American grunge", The Humans recorded their debut album We Are The Humans in Seattle in 2008, released in Estonia in May 2009 to coincide with the band's return to play in front of the country's president at Tartufest. The album received a UK digital release in September 2009, along with a Humans single, "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'." At the end of the year Toyah came seventh in a BBC series naming the "Queens of British Pop", as voted for by the British public. In 2010 Toyah with The Humans performed at the London Roundhouse Haiti Earthquake Fundraiser concert.

On 17 June 2011 Toyah Willcox commenced on a special From Sheep Farming To Anthem tour, celebrating the 30th anniversary of her breakthrough hit "It's A Mystery" and the platinum-selling album Anthem , starting at the London's Leicester Square Theatre . The set included selections drawn exclusively from Toyah's first three albums, Sheep Farming In Barnet , The Blue Meaning and Anthem ..- www.toyahwillcox.com.. In Autumn, she embarked on a UK tour, supported by Andi Fraggs .
On the 14th of April 2012 Toyah launched "The Changeling Resurrection 2012" tour at the Concorde 2 in Brighton to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her album The Changeling . Support acts on this tour included Andi Fraggs , Tenek and Soley Mourning.

Two careers as one

Since Toyah's move to London in the mid-1970s her acting and musical careers developed in parallel, causing lots of misunderstanding. "I think people found me either fake, or couldn't put me in a compartment", Toyah later commented on the way her work in theatre and the reputation of "High priestess of punk" collided.

In 1980 writer Paul Morley described Toyah's roles as having had "great attraction" and being "bright boosts". Solidly established ("and undeniably hot", in Morley's words), she had at the time much less credit as a musician, desperately wanting, meanwhile, her music to be as accepted as her acting. On the way those two worlds interacted, Toyah commented: Toyah often emphasised the fact that music and acting for her complemented one another: "I got to do both. I like both for totally different reasons but I find if I escape for a few months from music to do some acting, then when I’m acting I’ll probably write a lot of lyrics". "I like being busy the whole time. I like having to think the whole time. When I'm at my tiredest I get my best ideas. So if I had to do one career I would find it incredibly frustrating coz it wouldn't satisfy my imagination enough", she said in an ATV 1980 documentary. "There was a time when I was doing two movies and an album... Quadrophenia and Quatermass and the Sheep Farming In Barnet LP. I didn't sleep for two weeks and I was very happy", Toyah told Paul Morley in 1980. On distinction between the two careers, she remarked: "When I'm acting I'm someone else's puppet. I'm the director's or writer's puppet. ...You feel that you are eating other people's minds to create a totally separate person. You're creating something that doesn't exist, and it's great. You feel like a creator", adding: "I've got two personalities that both need feeding at the same time. I couldn't tell you what they are. I've got the snob in me and I've got the commoner in me. The snob does the acting and the commoner the music".

Social activities

In 1987 Toyah was invited to make a speech at Women of Year ceremony in presence of Princess Diana , expressing her views on the subject of how being handicapped incites creativity and craving for fuller life experience.

In 2002 Toyah became a prominent opponent of planned accommodation centres for asylum seekers near the Worcestershire village, Throckmorton. Protesting together with more than 1000 villagers, Willcox said, "The villagers are not anti-asylum seekers and they are not racists", adding that "It was not a simple black and white issue." Commenting on the Government's plans to build asylum centres in other rural areas, Toyah said "This is only the first of 15. The sheer scale is mind-boggling. This is a small country – it's all happening illegally."

In November 2007 Toyah took on the role of sponsoring the Black Country Urban Park for the Peoples £50M BIG Lottery. In April 2008 Toyah took part in the Great Walk To Beijing alongside other celebrities to raise money for Olivia Newton-John 's Cancer charity.

Autobiographies

Toyah has had two bestselling books published. Following her 2000 autobiography Living Out Loud , Toyah had a further autobiographical book published in 2005 documenting her experience of cosmetic surgery, Diary of a Facelift .

Radio

She has been heard on radio including the 2002 BBC Radio 4 series The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes . She is also credited with voicing the widow Fantine in Focus on the Family Radio Theatre's version of Les Misérables . In December 2006 she joined the radio drama series Silver Street on the BBC Asian Network as Siobhan Brady.

