Toyah Ann Willcox (born 18 May 1958) is an English singer, actress, and TV presenter. In a career spanning more than 40 years, she has had eight top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in over 40 stage plays and 10 feature films, and voiced and presented numerous television shows.[1]
Between 1977 and 1983, Willcox fronted the eponymous band Toyah, before embarking on a solo career in the mid-1980s. At the 1982 Brit Awards, 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 include "It's a Mystery", "Thunder in the Mountains" and "I Want to Be Free".
Early life
Willcox was born on 18 May 1958 in Kings Heath, Birmingham.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] Barbara gave up her career after giving birth to Nicola (born 1950) and Kim (born 1953), Willcox's elder sister and brother, respectively.
Willcox has suggested her first name could be in reference to Toyah, Texas or to a Native American word "toyah" meaning "water," although she notes her parents deny both origins.[2]
Willcox enjoyed a financially comfortable childhood,[citation needed] attending a private girls' school, but was bullied.[citation needed] Requiring physiotherapy for a spinal condition,[citation needed] she behaved violently towards her mother, to whom she was close.[citation needed] An absentee pupil[citation needed] 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.[3] Alienated by her background and surroundings, her rebellious behaviour led to her shunning male company and adopting an aggressive and flamboyant identity.[citation needed]
Her early interest in music, dance and acting, combined with her alienation, and her uncertainty regarding her sexuality,[citation needed] 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."[citation needed] 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."[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
After appearing as an extra in a drama being made at the BBCPebble 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.[citation needed] Recommended to the play's director by a member of the wardrobe department because of her distinctive appearance and oddball character,[citation needed] 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.[2] 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".[4][5] 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.[citation needed]
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[2] which featured Joel Bogen on guitar, Mark Henry on bass, Steve Bray on drums, Peter Bush on keyboards, and herself on vocals.[4] Having never considered herself a musician, she found herself fronting a successful band, although still uncertain about her own sexuality and repelled by her bandmates' antics with groupies.[6]
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).[7] 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.[citation needed] She went on to play 'Monkey' in the 1979 film of The Who'sQuadrophenia, having been introduced to director Franc Roddam through an association with John Lydon. Willcox demanded the part of Monkey from Roddam.[8] She completed filming despite requiring medical attention for pneumonia.[6]
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.[10] Feeling her musical career was not taken as seriously as her acting,[6] she nevertheless viewed her acting role as 'highbrow' and her musical career as 'lowbrow'.[6]
Although she had presented the magazine series Look! Hear! for BBC Birmingham between 1979 and 1981, it was in the 1990s that Willcox's career as a TV presenter took off. She began by presenting arts programmes First Night and Time Off in 1993. By the mid to late 1990s, she could be seen presenting items on shows such as Watchdog:healthcheck, This Morning and The Heaven and Earth Show. She also worked on VH1 for three years, presenting Toyah and Toyah and Chase for the cable music station. Viewers could accompany Willcox to various locations worldwide during her tenure as a reporter on BBC travel shows such as Holiday and Holiday- Fasten Your Seatbelts. In 1996, she had the unique honour of simultaneously hosting both Songs of Praise on the BBC and Good Sex Guide Late on ITV. At the turn of the millennium, she continued to work on The Heaven and Earth Show as a newspaper reviewer and also presented a series of Whose Recipe Is It Anyway on the Carlton Food Network and 40 episodes of Beyond Medicine on the Discovery Health Channel. As the noughties progressed, she had stints presenting Head2Head and Destination Lunch on the Overseas Property TV channel, was a newspaper reviewer on Sky News, hosted various music programmes for Vintage TV and was a guest presenter on Loose Women in 2007.
