Willy DeVille died August, 2009. He had contracted Hepatitis and, beginning his treatment, doctors found he had pancreatic cancer. That was in June. BUT THIS IS ABOUT TOOTS!

Willy DeVille died August, 2009. He had contracted Hepatitis, and, beginning his treatment, doctors found he had pancreatic cancer.
That was in June.
R I P Willy DeVille.

THESE ARE JUST THE COMMENTS FROM A REMARKABLE DISCUSSION OF WILLY AND THE WOMEN IN HIS LIFE

Browsing his bio on Wikipedia, I stumbled upon a peculiar character, Toots DeVille, and decided to do a little research on her.
It isn&# ;t much I have yet found out, but I am going to to continue on this article.
So far, I have in particular brought together images &# ; I wanted to know what she looked like.
EDIT: Please be sure to read the comments too, as the opinions about Toots seem to be rather controversial.
EDIT: Also keep in mind that some people who comment here have their own agenda, and each their own perception of how things are and were.
I have now closed the comments (stopping at a whopping ) as I grew irritated by the number of people who claimed to have &# ;insider stories&# ;, but mainly used this blog post as a means to come to terms with some stories in their own lives.
As neither Toots nor Willy can comment anymore on some of the claims that are being made, I do not want to encourage further speculation, seeing that this thread has meanwhile turned into a gossip mill, with the occasional nastygram from the past. &# ;Willy DeVille was married in the late s to Toots, with whom he had a son, Sean.
Alex Halberstadt, Doc Pomus&# ;s biographer, wrote about Toots, &# ;Half French and half Pima Indian, Toots favored a pair of nose rings, snow-white kabuki make-up and a Ronettes-style beehive the color of tar.
She&# ;d once put out a lit Marlboro in a woman&# ;s eye just for staring at Willy.&# ;Halberstadt, Alex ( ) Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus.
New York: De Capo Press. p Have you seen Toots lately?
She was one fascinating character.
Willy: Oh, I really don&# ;t know.
I haven&# ;t seen her in over ten years.
I ran off on her, I guess.
She was fascinating, all right.
She loved to fight and pull knives out.
She used to get me into a lot of trouble.
I worried a lot about you during those years.
Willy: She did some serious damage to my career. (laughing) It took me ten years to get it back on track.
I used to road manage Mink DeVille in the late &# ;s .This is Willy DeVille on the bench, &# ;Toots&# ; and Chris the band manager.He found a wheelchair at the airport and was messing around.
I think Toots & Amy came from the same mold.
This message has been edited.
An article from a Dutch fan page states that her real first name was Susan (and the comments offer a variety of views on Susan&# ;s last name, most likely Berle oder Berlinsky): &# ;Willy [&# ;] was accompanied by his wife &# ;Toots&# ; (Susan) who was dressed like one of the Ronettes with a beehive hair-do and tight dress.
The Fast Lane was a magical place and a magical time, inhabited by a denizen of characters with a capital .
We had the janitor, Louie La Buff, great name, full-time drunk with a mutt named Dukey that was amazing and haggard all in one.
There was a WW vet named Tim, with a fake ear, a prosthetic thing made of God knows what, that he lost in my car one night.

There was the fabulous wife of Willy Deville, Toots Deville, who would punch out female audience members for staring at her husband, and she never failed to ask me if I was “holding,” even though she knew I never did heroin.

She also used to ask me if she could cut my hair, which was as scary a thought as could be.

It was a cast of characters and clowns.

Dear God, I remember Toots when I worked at WBCN in Boston, Willy came in for a chat, and Oedipus (whose show I produced) pulled me aside and warned me NOT &# ; under any circumstances &# ; to give even the slightest appearance of flirting with Willy.

The truth is, I knew Willie was using hard drugs back in the &# ;s He may have straightened up as the years went on.
We hung out a few times after and before shows.
I was at his apartment on the Lower East Side one night, and Toots said to me, &# ;Do you have any drugs?&# ; I said, &# ;I have a joint.&# ; She said, &# ;NO, I mean DRUGS!&# ; She meant heroin.
More Trivia: The shoulder and panther tattoo on the Mink DeVille cover of Le Chat Bleu ( / ) belong to Toots DeVille.
She&# ;s dead now.I assume drug related??
I don&# ;t really know how or when.
But she was quite famous in her own way for a time in the late &# ;s She used to be in Creem magazine (with and without Willy) all the time and yeah, she really seemed like the coolest chick&# ;so different from all the others at the time.
Thank you Lia.
I need to get my hands on a few issues of Creem Mag in the late &# ;s There is next to nothing on her on the web.
Odd.
Belinda Rachman, Esq.
There was NOTHING cool about Toots.
She was a white trash bitch who ruined Willy&# ;s life and probably killed him due to getting him hooked on junk.
I am very lucky she never pulled a knife on me since the attraction between Willy and I was never a secret.
The worst she did to me was rip up a film proposal I gave him to do a music video of him (before MTV) but she did injure other women who were too interested in him.
He was WAY too good for her. @Belina Rachmann: Now you&# ;ve made me curious: Not only did you know both in person, but these days, you&# ;re a divorce lawyer and divorce mediator who in the past was lucky that Willy DeVille&# ;s first wife never pulled a knife on you since the attraction between you and her husband was never a secret?
Did you follow up on this attraction?
(Not my business anyway, but like I said, now that you&# ;ve mentioned it, you&# ;ve made me curious).
Belinda Rachman, Esq.
Nothing ever happened, that was he problem.
For at least years Willy was out of it on heroin.
I would bet anything that Toots was the one who brought Heroin into Willy&# ;s life and not the other way around.
She was just the worst!!
I worry about the child they had.
What must his his life be like with a crazy mother like that.
Maybe Sean never saw much of his mother.
Where did he grow up?
There&# ;s even less known about him than about her.
He must be in his s now.
The Fast Lane (mentioned above) was a nightclub in Asbury Park, New Jersey, not far from the Stone Pony.
Previously called the Hotel California, it flourished in the late &# ; s and early &# ; s (there were a couple unsuccessful attempts to reopen it afterward).
While the Pony tended to book local acts (like Southside Johnny and Cats on a Smooth Surface), the Fast Lane had a steady stream of national acts, mostly on weekends.
Along with Mink DeVille, U , Tom Petty and the Ramones also played early gigs there.
Springsteen was a regular for awhile, guesting with bands like Beaver Brown, the Stray Cats, Robert Gordon, etc.
Jon Bon Jovi&# ;s early band, Atlantic City Expressway, was also a mainstay.
It&# ;s the first place I ever saw Springsteen, when he joined Gordon on stage there in .
Sorry you couldn&# ;t get along with her Belinda.
Toots was no monster.
She deeply loved Willy and devoted herself to him.
Drugs were certainly a big part of their life together but both Willy & Toots share the &# ;blame&# ; if there is any to be shared.
Not to dismiss his talents but Billy Borsey would NEVER have become the Willy DeVille without Toots there to guide and inspire him.
I # ;m not going to get into the reasons they split up.
None of your business.
What&# ;s important is that they were together for almost years.
After the split Toots had a few hard years (having had her reason for living torn away from her).
She was living in upstate New York working as a care provider for the elderly when she died of cancer in .
Willy & Toots son Sean is in his late &# ;s and was at Willy&# ;s bedside when he died.
Without Toots, Billy Borsey would never have become Willy DeVille.
I met Billy & Susan (Toots) in .
They already were married and their son Sean was only about one year old at the time.
They were both young and had a deep, devoted love for each other.
WIlly was a musician even then and his talents were obvious.
It was Toots who formed the “look” that Willy adapted.
By , when every one was wearing the Lola Granola / Dan Fogelburp look.
Toots was wearing tight dresses, stiletto heels, a nose ring, dying her hair black and wearing it in a bouffant.
She dressed Willy in ruffled shirts, skinny pants and pompadour.
When Mink DeVille was formed, Manfred, Louis & Richard would not be allowed on stage until Toots OK’d their outfits.
Drugs, & I don’t mean weed, were a part of their life.
It all went with the look.
Some blame Toots for taking Willy down that path but that’s just not how it was.