Private life

From early childhood Toyah was aware she did not fit into gender stereotypes. In an all-girls school she was always a tomboy, very aggressive and physical, always in rough and tumble fights. In 2003 Toyah remembered: As a teenager she became uncertain about her sexuality even more. "I went out with guys first when I was about 13 to 15 and then I just stopped. I never actually went out with a woman or anything … I generally thought I was a lesbian purely coz I wasn't interested in men but at the same time I wasn't interested in women. And that's why I concentrated so hard on my career from such an early age", she recalled. As the band Toyah started to gain ground, the singer felt put off by the groupie scene. "All I ever see of women, usually, is groupies. They disgust me. How they can jump into bed with someone they've just met is beyond me. ...I just don't understand. There's no brain there as far as I'm concerned. ...I can put up with them. As soon as they get to me they change. They want to talk to you rather than pull your body. But as soon as I see them pulling, I just leave the room. I don't want to be associated with that at all. The band used to go out pulling every night and I just used to go back to the hotel. I wouldn't go anywhere with them", she told Paul Morley in a 1980 interview.

Marriage

In 1986 in Poole, Dorset , Toyah married Robert Fripp of King Crimson . "I got married because I had found my soul mate, not because I wanted to be married", she said in a 2008 interview. February 2009.

Shortly after her marriage Toyah underwent a sterilisation operation. She is incapable of carrying a child full-term due to her childhood illnesses and has said that neither she nor her husband wants children. Later, asked if she had any regrets about the operation, Toyah said: "No. The morning I woke up from the operation I was in tears, I felt I’d interfered with my femininity; but since then, no. You don’t have a child just because you're a woman, you have a child because you have a calling and I did not want to be put in a position of terminating a birth when I felt so strongly that actually psychologically being pregnant would damage me. It was something that I really, really thought about and I perhaps suffered for six weeks after but, since then, it's been a liberation." However, she and her husband have arranged their wills so as to leave their entire fortune to the establishment of a musical educational trust for children.

For the first 19 years of their marriage the couple lived largely separate lives due to the demands of their careers: she in Pershore , Worcestershire, UK, Fripp in the US, and rarely saw each other for more than 12 weeks every year. "But in semi-retirement now, so he's home, I cook for him twice a day and I really like it. We're having lovely lovely autumn years of our marriage, it's really nice", Toyah said in 2006 radio interview.

Discography

Albums

With Toyah (band)

:{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Title
!Recorded
!Highest Chart
!Date of release
!Re-issue
|-
| Sheep Farming in Barnet
| 1979
| style="text-align:center;"| –
| 22 February 1980
| 1990, 2003
|-
| The Blue Meaning
|rowspan="2"| 1980
| style="text-align:center;"| 40
| 14 June 1980
| 1990, 2003
|-
| Toyah& #33; Toyah& #33; Toyah! (live)
| style="text-align:center;"| 22 (certified Silver)
| 17 January 1981
| 1990, 2006
|-
| Anthem (Toyah album)|Anthem
| 1981
| style="text-align:center;"| 2 (certified Gold)
| 20 May 1981
|1999
|-
| The Changeling (album)|The Changeling
|rowspan="2"| 1982
| style="text-align:center;"| 6 (certified Silver)
| 2 June 1982
|1999
|-
| Warrior Rock: Toyah On Tour
| style="text-align:center;"| 20
| 10 November 1982
| 2003
|-
| Love Is the Law (Toyah album)|Love Is The Law
| 1983
| style="text-align:center;"| 28
| ?
|2005
|-
| Mayhem (Toyah album)|Mayhem Collection of unreleased & archive material.
|1985
| style="text-align:center;"| –
| ?
| 2005
|}

As a solo artist

:* Minx (Toyah album)|Minx (1985) No. 24 ( UK Albums Chart )
:* Desire (Toyah album)|Desire (1987)
:* Prostitute (Toyah album)|Prostitute (1988)
:* '' Ophelia's Shadow (with members of King Crimson ) (1991)
:* Take the Leap! (Japan-only release, same content as Leap! ) (1994)
:* Dreamchild (album)|Dreamchild (1994)
:* Looking Back (Toyah album)|Looking Back (re-recorded versions of old tracks) (1995)
:* The Acoustic Album (re-recorded versions of old tracks) (1996)
:* Velvet Lined Shell (mini album) (2003)
:* In the Court of the Crimson Queen (2008)

Compilations

With Toyah (band)