In the 2000s, Willcox had a busy schedule with theatre commitments, including appearing on stage in London's 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, Willcox appeared on Living with the Dead on Living to share her experiences of living in her haunted home. On 24 July 2008, Willcox appeared on UK ITV1's This Morning to discuss her role as a vampire in the rock musical Vampires Rock. She has also appeared in shows looking back on popular culture, including the I'm a Celebrity series, and various 'Top 100 favourite' shows. More recently, Willcox played Queen Ivannah in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Lyceum in Sheffield for the 2009 Christmas season. In October 2009, she made a guest appearance in the BBC drama series Casualty. Willcox has also been heard on radio, including the 2002 BBC Radio 4 series The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. She is also played 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. In November 2017, she played Queen Elizabeth II in a theatre adaptation of Derek Jarman's film Jubilee at Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre.[11] This production transferred to the Lyric Hammersmith for a London run in March 2018.
In recent years, there has been renewed interest in Willcox as a film actress, as she has appeared in a number of British films. These include: Aaaaaaaah!, In Extremis, Lies We Tell, Swiperight, Heckle and Invasion Planet Earth.[citation needed]
Musical career
In London, Willcox lived in a place called "Mayhem", a converted British Rail warehouse serving as a studio.[citation needed] 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.[12] Citing her role in Quadrophenia as a boost to her musical career, with growing audiences Toyah signed to Safari Records,[citation needed] 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.[13] Willcox's second album, The Blue Meaning, went to no. 40 in the UK Albums Chart in June 1980.[14] By this time, she is reported as announcing she had severed all ties with punk aesthetics.[citation needed]
In January 1981, the live album Toyah! Toyah! Toyah!, recorded at the Lafayette Club in Wolverhampton the previous June,[15] made it to the Top 30, backed up by a TV documentary Toyah. By now the original band had broken up[9] and a new lineup was in place, consisting of Phil Spalding, Nigel Glockler and Adrian Lee, only Joel Bogen and Willcox remaining.[15] 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,[14] to be later certified platinum,[citation needed] "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).[16] In 1981 she alone, according to Safari, sold in the UK more units than the whole of the Warner Bros. put together.[citation needed]
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.[10]The Changeling was followed in the same year by a double live album Warrior Rock: Toyah on Tour.[14] 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.
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.[13] 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),[14] and with a 1984 greatest hits compilation, released by K-tel and called confusingly Toyah! Toyah! Toyah! All the Hits, failing to chart.[15]
Willcox married British guitarist Robert Fripp, founding member of King Crimson, in Poole, Dorset[17] 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'.[3] 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" 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.[13] 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."[13] Robert Fripp joined his wife on her studio album Ophelia's Shadow (1991) which, along with Dreamchild (1994), received good reviews.[1] In 1996, Willcox released The Acoustic Album on Aardvark Records, featuring strings from Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and produced by Oliver Davis.[13]
In 2001, Willcox was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Central England in recognition of her achievements in performing arts, media and broadcasting.[1] The 2001 May issue of Q magazine named Willcox number 48 in their top 100 Greatest Women in Music poll, as voted for by readers of the magazine.[18][full citation needed] 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 Scott's Jazz Club. 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 in 2003 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 two parts of The Safari Records Singles Collection being issued.[citation needed]
In May 2007, she collaborated with Bill Rieflin as the Humans for live dates in Estonia, having been invited 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 was not keen, so Willcox accepted.[19] Also in 2007, Willcox signed a new worldwide publishing deal with Zomba Music Group. She continued to write and record solo material with long-term collaborator Simon Darlow. On 29 October 2007, a new single Latex Messiah (Viva la Rebel in You), 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. As part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture year, she performed for the first time ever at the newly opened Liverpool Echo Arena[20] and Conference Centre.[citation needed]