He sought drugs without her.
Did she enable him?
Of course, just as much as he enabled her.
Toots devoted herself to Willy and his career.
She was extremely protective of him and would take no crap from any woman who made advances to him.
They were together for almost years.
Their reasons for breaking up would take years to explain.
After the split, she spent quite a few years as a lost soul, having what she had devoted her life to taken away from her.
She cleaned up in the s s Toots was working in upstate New York as a care provider for the elderly when she died of cancer in .
During her last years she had reconciled with her past.
She was one of the most memorable persons I ever met.
I spent a year or so working with Willy in / as his guitar tech.
Actually, the entire band tech.
Toots was a strong woman, I was only , she kinda mothered me, took me under her wing, wanted to take me to France so I could meet a nice girl.
She gave me an elephant hair bracelet, which I still carry to this day.
I am saddened to hear that she died only a few years ago- I am surprised she lived that long- and Willy, too!
I have a lot of memories from that time, and at that young age, a lot of things I learned about life from them I still carry with me now. thank you for sharing your memories.
I love how the picture of her is getting bigger and bigger, and less onedimensional with every view people add.
Toots&# ;s real name was Susan Martincak.
By the way, does anyone know what Toots and Willy&# ;s son Sean looks like?
I am deadcurious to see a picture of him.
No idea &# ; I found a Sean DeVille from Calgary, Alberta on Facebook, but didn&# ;t dare to ask him.
I know her full name was Susan Berl( last name may be spelled wrong) and she also lived in Stamford Ct., they where together from very young, and I believe her son was not Willy&# ;s but was raised as his.
That&# ;s about all I know.
Berle is short for Berlinksy.
Her Father was Maurice Berlinksky (changed his name into Berle). excuse the wrong spelling, I meant BERLINSKY.
I think Willy and Sue broke up for a while and he went with a girl at my High school in Stamford and they formed The Immaculate Conception, another of his early groups.They played all around the area.
Then Toots came back to town and by then had Sean.
I spent much time with Willy and Toots and I am very sorry to hear they are both gone so young in their lives.
Knowing them was a glorious and painful experience.
I shall never forget our times together and hold the memories in my heart.
I pray that their son is well and leads a long and happy life.
Many blessings to him and loved ones remaining.
Willy and Toots were remarkable people who did love one another greatly.
May they both rest in peace.
Thank you, Tepi, for stopping by and sharing your memories.
Sue and I went to the Atlanta Pop Fest together.
In a Bus Station in Macon Ga..She pulled A butcher Knife out her boot on some red neck who didn&# ;t like my hair.
Hey Amzie, nice photo on your homepage!
Let me know once you find the pics.
Used to know the girl who did Mink DeVille&# ;s press in Britain, she said the only way to get Willy to do anything was to butter up Toots.
She totally dominated the people charged with promoting Mink DeVille to the point of terrifying almost everyone at the record company.
Toots was absolutely brutal with anyone she thought was either trying to get between Willy and her or not pushing his music hard enough, while all the time wanting to score smack.
I played briefly in Billy and the Kids with Willy and met Susan Berle completely independently, in high school.
She was a captivating person, I really liked her then, and I never saw any of the violence that people referenced, not that smack didn&# ;t bring out the worst in people.
In his interview referenced above ( interview /Sheila Rene) Willy was asked: &# ;Have you seen Toots lately?&# ; Willy replies: &# ;I really don’t know.
I haven’t seen her in over ten years.
I ran off on her, I guess.&# ; Does he say, &# ;it&# ;s none of your business&# ; or &# ;it would take years to explain?&# ; No.
His message about sums it up.
BERLE, Maurice Entered into eternal rest on the afternoon of February , Maurice Berle, retired vice president of Palm Beach Clothier, beloved husband of Helen Laufer Dwork Berle.
Residence, Charleston, SC.
Relatives and friends of Mr and Mrs Maurice Berle are invited to attend the funeral service of the former at Beth Elohim Cemetery, Huguenin Ave., Tuesday, February , at one &# ;clock.
Mr Berle was born March , in Charleston, .C , the son of Phillip and Bella Berlinsky.
He was a member of Beth Elohim Temple and serviced in the .S Army during .W II.
He is survived by his wife of Charleston, .C two step-daughters, Harriet .
Keith and her husband Daulton of Mt.
Pleasant, .C , and Susan .
Slotnick and her husband Howard of Armonk, NY; one grandson, Sean Borsey of New York City; son-in- law, William .
Borsey of New York City; three brothers, Herbert Berlinsky and his wife Jackie, Danny Berlinsky and his wife Ruth, Norman Berlinsky and his wife Eve, and one sister, Barbara Stine and her husband Gordan, all of Charleston, .C ; numerous nieces and nephews.
Predeceased by his daughter, Susan Martincak and sister Hattie .
Olasov.
Memorials may be made to Beth Elohim Temple, Hasell Street, Charleston, .C , .
Arrangements by .
HENRY STUHR, INC., DOWNTOWN CHAPEL.
A memorial message may be sent the family by visiting Stuhr&# ;s website at .
Visit our guestbook at .
Published in the Charleston Post & Courier on / / .
This woman is really fascinating.
From what I know of her , her maiden name was Berle, (her father shortened it from Berlinsky from what I have read here),so she must have remarried after the divorce from Willy.
Here you can see Toots live, after Willy has finished doing Spanish Stroll. something went wrong, here is the link.
I remember travelling with Toots and Willy in (I think that was the year,the time of his Spanish Stroll mega hit)in a massive Rolls Royce to the Hammersmith Odeon, London.
My boyfriend, David Grahame, had taken me to meet them at the Portobello Hotel.
He had been great friends with Willy in New York and had played in a band with him.
David always carried a photo of Sean in his wallet, that&# ;s how close they were.
After watching the gig at Hammersmith Odeon, we went to the Capitol Record Company reception at MrChow&# ;s in Knightsbridge.
Willy was really cool and Toots a really colourful character.
I liked them both.
Sadly David died in and he talked about that time shortly before his death.
May Wiily rest in peace and may God bless him.
Could someone please help me out on this; is Sean Borsey really Willy&# ;s son or was he adopted?
Been wondering about this for years.
From what I had heard around, Sean was her son and Willy adopted him after they got married.
But I could be wrong, I lived in Stamford and Willy grew up near me so I heard different stories about the of them once they became well known.
Willy Deville WAS Billy Borsey JR., that was his real name.
His father was William Borsey SR.
I would also like to know about DeVille&# ;s second wife, Lisa Leggett.
She committed suicide by hanging in .
In this interview Willy tells about the suicide of Lisa and how he found her.
Lisa was the love of his life and business manager.
They met in california and married in .
Lias was the love of his life.
THey met and married in .
In this is picture you can see Lisa, Willy&# ;s second wife, on the left.
The woman in the middle is Trudy Jost, a swiss lady who used to make Willy&# ;s leather stage outfits.
If you browse through the pictures below you can see Willy with his third wife Nina Lagerwall. by the way, here are some great pictures of a young Willy and Toots.
Seeing her with Willy back in the eary &# ;s there was nothing wrong with her upper lip.
I can only guess that she may have had piercings, she was very ahead of her time and had a nose piercing way back then, which very odd at that time.
Toots (Susan Berle) flamed brightly like a candle burning out, and the image of the burning paper boat momentarily defying the water also seems to suit her. many photo&# ;s from Willy with Toots.
A picture of Sean (on the right).
Not Willy&# ;s biological son though.
Toots was pregnant and Willy married her.

I # ;D LIKE TO EXTEND MY CONDOLANCES TO HIS LAST WIFE.
I # ;D ALSO LIKE TO KNOW WHY THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANY MENTION OF HIS FAMILY,OF WHOM I KNEW ALL TOO WELL.FIRST LET ME SAY HIS MOTHER MARIAN HAS NOT EVER BEEN MENTIONED IN ANYTHING I # ;VE READ,NOR HIS DAD BILL,YET HE WROTE ABOUT HIS GRANDMOTHER AND THAT SEEMS ODD TO ME.HIS MOTHER HAD AN ONGOING AFFAIR WITH EDDIE &# ;HARA, A DRUNK FOR MANY YRS.(IN STAMFORD) AND MADE ALL THE KIDS LIVES MISERABLE OVER IT,BILL IN TURN WAS A WONDERFUL MAN AND A WONDERFUL FATHER TO HIS OWN TWO KIDS BY MARIAN MARY-ELLEN AND BILLY AND ALSO EDDIE AND MICHAEL..