:* Toyah& #33; Toyah& #33; Toyah& #33; (compilation)|Toyah& #33; Toyah& #33; Toyah! Also known as Toyah& #33; Toyah& #33; Toyah& #33; All The Hits . This K-tel release is sometimes confused with the earlier 1980 live album of the same name but contains different material: it is a compilation of various studio-recorded singles-chart hits and other tracks originally released between 1979 and 1983. (1984)
:* Best Of Toyah (1994)
:* Live & More: Live Favourites & Rarities (1998)
:* The Very Best of Toyah (1998)
:* Proud, Loud & Heard: The Best of Toyah (1998)
:* The Safari Singles Collection Part I: 1979–1981 (2005)
:* The Safari Singles Collection Part II: 1982–1983 (2005)
:* Good Morning Universe – The Very Best of Toyah Double CD including solo material and unreleased demos/mixes spanning the whole of Toyah's musical career thus far. (2008)

Collaborations

:* The Stranglers & Friends Live in Concert (with The Stranglers et al., lead/backing vocals on four tracks) (1982)
:* Lion of Symmetry (with Tony Banks (musician)|Tony Banks on the album Soundtracks ) (1986)
:* The Lady or the Tiger (with Robert Fripp ) (1986)
:* Kneeling At The Shrine (with Robert Fripp , Trey Gunn , and Paul Beavis , as Sunday All Over The World ) (1991)
:* Kiss Of Reality (with Kiss Of Reality , lead vocals on six tracks) (1993)
:* The Third Star (by Trey Gunn , lead vocals on the track Symbiotic ) (1996)
:* Cabaret (with Nigel Planer ) (1997)
:* How to Dress Sensibly (with various artists collective created by English Eccentrics , backing vocals on track One Cup of Tea ) (2007)
:* We are the Humans|We Are The Humans with The Humans (band)|The Humans (2009)
:* This Fragile Moment Toyah Willcox, Robert Jürjendal , Arvo Urb, Chris Wong and Markus Reuter (2009)
:* Sugar Rush (album)|Sugar Rush with The Humans (band)|The Humans (2011)
:* Live At Scala London EP with The Humans (band)|The Humans (2011) Digital release available with the purchase of the Sugar Rush UK CD album.

Singles / EPs

: With Toyah (band) :

Title	Year	Highest Chart	Date
" Victims of the Riddle "	1979	–	–
" Sheep Farming in Barnet EP "	1979	–	–
" Bird in Flight / Tribal Look "	1980	–	–
" Ieya "		–	–
Danced "		–	–
" Four from Toyah " EP	1981	4	28 March 1981
" I Want to Be Free "		8	16 May 1981
" Thunder in the Mountains "		4	3 October 1981
" Four More from Toyah " EP		14	12 December 1981
Brave New World "	1982	21	22 May 1982
Ieya " (re-issue)		48	17 July 1982
" Be Proud Be Loud (Be Heard) "		30	9 October 1982
" Rebel Run "	1983	24	24 September 1983
The Vow "	1983	50	12 November 1983

: As a solo artist:

Title	Year	Highest Chart	Date
"Don't Fall in Love (I Said)"	1985	22	27 April 1985
"Soul Passing Through Soul"		57	29 June 1985
"World in Action"		93	21 September 1985
" Echo Beach "	1987	54	25 April 1987
"Moonlight Dancing"	1987	–	–
"Out of the Blue"	1993	–	–
"Now and Then"	1994	–	–
"Little Tears of Love" (Limited Release Sold Via Concerts)	2002	–	–
"Latex Messiah (Viva La Rebel in You)" (Digital release)	2007	6 (iTunes Rock)	29 October 2007
"21st Century Supersister" (Digital release)	2011	TBC	6 November 2011

: Collaborations:

"Nine To Five" (with Adam Ant as Maneaters ) (1982)Released as cash-in single. Originally appeared on the Jubilee Original Soundtrack album.