In 2009, a new version of Vampires Rock was created, called Vampires Rock Christmas, and Willcox was back in her role as the Killer Queen, alongside the writer and one of the stars of the show, Steve Steinman. Willcox 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 studio 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. The album received a UK digital release in September 2009, along with a single "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'".[1] At the end of the year Willcox came seventh in a BBC series naming the "Queens of British Pop", as voted for by the British public. In 2010 Willcox with the Humans performed at the London's RoundhouseHaiti earthquake fundraiser concert. On 17 June 2011, 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 (1979), The Blue Meaning (1980) and Anthem (1981). Andi Fraggs, a British electronic musician, supported her on chosen dates.[citation needed]
On 14 April 2012, Willcox launched the Changeling Resurrection 2012 tour at the Concorde 2 in Brighton to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her album The Changeling (1982).[21] On 16 July 2012, Willcox performed a concert in her birthplace of Kings Heath, Birmingham, to celebrate being the first artist with a star on the King's Heath Walk of Fame. Andi Fraggs made a surprise appearance, duetting Willcox's 1981 hit single "Thunder in the Mountains".[citation needed] In 2013, Willcox released a deluxe edition of her 2008 album In the Court of the Crimson Queen and embarked on the tour revisiting the Love Is the Law (1983)-era material.[citation needed]
Willcox continued to tour both with her full band and also with an acoustic line-up for her "Up Close and Personal" shows.[citation needed]
In 2018, Willcox toured her #Toyah60 show, which marked her sixtieth birthday and fortieth year in music. This was accompanied by the release of her Four from Toyah – Birthday Edition EP of new material, which charted highly in the digital chart.[citation needed]
Willcox in 2018
In 2019, Willcox charted at no. 74 in the UK Albums Chart with a re-issue of her 2008 album In the Court of the Crimson Queen.[14] It also peaked at no. 22 on the Official Charts Company's sales chart and no. 7 in the independent chart. This was Willcox' first appearance in the UK Albums Chart since Minx in 1985.[14]
In 2020, the box set Toyah Solo was released, containing six solo albums with bonus material, one Rare, Remixed and Revisited CD, and a DVD with promo videos and interviews.8[citation needed]
In 2020, following their acquisition of the Toyah Safari catalogue, Cherry Red Records began reissuing Willcox's early albums in deluxe 2CD/DVD and vinyl formats. Both Sheep Farming in Barnet and Blue Meaning have been reissued, both appearing in the UK Albums Chart.[14]
During the first UK lockdown of 2020, Willcox began broadcasting from her home across social media and YouTube. On Saturdays she answers fan questions and shares archive performances in Toyah at Home and co-hosts Agony Aunts alongside her husband Robert Fripp. However, it is her Sunday Lunch series with Fripp that has garnered the most fame, frequently going viral and racking up millions of hits on YouTube. She and Fripp started publishing weekly videos in 2021, covering songs such as Slipknot's "Psychosocial", Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell", Rammstein's "Keine Lust", Foo Fighters' "All My Life", Grace Jones' "Slave to the Rhythm" and Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name".[22] On 12 August 2022, they released "Slave to the Rhythm" as a digital download and streaming single.[citation needed] The duo toured the UK in 2023, performing the Sunday Lunch songs in concert.[23][24][25]
Willcox released Posh Pop, her first solo studio album since 2008, on CD and vinyl via DMG on 27 August 2021, with the album featuring 10 tracks composed by Willcox and "Slave to the Rhythm" co-writer Simon Darlow.[26][27] The album reached no. 22 in the chart.
Willcox has been married since 1986 to musician Robert Fripp, founder and guitarist of the progressive rock group King Crimson. The couple have no children and have arranged their wills so as to leave their estates to the establishment of a musical educational trust for children.[35]
In 1987, Willcox was invited to make a speech at the Women of the Year ceremony in the presence of Diana, Princess of Wales, expressing her views on the subject of how being disabled incites creativity and craving for a fuller life experience.[citation needed]
In 2002, she became a prominent opponent of planned accommodation centres for asylum seekers near the Worcestershire village of Throckmorton, protesting together with more than one thousand villagers.[36]
In November 2007, Willcox took on the role of sponsoring the Black Country Urban Park for the People's £50 million Big Lottery Fund. In April 2008, she took part in the Great Walk to Beijing alongside other celebrities, to raise money for Olivia Newton-John's cancer charity.
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