THERE IS NO MENTION OF HIS HALF BROTHER MICHEAL THAT GOT KILLED IN A CAR ACCIDENT MANY YRS.
AGO,THERE IS NO MENTION OF HIS BROTHER EDDIE &# ;BRIAN(THAT WAS ALSO MICHAEL&# ;S BROTHER FROM EDDIE &# ;BRIAN SR.,OF WHOM HIS MOTHER DIVORCED &# ;FOR BILL BORSEY)&# ;.
HIS SISTER MARY-ELLEN LIVES IN IN ANOTHER COUNTRY,I HAD SEEN SHE WAS REFERRED TO AS&# ;MIMI&# ;,I DON&# ;T HAVE MANY NICE THINGS TO SAY ABOUT HER SO IT&# ;S BETTER I SAY NOTHING,TO ME SHE WAS A USER,JUST AS HER MOTHER WAS.
MARIAN MOVED TO THAT COUNTRY AND I ASSUME SHE DIED THERE.
MY FATHER LIVED WITH MARIAN FOR YRS.
AND THEY MOVED TO FLORIDA AND BOUGHT A HOUSE TOGETHER(NEAR ME).
THAT WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR MY DAD..AFTER THEY LEFT MARIAN WANTED HIM OUT OF THE HOUSE,AT THAT POINT HE WASN&# ;T WORTH ANYTHING TO HER ANYMORE..JUST TO TEND THE YARD AND TAKE CARE OF FLOWERS MY DAD HAD PLANTED.
SHE WAS TWO FACED AND A TOTAL HYPOCRITE.
I FELL IN LOVE WITH HER SON EDDIE WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG, HE WAS MARRIED AND SO WAS I SHE HAD FORCED HIM INTO A MARRIAGE WITH HIS WIFE BEV AT YRS.
OLD)B C SHE WAS PREGNANT,BUT THEN AFTER SHE LOST THE BABY,THEY HAVE CHILDREN,LISA BEING THE OLDEST).
ACCORDING TO BILLY/AKA WILLY WAS&# ;NOT&# ; EDDIE&# ;S SON( BEV.
WAS YR.S OLD WHEN SHE HAD HIM AND ACCORDING TO BILLY IT WAS A JEWLERY SALESMENS KID,THAT IS FROM &# ;BILLY&# ; NOT ME).
WHEN I TALKED TO BEV YRS.
AGO, SHE MENTIONED THAT MARIAN NEVER SENT HIM A BIRTHDAY CARD EVER, I KNEW THE TRUTH,BUT I DIDN&# ;T TELL HER THAT,I JUST TOLD HER TO ASK MARIAN .
WHILE MY DAD WAS IN AN ASSISTED LIVING PLACE, HE WOULD SEND MARIAN MONEY CONSTANLY AND SHE WOULD CONTINUE TO TAKE IT AND IT MADE ME SICK,IT WAS MONEY MY SISTER AND I GAVE HIM&# ;WHEN THE TRUTH ABOUT EDDIE AND I CAME OUT(IN ),SHE OF ALL PEOPLE CAME TO MY HOME AND DEMANDED I STOP SEEING HIM,ALTHOUGH I WAS GETTING A DIVORCE!
SHE BROUGHT EDDIE&# ;S WIFE WITH HER AND I JUST SAID I # ;M MOVING AND I # ;LL STEP OUT, I NEVER MENTIONED ANYTHING ABOUT &# ;HARA,WHICH I KNEW ABOUT, BUT SHE WAS NOT YET INVOLVED WITH MY FATHER.
MARIAN WAS A PLAYER OF ONE SIDE AGAINST THE OTHER,SHE ALWAYS FELT SHE&# ;D LIVE TO BE YRS.
OLD,B C MOST OF THE FAMILY DID ON HER SIDE.
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAS HAPPEN TO EDDIE AND WAS SHOCKED THAT IN HIS(BILLY&# ;S OBIT IT SAID ONLY HIS MOTHER AND FATHER WERE DECEASED, NO MENTION OF MICHAEL ALSO BEING GONE AND NO MENTION OF HIS HALF BROTHER EDDIE,BEING LEFT BEHIND.
WHEN I SPOKE TO BEVERLY YRS.
AGO, WEEKS LATER I LOST MY YR.
OLD GRANDSON.
I # ;VE NEVER SPOKE TO HER SINCE, NOR HAVE I SPOKE TO EDDIE AKA ED.
I HOPE THIS WILL SOMEHOW FILL IN SOME OF THE BLANK SPACES FOR YOU,IN WHAT BILLY AKA WILLY&# ;S LIFE WAS ALL ABOUT.
I DIDN&# ;T KNOW HIM, I ONLY SPOKE WITH HIM MANY TIMES ON THE PHONE.
I DON&# ;T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIS SON SEAN,I BELIEVE IT IT WAS HIS CHILD MARIAN WOULD HAVE MENTIONED THAT.
SHE MADE SURE WE WATCHED HIM AT THE ACADAMY AWARDS.
WHAT ALOT OF PEOPLE DON&# ;T KNOW IS BILLY NEARLY BURNED DOWN MARIAN AND DAD&# ;S HOME,HE WAS ON DRUGS AND HAD SOME KIND OF AN ALTER SET UP IN HIS BEDROOM AND IT NEARLY CAUGHT THE ENTIRE HOUSE ON FIRE.
WELL THERE YOU HAVE IT.
I DON&# ;T KNOW WHAT HAPPEN TO ED, I DO KNOW HE AND BEVERLY GOT A DIVORCE MANY YRS.
AGO LIKE MAYBE YRS&# ;I # ;M MARRIED FOR YRS.
TO THE SAME PERSON, I LIVE IN FLORIDA AND HAVE FOR YRS&# ; TO ME EDDIE AKA ED WILL ALWAYS BE MY FIRST TRUE LOVE.
I AM DEEPLY SORRY ABOUT THE LOSS OF BILLY.
HE DIDN&# ;T HAVE MUCH OF A HOME LIFE,I MEAN MOST MOM&# ;S WOULD NOT WANT THEIR KIDS TO LIVE IN GREENWICH VILLAGE,AT YRS.
OLD.
MAY YOU RIP WILLY/BILLY AND GOD BE WITH YOUR WIFE.

Thank you so much for posting these facts.
It&# ;s very nice to hear something about Willy&# ;s background from an insider ( with or without capslocks).
Very nice video.
In the beginning and at the end you can see Lisa, willy&# ;s second wife. very nice interview from .
I found your story about the Borseys interesting.
I was friendly with Eddie &# ;Hara JR. back in the day.
Were he and Willy related?
I got lost in your story with all the Eddies and &# ;Hara&# ;s and &# ;Briens.
I also know Marlene &# ;Brian , she called Willy her uncle.
I thought Gail’s note was fascinating, but yes, it’s hard to tell the people apart.
Willy DeVille’s mother was named Marian.
She had an ongoing affair with someone named Eddie ’Hara, who was a drunkard.
Her first marriage was to Eddie ’Brian Sr.
Marian and Eddie ’Brian Sr. had two children, Eddie Jr. and Michael.
Later Marian divorced Eddie ’Brian Sr. and married Willy DeVille’s father, Bill Borsey, a wonderful man, and they had two children together, Bill Jr.
(Willy DeVille) and Mary Ellen.
Later, Marian lived with Gail’s father (he is not named) and they moved from Stamford, Connecticut to Florida.
Mary Ellen, Willy DeVille’s sister (“a user just like her mother,” “I don’t have many nice things to say about her so it’s better I say nothing”), sometimes came to visit from another country (Australia, according to Willy DeVille obituaries).
Marian often abandoned Gail’s father in Florida to visit Mary Ellen, her daughter in Australia.
Michael, Willy DeVille’s half brother, was killed in a car accident.