"Lion of Symmetry" (with Tony Banks) (1985)

"Killing Made Easy" (with Family of Noise) (2004) (Limited release)

"These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" (with The Humans (band)|The Humans ) (2009) (Digital release)

"Re-Joyce (In The Bleak Midwinter)" (with The Hazel O'Connor Collective) (2010)

"Fallen" ( Yomanda feat. Toyah) (2011) Digital release – reached No. 15 on iTunes Electronic Chart

Filmography

Jubilee (1977 film)|Jubilee (1977) Mad

The Corn Is Green (1979 film)|The Corn is Green (1979) Bessie Watty

The Tempest (1979 film)|The Tempest (1979) Miranda

Quadrophenia (film)|Quadrophenia (1979) Monkey

The Ebony Tower (1984) Anne

Anchoress (film)|Anchoress (1993) Pauline Carpenter

Julie and the Cadillacs (1999) Barbara Gifford

The Most Fertile Man in Ireland (1999) Dr Johnson

The Power of Three (2011) Michelle

TV appearances

Quatermass (TV serial)|Quatermass (1979) Sal

Shoestring (TV series)|Shoestring (1979)

Minder (TV series)| Minder (1980)

Tales of the Unexpected (TV series)|Tales of the Unexpected (1982) Marigold – Blue Marigold episode

Dear Heart A BBC comedy sketch series Toyah appeared in, playing a number of characters, including Super Advice Person, Jules Says, and Gina & Tina (1982) Toyah fansite

The Ebony Tower (1983) Anne (The Freak) – with Laurence Olivier

Pop Quiz Christmas Special (1984)

French & Saunders (1988) Herself

Boudicca (1988)

Cluedo (1990) Miss Scarlet (An ITV Programme)

First Night on TV (1992) (Toyah hosted this arts programme)

Thirty Years in the TARDIS ( Doctor Who Documentary. VHS release AKA "More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS) (1993) Herself

The Ink Thief (1994) "Dog"

Kavanagh QC (1995)

The Good Sex Guide Late (1996)

Presenting...Toyah on VH1 (1997)

Light Lunch" (1997)

Boys From The Black Country – The Slade Story (1998) (Toyah presents this programme)

List of Never Mind the Buzzcocks episodes|Never Mind The Buzzcocks (various appearances 1998–2005)

''It's Slade (1999) (Toyah appears in this documentary)

Barmy Aunt Boomerang (1999)

Rock Legends (2002) (Herself)

Open House Panto Special (2002)

''QueenMania" (2005) (Toyah performs the Queen song 'Don't Stop Me Now")

Proud Parents . Channel 4 (2006) Herself

Secret Diary of a Call Girl (2007) TV Easy magazine , Issue 22–28th Sept, page 4

In Your Dreams (2008) Herself

Living With The Dead (2008)

Celebrity Mastermind (2008)

Psychic Therapy (2009) Herself

Celeb Experiences (2009) Herself

Hole In The Wall (2009) Herself

Celebrity Brides Unveiled (2008) Herself

Celebrity Life Skills (2009) Herself

The One Show (2009) Toyah discusses Marc Bolan and his influence on her

Casualty (TV series)|Casualty , BBC TV Series, Season 24 Episode 6, guest appearance, Hazel Tillier, (screened 10 October 2009)

Celebrity Ready Steady Cook Christmas Special (2008) Herself

Celebrity Ghost Story UK Herself, telling the audience of her personal experiences with the paranormal, including a ghost maid, the devil, and a haunted house.

Toyah has also appeared in many shows looking back on popular culture, including the ''I'm a Celebrity'' series, and various 'Top 100 favourite' shows.

Music videos

Toyah at the Rainbow (1981) (live recording from Rainbow Theatre)

Good Morning Universe (1982) (live BBC recording from Theatre Royal, Drury Lane)

Toyah& #33; Toyah& #33; Toyah! (1984) (companion to K-tel LP of same name; compilation of four pop videos and one live track)

Wild Essence – Live in the 21st century (2005) (live recording)

Other music compilations

Urgh& #33; A Music War (1981) (live performances by various artists, featuring Toyah's Danced )

Notes

Copyright Citations

This article is licensed under the GNU License
Click here for original article: Toyah Willcox

Toyah Willcox Photo by: www.toyahwillcox.com

Alternative Music Artists

Toyah Willcox

Biography

Biography

Years of alienation and rebellion

Acting career

Career in music

Solo career

Two careers as one

Social activities

Autobiographies

Radio

Private life

Marriage

Discography

Albums

With Toyah (band)

As a solo artist

Compilations

With Toyah (band)

Collaborations

Singles / EPs

Filmography

TV appearances

Music videos

Other music compilations

Notes

References

External links

Copyright Citations