Eddie Jr., Willy DeVille’s other half brother, married Bev at age because she was pregnant.
Gail was in love with Eddie Jr. and when Marian found out about it, she went to Gail’s home and demanded that she, Gail, stop seeing Eddie Jr.
Although their baby miscarried, Eddie Jr. and Bev remained married and had four children together.
The oldest child was named Lisa; the youngest was named Michael.
Willy DeVille told Gail that Eddie Jr.’s youngest son, Michael, was not Eddie Jr.’s child, but was the child of a jewelry salesman.
Gail insinuates that Marian, the boy’s grandmother (Willy DeVille’s mother), never sent her grandchild a birthday card because she knew his real parentage.
Eddie Jr. and Bev eventually got divorced.
Gail has nothing good to say about Marian, Willy DeVille’s mother: “Marian was a player of one side against the other; she always felt she’d live to be years old because most of the family did on her side did.” “(Willy DeVille) didn’t have much of a home life.
Gail said about Sean, “I don’t know anything about his son Sean.
Gail said about Willy DeVille, “What a lot of people don’t know is Billy nearly burned down Marian and Dad’s home.
It&# ;s about time a devoted filmmaker makes a documentary about Willy Deville (and his wifes).
I can figure it out: Starting in his hometown Stamford, interviewing people who knew him, his family, then the musicians he worked with, impressions of CBGB&# ;s New York, New Orleans, his success in Europe etc etc.
Would make a very interesting movie.
What a great idea!
But who could realize it?
What about Diethard üster, he did &# ;Beuatiful losers&# ; with Willy, Marianne Faithfull and Leonard Cohen.
And this page is faszinating &# ; a lot of news about Toots and Willy.
Thanx a lot to all of you. hello =) intresant reading about his wife .
Am confused did he not married her when he was ? and Sean was born ? sorri i mean Toots &# ;Susan&# ; .
Willy was NOT when he married Toots.
I may have been after Sean was born.
I tipped a dutch broadcasting company, called NPS.
They are specialized in making documentaries about artists.
Let&# ;s hope they will pick it up. have read so many stories about them , so i dont now what is true .
Did not know about Lisa&# ;s suicide &# ; sad ending for a big love-story.
Richard Marcus is going to write a book about Willy.
Willy was cremated.
On Trudy Jost&# ;s website you can see the green urn.
Click on RIP Willy Deville.
I really don&# ;t know.
You could try and send Trudy Jost an email.
She&# ;s very friendly.
Thanks, btw, for everyone who has contributed to this thread so far &# ; it&# ;s quite amazing what one can find out if everyone puts in their two cents. the one on the right (according to Alan Vega) must be considered &# ;art&# ;, although I would call it something different&# ;&# ;&# ;.
Anyway, the two of them seem to have had a lot of fun as long as it lasted.
The guy in the rd picture is Iggy Pop.
Willy is the one in the middle picture, Toots rests her head on his chest and it seems he is merely wearing underpants.
Nina is a bit older than Willy.
She&# ;s / now.
They met around , so she was already in her fifties then.
What I # ;ve heard Nina is a daughter of a famous Swedish actor: Sture Lagerwall.
Her father and mother got a divorce and her mother went to live in New York with Nina and the other children.
Not sure if this is true but it seems that Nina was an old love he knew during his junkietime.
They met again in a bar in New York, he was drunk and fell over her feet. that makes a lot of sense, they re-found, at that stage of life it&# ;s nearly impossible to start with a complete &# ;new&# ; person &# ; after having gone through so many highs and terribel downs. thank you for all the information &# ; still could not find out where he is burried, and if so.
After Willy finished doing drugs and got clean in the late nineties, he changed, his personality changed or maybe you could say his true nature emerged.
This was difficult for Lisa, she wanted her &# ;old Willy&# ; back.
Heroin is emotionally stunting.
You basically stay at the same emotional age that you were when you became addicted.
There is an absence of emotion while you are using as well.
Once you kick, then you have to do the catch-up work that happens to most people normally.
You are a different person, and you have a &# ;true nature&# ;.
It can be disconcerting for your partner, but if you don&# ;t do the work, you run the risk of relapse. listen to the lyrics of &# ;(Don&# ;t have a Change of heart&# ;.
It is the story when Willy and Nina met again after years.
I guess you could classify the &# ;&# ;carpicture&# ; mentioned above also as &# ;drugrelated behaviour&# ;.
CGuest, I appreciate a lot your explanation &# ; a very similar thing happened to me in my life, but I did not understand the &# ;why&# ; of the time lap.
Thank you.
I listened carefully to the lyrics of &# ;(Don&# ;t have ) a change of heart&# ;.
I agree.
Didn&# ;t know about all these heroin side-effects, CGuest.
It sure puts Willy&# ;s relationships with women in a different light.
Maybe Toots deliberately kept Willy on drugs for fear of losing him.
I know this is a Tootsblog, but here are some fantastic pictures of Willy.
Watch and enjoy.
Digiom, thank you, I already knew some of those pages &# ; so many &# ; but I but I did not find anything as interesting and vivid as your page.
I # ;m a newcomer to the blog-participating&# ; so I appreciate all help.
It&# ;s the people who visit this page who make it so vivid.
I think it was because there was so little about Toots (in one spot) on the web. together &# ; maybe even she had the best part of him, and for sure he of her, what do we know &# ; but it&# ;s easy to be attractrive&# ;. csk &# ; you are so right.
What about Toots without Willy &# ; how many years of bitterness she had.
What about Lisa and her heartache, when she heard about the lovestory with Nina and what about Nina &# ; at last she has lost everything.
Its a tragedy.
Das ist sicher bei Menschen wie Willy, Toots, Lisa und Nina nicht anders als bei allen anderen Menschen.
Trennungen schmerzen sehr und manche kommen damit überhaupt nicht klar und tun etwas sehr Dummes, wie Lisa.
Auch ört man nicht auf jemanden zu lieben, nur weil derjenige sich anders orientiert.
Aber wir entwickeln uns alle weiter und manche eben in eine andere Richtung als der Partner.
Das muß man akzeptieren und irgendwann kann man damit leben und sich auch neu verlieben. btw, there&# ;s pic in the last link that was posted where on can see that willi&# ;s left arm is entirely covered with tattoos &# ; i e the one that he shared with Toots is covered by other tats.
I wonder whether she changed her appearance.
Let&# ;s not forget she also had to detox from heroin, one of the most difficult addictions to overcome.
Keeping that in mind it was very strong of her to get her life back on track and become a caretaker for the elderly.
Ich bin nicht sicher ob ich Sie richtig verstehe, Digiom, aber die Übersetzung von englisch ins deutsche ist wirklich nicht besonders.
Ich hoffe, daß es anders herum vernünftiger ist, es wird doch von deutsch ins englische übersetzt?
Leider sind meine englischen Sprachkenntnisse zu eingerostet um spontan damit zu arbeiten, sorry.
So wie ich das sehe hat Willy auch die ätowierungen ür Lisa grossflächig verändert und welche ür Nina gemacht.
Toots doesn&# ;t seem to be the type of person who would have gone away quietly either.
She did make another life for herself and she deserves a lot of credit for that.
I would have liked to have met her.
CGuest, Sie sprechen mir aus der Seele!
Auch glaube ich, daß Toots Liebe zu Willy ehrlich war, sie hat ihn geliebt und nicht eine Wunschvorstellung .
I don&# ;t speak German, but as well as I can translate, I think you are saying that there was a deep love between Willy and Toots.
I am sure that you must be right.
Willy was a true artist, the real deal, and that is very, very rare in this world.
He wrote the most beautiful songs, and he meant them.
All you have to do to prove it is watch him perform.
We are all the richer for him and his music.
Hallo Digiom, bei mir wird Ihre Seite automatisch ins Deutsche übersetzt und mein Text ins Englische.
Aber offensichtlich kommt dabei nur Unnsinn heraus.
Das ist sehr schade, aber mir fehlt einfach die Zeit um selber diese Arbeit zu übernehmen.
Also breche ich das hier jetzt ab, es macht so keinen Sinn.
Ich ünsche allen weiterhin viel Spass .
Tonight, thursday . november , at . european time, on the german RBB channel, the documentary &# ;Beautiful Losers&# ; directed by Diethard üster, will be broadcasted.
In the documentary Leonard Cohen, Marianne Faithful and WILLY DEVILLE tell about their hopes, dreams and disappointments.
You can see Willy during concerts but also at his home.
Just a bit of trivia.
Willy apparently owned a boat called &# ;Rainy Day Woman&# ;. @Tammi: Scheinbar hast du die Seite dann über den Google Translation Service aufgerufen &# ; automatisch wird von meinen Einstellungen her gar nichts übersetzt.
Saw Beautiful Losers last night.
Great docu.
It&# ;s difficult to understand why Willy cheated on Lisa just a few years later (the docu was made in ).
He talks about her with so much affection, finally having found true love.
He seemed so happy in their stunning house in Picayune, beautiful surroundings, looking after their horses, enjoying the peaceful countryside.
And then the horrific events; Lisa&# ;s suicide, his car-accident with severe physical damage and so this bird of paradise has to move to the small squaremeter New York-appartement of grey-moused Nina.
Excuse me for being a bit blunt but this is the expression that comes to mind when I see her.
In Germany we say: &# ;if the donkey is in too good spirits, he is going on the ice&# ;, may be Willy gets tired of this perfect fairy tale and than ups he had a night-mare.
Perhaps, if Lisa had have a little patience, the affair had finished soon.
We do not know , it is all speculative.
Hello digiom, thanks, thats it.
Well,I do my very best!
This conversation is essential for me.
There are not so much people interested in Willy Deville at my homeland &# ;Eifel&# ;.
Fascinating blog with interesting comments.
Willy had said in several interviews that he was married when he was seventeen.
If that was the case he was married to Toots for at least ten plus years.
It would seem that he had long term relationships with women he loved during each relationship.
But, let&# ;s face it&# ;Willy was a recording artist/rocker boy and ten plus years is a long time for someone in that line of work with a drug habit as his number one mistress.
What I am curious about is if his second wife (Lisa) also used heroin?
Pictures of her early in their relationship show her to be much healthier than later on.
It would be incredibly hard to be married to a junkie and not be talked into &# ;giving it a try&# ;.
And, giving it a try can easily become &# ;once in a while&# ; and then just like morning coffee.
I # ;m curious how her nickname &# ;Toots&# ; came up.
If Willy was married at that would have been or .
If Dominick met them in late and they were already married with a son, and Wikipedia says Willy and Toots had &# ;their&# ; son in the time line seems to be correct.
And, Toots/Susan managed to get clean ten years before Willy did.
I find her to be a fascinating character, way ahead of her time.
Had they not both been addicts she probably would have managed to push his career to be successful.
Lord knows he could have used some guidance with the bad &# ; &# ;s &# ;s hair and attire.
It doesn&# ;t surprise me that Willy had record label troubles especially if he was a heroin addict till or .
Labels aren&# ;t going to put a lot of money or resources behind someone that can&# ;t stay clean and has decades of addiction hanging around their neck.
Willy was an artist, a true talent, but let&# ;s call a spade a spade.
He was a &# ;bad boy&# ;.
He ran out on his first wife and child, had an affair that devastated his second wife, and more than likely passed on the Hepatitis to his last wife.
Let&# ;s get back to Toots&# ;please.
I actually liked his Rhett Butler/spanish gentleman outfits of the &# ;s He looked really bad in + with the native american look and the long hair.
Even his percussionist Boris Kinberg said: &# ;he has to get a haircut, it brings his face down&# ;.
Otherwise I think you&# ;re absolutely right.
As he said himself: &# ;it was always the women that saved my life&# ;.
They all kinda mothered him.
Let&# ;s not forget when he was with Nina, he didn&# ;t only have hipsurgery but was also diagnosed with diabetes.
But then and again he must have been a great person to be around, very charismatic and ofcourse a musical genius, we all enjoy his legacy, don&# ;t we.
But let&# ;s get back to Toots.
It was the one two many ruffle shirt/mullet (can&# ;t decide if I want long or short hair) look I was thinking of 😉 No doubt he was charismatic and a good time.
It&# ;s just sad that the women in his life seemed to end up with the short end of the deal.
I hope that Susan/Toots found happiness in the second half of her life.
Back in August there were many articles/obits about Willy.
One of them had a link to a photographer where there were pictures of Willy and Lisa.
A couple of pictures looked like they were later in Lisa&# ;s life.
She was much thinner and was sporting a gold tooth like Willy.
There was a huge contrast from other photos of her.
I don&# ;t know much about Toots except what has been written already.
She came up with the &# ;look&# ; for Mink DeVille and pushed Willy&# ;s career.
Not many women had careers in the recording industry/entertainment management at that point in time.
It does not surprise me when people say she was difficult to contend with, especially given the era.
If you read anything about CBGB&# ;s and the bands that played there it was a crazy time.
A really great book to read &# ;Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk&# ; by Leggs McNeill highlights that whole era.
Everyone was doing drugs, sleeping with everyone else and lots of the women got in fights.
I am guessing Toots had to contend with a ton of crap and had to hold her ground.
It&# ;s a photographer named Wolfgang ürster.
Look at the - photos.
Pictures of Willy & Lisa and one of Willy & Nina.
Scroll down.
Getting back to Toots, there is some question about whether Sean was DeVille&# ;s biological son.
Also I # ;m not clear about the date of his marriage to Toots.
DeVille said in interviews that he married her when he was , but he often didn&# ;t tell the strict truth in interviews.
For example, he often told interviewers that he was born in New York City, when he was born in Stamford, Connecticut.
I # ;ve heard it said that DeVille married Toots after Sean was born.
About DeVille, I # ;m also curious about how long he stayed in London.
He went to London in his youth, but he never said how long he stayed there.
I wonder if Toots went with him.
She went with him to San Francisco in the mid- s I know, because there are rock magazine articles from that time and place that describe Toots in San Francisco.
Did Sean go with her to California?
I # ;m looking forward to a biography of Willy DeVille.
I # ;d like to know the answers to these questions.
Sean was NOT Willy&# ;s biological son.
Someone very close to Willy has confirmed this to me.
Toots got pregnant, came back to Stamford and then Willy married her.
According to Amy (scroll through this blog, she is from Stamford), Willy did not marry Toots when he was , but later.
Knowing that Sean was born round - , Willy must have been or when he married Toots.
And indeed he did not always tell the whole truth in interviews.
I appreciate all details of his life.
If Sean Borsey is not Willy&# ;s biological son, then why does he looked so much like him?
Same eyes, same lantern jaw, same hands.
Did Toots find Willy&# ;s doppelganger and get pregnant by him and then go back to Willy?
Toots was in London with Willy in according to interviews he did in the mid &# ;s Also why is everyone blaming Toots for Willy&# ;s drug use?
He was a grown man and he kept using long after he left her.
If the Alan Vega photo on the left is of Toots pregnant, then she must have miscarried because that photo is from , or the latest.
They did not have any other children so that doesn&# ;t seem likely.
Also I # ;m quite surprised by the reaction to the other photo.
I mean, come on Willy and Toots were young and hot and involved with the downtown rock scene and all those cats fancied themselves artists.
I think she looks good: proud and sexy.
It&# ;s Willy that looks uncomfortable and awkward.
Willy was not an innocent, just look at his my space page; all the sexual images and &# ;so called friends&# ; confirm that he was a highly sexaulized person, and I # ;m guessing Toots was too.
Toots was the coolest of his wives in terms of setting his style, he never looked that good again.
His pirate/plantation owner/indian brave/ late &# ;s mullet all look so cheesy compared to his sraight up rock and roller then pimped-out look.
I heard that Willy had been working on a memoir about his early NYC days, that would be a fun read I # ;m guessing.
Lastly, his second wife Lisa looks a lot like Lydia Lunch who has been involved with Willy since his CBGB days.
Lisa was not as pretty as Lydia, but had very similar features, especially those big blue eyes, and full lips.
Lydia would be an interesting source of information on their lives.
Thank you, LJS, good hearing someone take that stance. ljs, i don&# ;t think it was Willy&# ;s idea to do the MySpacething because he HATED computers.
He always said he wasn&# ;t fit to live in this century of technology.
I remember the President of the fanclub once saying that Willy could become outrageous when lies were written about him in the media.
So let&# ;s be careful.
I # ;ll give you an example; the story that he had to sell Casa de suenos in Picayune (this is not where Lisa hanged herself bytheway) because of unpaid taxes was a lie, the person who confirmed this was one of his closest friends (he even did a detox at her house) and she was also the one to confirm that Sean wasn&# ;t his biological son.
I talked with DeVille in January of , an interview I have never forgotten.
He drove up to the appointed meeting place, La Francaise, a local bakery then located in the Baseline Shopping Center, in a two-toned Chevrolet.
During the interview he was pleasant and accommodating, smiling that gold-toothed smile.
He would lower his sunglasses periodically and ask, “My eyes are clear, aren’t they?”
He was honest about his addiction, mincing no words while trying to explain how it felt to be straight for the first time in four years.
“I tried to do it, but you have to have somebody’s help,” he said, and that he tried the black box, electronic acupuncture, endorphin stimulation and even quinidine, and nothing worked until he just cold-turkeyed out here.
Ok, let&# ;s say he wasn&# ;t responsible for the myspace page&# ;did he write his own lyrics?
He wrote very sexual songs, as well as very romantic songs.
I # ;m a fan of his and saw him in NYC when he was still in Mink Deville both with and without the original members.
The guy was sexy until the drugs took their physical toll, just like they did on Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, Richard Hell, Iggy Pop, Richard Lloyd, and the lists goes on.
People feel comfortable blaming Toots for a lot of his vices.
I # ;m saying he was an adult responsible for his own actions, addictions, and the like.
Willy is a confusing although fascinating PUBLIC figure,but Toots as the muse and inspiration for his early work is even more interesting to me.
Also Willy kept in touch with Sean, but never had any dealings with Toots after they split up?
I suppose that&# ;s possible, since Sean would have been in his mid teens, but it seems odd.
By the way&# ;Thanks for the blog and the insightful comments.
It&# ;s been great reading everyone&# ;s thoughts and seeing all the cool links.
Ljs, although YOU see a striking resemblence between Sean and Willy, it must be said that many don&# ;t There is a german Willy Deville forum.
Later on Trudy Jost (a very close friend of Willy) explained that Sean was adopted by Willy.
I # ;m sorry ljs but the only &# ;sexual&# ; song I can think of is Cadillac Walk and that one was written bij Moon Martin.
Yes he wrote a lot of fascinating songs about drugs.
Boris Kinberg said: &# ;nobody writes better songs about drugs than Willy&# ;.
But I don&# ;t think songs about drugs have anything to do with sex.
A major side-effect of heroin is impotence.
Crushed by the loss of my old friend and bandmate Billy Borsey, later known as Willy DeVille.
We were good friends who spent a lot of time hanging out together, and I was also close with Willy&# ;s first wife, Susan (&# ;Toots&# ;) and their son Sean when he was little.
Willy was a true international musical treasure, a brilliant innovator, a visionary.
I miss his work, his humor, his loyalty and his kindness.
He may have been clean for a while in but it did not last. easy slider is about having sex with a young girl. venus of avenue : looking good enough to eat.
I # ;m not a fan of the later stuff so I can&# ;t really address the post years.
Look I love his music, but Willy even said in early interviews he liked to write songs about love and sex, only not so politely as I just put it.
I think there&# ;s a double standard here.
Say whatever you like about the wives, but don&# ;t be critical of Willy, that&# ;s not fair in my opinion and that&# ;s all.
Also, there is no way Willy was clean throughout the mid to late &# ;s and &# ;s he even admitted to using during those years.
Like Dee Dee Ramone and Johnny Thunders I # ;m sure he had times when he was clean, but he relapsed according to his own accounts of his drug use.
Alright enough Willy and Toots for one day.
You guys are great!
Love the feedback.
I agree&# ;Willy was lucky to have had those women in his life.
And, I would not bet the farm on Willy having been a monogamous husband (well we know he wasn&# ;t .
He was tall, dark, handsome and a very talented rock star&# ;likely women were ready and waiting all the time.
Kudos to his wives for staying married as long as they did.
And, let&# ;s get back to Toots shall we?
I give her super props for doing a complete and becoming a caregiver to the elderly. jsl.
Your interpretation of the word &# ;sexual&# ; is rather funny.
For &# ;sexual songs&# ; you&# ;ll have to buy some Prince stuff.
I think the interpretation of &# ;sexual&# ; lyrics by ljs was dead game.
And, as far as Prince is concerned&# ;there was a stellar interview with him where he talks about the perceived differences that everyone had of he and Michael Jackson.
Of course he wrote romantic songs but some of his songs do have sexual innuendos.
And, no, I don&# ;t just love his songs because he was a romantic.
I love the body of work because he had an amazing voice and ventured into so many styles of music.
He was married three times!
I will say it again&# ;He ran out on his first wife and child, had an affair that devastated his second wife, and more than likely passed on the Hepatitis to his last wife.
If that is romance than some of us should be thankful we never had sex with him.
And if any of us did, I would suggest getting a blood test for Hepatitis , pronto.
Seriously, he sings about standing in the blood bank line&# ;ya think he was there giving it up to be a good citizen?
Jeez, he was human and flawed and did some damage, no doubt.
I love the music but I refuse to romanticize the behaviour.
Willy had a gift and talent that very few are blessed with but he was no saint.
Hi guest, found this interview from in barcelona &# ; willy was years old then &# ; he was asked about romanticisme.
Before he started to answer, he laughs a little bid.
I think some of his songs are great to get into romantic mood, but his personality was probably not.
He grew up in difficult circumstances, perhaps no carrying mother, made a living at in NYC, punk scene, rock and roll etc.
I have a hard time watching and listening to some of the interviews where you can tell he is just toasted.
There is nothing romantic, attractive or charismatic about a wasted junkie going on, forgetting what they are talking about, nodding in and out&# ;it&# ;s just sad.
I keep thinking that it is so sad that Willy died so young&# ;but man, we are lucky he lived as long as he did and that there is the catalog of music that there is.
We should be amazed that he was able to use like he did and still be able to write and perform at all.
It is hard to watch some of those interviews, I agree. and cool, there is nobody like him &# ; also he&# ;s a very smart guy. forgot something: being a romatic does not at all mean being faithful to one only woman ! it has nothing to do with it &# ; art is a much more complex and being a romantic also.
Too bad Kurt Cobain, River Phoenix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, John Belushi, Tim Buckley, Lenny Bruce, Chris Farley, Judy Garland, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix.
Heath Ledger, Gram Parsons, Dee Dee Ramone, Hillel Slovak, Layne Staley, Andrew Wood, Hank Williams, Johnny Thunders, Nick Drake and so many others didn&# ;t get used to it. &# ;It&# ;s so good.
Uh, think I already said I was sorry for going off&# ;.
And, yes there are people who got and get away with it&# ;it&# ;s the ones who are dead and gone that are missed.
What we might have seen from River Phoenix and Heath Ledger?
Or heard from Gram Parsons or Nick Drake.
We&# ;ll never know and that is most unfortunate.
All this talk about Toots is pure speculation.
Let&# ;s wait for someone who really knew her to react. @CGuest &# ; sorry, if so. puts in more than one links, it&# ;s likely to end up in the spam filter, as this is what spammers often do. fixed it.
Willy looks rather ridiculous as one of the Sharks from West Side Story.
I bet the record company forced him to do this.
The song &# ;&# ;Each word is a beat of my heart&# ; is from his album &# ;Where angels fear to tread&# ;, released in .
In Willy married Lisa Leggett.
So Toots was already gone and forgotten by the time this video was made.
Eire you are so right on!
You sound like a very smart, stable woman.
That&# ;s just me assuming that you are female, sorry if you&# ;re a dude!
It would be interesting to talk to Toots&# ; widower or maybe her son Sean to hear about her life post-Willy, although right now would be much too soon after the loss of his father.
I loved to see Willy to his James Brown shuffle in concert, but Willy submitting himself to this contrived choreography is just painful.
Toots would have had nothing to do with it no doubt.
It would be fascinating to talk to any family that Toots/Susan has left.
Sean may have not been his biological son but he was in fact legally his son once Willy adopted him.
Sean also left a donation to an organization in his mother&# ;s name which tells me that she meant a great deal to him.
I wonder if Willy saw her before she died?
They were both clean in the early &# ;s ljs, yes I am a woman&# ;and some days are more stable than others ;-).
Haha Eire, Being a woman myself I fully understand what you mean.
Toots is quite a complex individual.
It would seem from her rock and roll years she was tough, somewhat hard and yet she was a mom and a devoted wife.
So maybe her later work as a caregiver is not so hard to understand, she was taking care of Willy and Sean for quite a long time it would seem.
I read an account of someone who was working with Willy during a gig in boston is and he recalls Willy being really unwilling to go to the show and Sean a young kid at the time being a handful and Toots justs dutifully ironing Willy&# ;s jeans for the performance.
It&# ;s seems like such an insightful peek into their lives together during those early years.
You&# ;re right, she doesn&# ;t look good at all.
Amy from Stamford, don&# ;t know if you&# ;re still following this blog but I am curious to know what Toots looked in real life.
Was she pretty?
I # ;ve seen a lot of pictures of her by now and she looks so different in each one of them.
But then with all the make-up and big hair is difficult to see what she really looked like.
That&# ;s so sweet of you &# ;?&# ; Yes you&# ;re probably right we need therapy because we want to talk about Toots on a blog entitled &# ;Whatever happened to Toots Deville?&# ; and not just worship at the shrine of St.
Willy.
Do you really think Willy Deville would have wanted to be remembered as a sexless, impotent, romantic sap of a guy who died childless?
I # ;ll take my version of him as a young sexy dangerous troubled young rocker with a hot wife and a beautiful son to this sanitized image of him any day.
Toots made Willy cooler than he was without her for my taste, but that&# ;s fine.
He wrote some great songs and Toots was the inspiration for most of the early ones.
I hope they both have found peace now.
I think Toots was not very photogenic, but when she was relaxed and caught in more candid moments she looked better.
She was very petite and quite thin.
She did have nice legs when she was younger.
She and Willy both lost their looks due to their drug use.
Women being more delicately built can&# ;t stand up as well to that kind of abuse.
Even someone as gorgeous as Marianne Faithful lost her looks to heroin.
Nina I think was very pretty in a classic sense, she had a lovely profile. btw, I am sorry if your posts sometimes end up in the spam filter.
I do not want to switch it off completely, as this blog meanwhile sees quite a bit of spam.
If that happens, you won&# ;t see your post published immediately, but withheld until I check the spam queue and approve it.
I check the spam queue regularly, but am having relatives visiting at the moment, so can&# ;t check during the (European) day.
Just so you know I am not actively withholding any comments &# ; the spam filter does the checking, and if it fails I am correcting (and hopefully teaching) it.
Btw, one can retrieve quite a number of pics through the Rockpalast archive if you just keep counting. ok ok &# ; I take back the comment about her legs&# ;.
On the mink DeVille album where angels fear to tread from the year Willy thanks Sean Borsey and for soul and inspiration Toots.
Just below with &# ;thoughts forever&# ; you can read amongst others the name of Harriet Berle.
On the Willy DeVille Album Miracle from the year Willy already thanks for inspiration lisa&# ;s angel eyes, heart an soul.
I wonder if the woman on the front page is Lisa?
It could be possible.
Harriet Berle was Toots&# ; mother.
Her maidenname was Harrison.
If you scroll down to January , you can also see a death report on Michael A Martincak.
Thanks Ellen for the info.
After that I found on the link berlinsky tree from Pietro, that Harriet Berlinsky died in .
Willy mentioned with thoughts forever on his last Mink DeVille album Harriet Berlinsky and Joseph Vasta Sr.
I guess they lived together after the divorce from Toots&# ; father and perhaps they looked after Sean Borsey while his parents were travelling or things like that.
As justaguest wrote, Toots later married Stephen Martincak and he had a son Michael who died in .
He was years old.
So Michael was the stepson from Susan and the stepbrother from Sean Borsey.
This type of cancer is often diagnosed on show business people.
Chris Rea too had years ago this diagnose but early enough to undergo surgery, so he survived until today.
Perhaps the lifestyle of this scene has changed now a little bid, but formerly nicotine, drugs and alkool were certainly an essential part of it.
There may have been many reasons.
I # ;m loving all this history and links.
Please keep them coming &# ; it&# ;s so interesting.
I ve always seen Willy as a freespirited kind of guy.
I believe that although society often imposes upon us to live a certain way, monogamy is not for everyone.
Maybe as such an intense romantic, Willy found marriage limiting.
It`s unfortunate (and often due to societal norms) that we sometimes feel so jealous as to resort to violence.
Why should women (in this case) compete for someone they both love?
LOVE IS NOT LIMITED!
Especially in such a man.
When women hug or flirt with our men, why don`t we relate to them instead?
We have a common interest: a sexy man.
All of these mediums and doctrines throw stones, judge, and tell others to live in ways that are right for some but not necessarily for all (especially us eccentrics).
Who are any of us to judge for anyone but ourselves?
If people want to use heroin, it`s their bodies, not ours.
Even people close to us like lovers or family &# ; in the end, no matter what we say or do, they are free to make their own choices.
I believe that we own our choices as well as our emotions and can choose to be affected or not.
(As unbelievable as that may sound to some, it`s very empowering).
Anyways, I wish we could all just stop judging the lifestyles of others.
The only life we can live/change is our own.
In the end, Willy and Toots did change their lives, and that is the most beautiful thing!
But their early days on drugs were still beautiful (look at all the people admiring them!).
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. &# ;Cigarette smoking: Smoking doubles the risk of pancreatic cancer.
Smoking is also associated with early age at diagnosis, and, very importantly, the risk of pancreatic cancer drops close to normal in people who quit smoking.
Simply put, cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of pancreatic cancer.
In fact, some scientists have estimated that one in four, or one in five cases of pancreatic cancer are caused by smoking cigarettes&# ;. &# ;&# ;SoReal&# ;, Joseph Vasta Sr. has to be Joey Vasta&# ;s father, Willy&# ;s longtime baseplayer.
Where do you get the idea that Toots&# ; mother got into a relationship with him?
We don&# ;t know whether Toots&# ; parents divorced, maybe Harriet Berle just died.
Her parents were Jewish, her fathers name Berlinsky indicates that he was of eastern European descent, her mothers name Harrison doesn&# ;t sound French either.
I guess so.
At the CBGB&# ;s scene it was nothing special to be Jewish because the owner Hilly Kristal was jewish and a large part of the artists too. &# ;One big synagogue&# ; as Alan Vega (also Jewish) put it.
Anyway, Toots wasn&# ;t white trash either, as someone said in one the first comments, cause her father was vicepresident of the Palm Beach Clothier Company, so I assume they weren&# ;t poor.
You&# ;re dead right CSK.
Louise&# ;s story makes no sense. that`s exactly my point: some people experience levels of jealousy or possessiveness in relationships.
Others don`t One way isn`t better or worse than the other.
It all depends on who you are.
The &# ;nature&# ; of each person is different.
All I m saying is that for some people, their nature just disagrees with monogamy.
I suggested that .
Deville may have been someone like that.
Not that one way is better than the other.
Of course I could be totally wrong.
But I made the suggestion because he had three wives.
Marriage just doesn`t work for everyone, right?
And that`s totally fine.
We can`t all fit into society`s caste.
Sorry for your feeling unhappy when reading what I wrote.
That wasn`t my intention at all.
Please ask if there`s anything I can clarify.
Speaking about the taking hard drugs part &# ; I don&# ;t see much admirable in it.
Even though some people are able to create art on drugs, it is still true that drugs help them to compensate for sth. they wouldn&# ;t have without or be able to do without.
And considering that there are so many people whose lives get ruined by drugs, because &# ; again &# ; only a few are able to take hard drugs without having to resort to some sort of crime to finance it, I see no value in this being a point that one may not be outspoken (or: judgmental) about (judgmental about drugs, not the people taking them, but you&# ;ve always gotta see how much the drugs have left of a person).
It breaks my heart to see if an artist is so out of it because of drugs &# ; someone posted a link to a Willy video earlier where he seems high as a kite, or you probably all remember that last interview with Heath Ledger where he&# ;s unable to concentrate and fumbling all the time and seems completely out of it.
It&# ;s tragedy to me, not beauty, and I wish that they&# ;d found a way to create their art without drugs.
I think the half french-half Pima indian thing was something Toots and Willy created to make themselves more exotic, just like Willy&# ;s claim to have grown up on the lower east side and then to be out on his own at , , , -the age also changed with each interview, but we know from his friends at the time he was still living in Stamford in the mid to late &# ;s but that he had dropped out of school at .
But then post-Willy she seems to embrace her background.
She marries a jewish man, she becomes a care giving for what seems to be a jewish faith based organization and is even buried in a jewish cemetery.
It&# ;s comforting to think maybe she found peace with being who she was in her later life and maybe her religion was a part of that.
I # ;m just speculating here so go ahead rip it to shreds.
Louise makes some interesting points about alternative ways of being in relationships.
I think most women married to rock stars have to just accept that there will be other women and maybe some of them can deal with that better than others.
Everybody makes their own choices and compromises in this life.
Though I wish that weren&# ;t a privilege of male rockstars &# ; especially since Toots appeared to be a fascinating character herself &# ; but apparently, it is. ljs, your speculations sound very plausible though I # ;m not sure whether her second husband was jewish.
The organization she worked for certainly isn&# ;t it&# ;s Lutheran.
For her parents it must have been a drama, seeing your only child marry that young to a rockartist, having a child and becoming a heroin-addict.
It was lutheran?
How interesting.
My bad, I thought the organization her son Sean made the donation to in his mother&# ;s name was a Jewish based charity and was the organization she worked for.
Sorry.
Does anyone know where her step son is buried?
That might help to solve some of this.
I did not know Toots was an only child either.
That&# ;s also very interesting, thank you mdd.
Digiom, I agree Toots was something special, but I guess a lot women would have been interested in Willy and when you&# ;re young and a guy especially temptation can get the best of you.
I # ;m not saying it&# ;s right, just that it happens.
But I admire Willy for his choice of Toots in the first place because she was unique even in that crazy scene.
She wasn&# ;t just eye candy, she was real.
Martincak appears to be either a slovakian or hungarian surname, but that doesn&# ;t help with the religion.
It could be jewish or christian orthodox.
Oh well.
This is becoming a very interesting Web page, not just about Toots but about DeVille&# ;s life.
If I may, I # ;d like to ask anybody who knows about Robert McKenzie (aka Fast Floyd), the first guitarist in Mink DeVille.
Was Fast Floyd (Robert McKenzie) a childhood friend of DeVille’s from Stamford, Connecticut?
Floyd played guitar for Mink DeVille in San Francisco in , prior to the band&# ;s move to New York.
I ve heard he didn’t make the move from San Francisco to New York with the band because there were arrest warrants for him on the East Coast.
I know Floyd was born in Connecticut in , the same year as DeVille.
I suspect he is the “crazy on the coast, there ain’t no doubt about it” man from the song “Spanish Stroll.”
Floyd was in several San Francisco bands in the s and s including The Offs and The Famous Firebirds.
In May , Floyd shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend in San Francisco and then turned the gun on himself.
He was facing a life sentence in prison on drug and weapons charges.
The Offs have a myspace page that is active.
You may want to contact them directly to see if they have any information on Fast Floyd.
I remember those guys from the late &# ;s in NYC.
I always wondered if Fast Floyd had a hand in writing Mink&# ;s Desperate Days because it had a ska beat.
That&# ;s so tragic about him and his girlfriend.
Sorry I can&# ;t get the link to be active, but this is an article in which Willy talks about his friend Robbie who couldn&# ;t come to NY because of some warrants.
He mentions that they were in school together and then both decided to drop out.
I think one of the earlier posts said something about Martincak being her name after she married again (after Willy), and her birth name was something like &# ;.Susan Berle or Berlinsky?
So that sounds Jewish.
Yeah I like the speculation about her &# ;finding herself&# ; later and embracing her heritage.
I like your point that it should be ok to be outspoken/judgemental about the drug but not the person.
If we`re judging just the drug, then at least it`s our personal choice whether or not to be involved with it, but if we`re judging the person, it`s kind of &# ;pointless, you know?
The Devilles back then felt heroin was appropriate or desirable, so if that`s their perception, maybe there is some kind of subjective (though naive?) beauty to it &# ; as far as beauty is subjective.
But I personally don`t admire the lifestyle/side-effects that taking hard drugs leads to either.
Strange as it sounds though, I do see beauty in that lifestyle.
Not admirable beauty or even artistic beauty (in terms of producing drug-induced art).
But SOME kind of &# ;artistic beauty&# ; must be present in the lives that they led and that we now see documented in film and music.
As much as drugs can be disheartening and just disgusting, as someone stated before, SO many artists have lived and ended their own lives with drugs.
It`s a tragedy and at the same time like a mystery.
Why did all those artists get into drugs like that?
And what value is it now for us to see their lives played out in this way?
(I don`t mean to condone it or say it`s worth trying).
But in one interview, Willy says he is like an example of what not to do in life.
I think there`s still beauty in the existence of this &# ;example.&# ; Take Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd for example.
He did too much LSD, but it`s like he was venturing into the unknown territory of the mind and seeing what he could pull out.
I would not be a good person to try that (and I doubt many consider if they qualify for that destiny when getting involved into it), but he did it, and showed us what he found.
Anyways, with the relationship stuff, I bet Toots got eyes from lots of guys too!
It`s only natural &# ; it must go both ways, right?
But yeah, back then there weren`t as many female rock superstars maybe so she wasn`t as sought after as him no doubt.
That would be a hard or confusing place and life to be in.
But thrilling! hahaha.
A Martincak arriving at Ellis island.
Spanish Stroll: the guy who&# ;s &# ;crazy on the coast&# ; is brother Johnny Espinet, a percussionist who played on Willy&# ;s first albums.
You can hear it at the end of this interview.
I # ;d like to know how Toots ended up living in Stamford.
I # ;m wondering cause the Berlinsky&# ;s were Charlestonbased.
Is it so much of a mystery that artists take drugs?
Drugs change the perception of yourself and of the world temporarily, they take away blocks or inhibitions that one normally might have.
As art is operating on the border of what is socially acceptable and what isn&# ;t it isn&# ;t surprising that drugs can help create art.
Toots went to Windsor Mountain School, which was a private boarding school in the Berkshires (Massachusetts).
It closed in .
She may have met Willy through Mandy Mercier&# ;s sister who was her classmate.
Mandy played in bands with Willy in Stamford and NY.
Maybe Toots didn&# ;t live in Stamford and just hung out there because of Willy.
Toots was born in NY state not Connecticut.
Also didn&# ;t some guy earlier in this blog say that he dated Toots before Willy and that they were in Georgia together?
Northern Georgia is right next to Charleston, South Carolina.
Maybe she lived with her dad for a while and then moved north.
Her mother&# ;s maiden name was Harrison &# ; if she lived with her mother then maybe Toots wasn&# ;t raised in a jewish household after all.
There goes my theory out the window.
Toots&# ; second husband was named Stephen Martincak &# ; maybe that Stefan Martincak in that record is a relative of his.
The William Borsey Sr. on the immigration form, was and single at the time he entered the .S at least according to this record, but Willy&# ;s dad went by William Sr. and Willy by junior.
Willy said in an interview in that his grandfather was an irish tinker who came to this country and had children by different women and so Willy said he had a lot of uncles around.
This may or may not be true, but Willy said it not me.
If it is then it would seem that philandering runs in his family.
Maybe that older single guy listed on the immigration record is Willy&# ;s old randy grandfather!
This just keeps getting more interesting with every new twist.
As far as her looks when she was still in Stamford??!!
It was very hard to tell, even early on she was covered in heavy makeup, masks and crazy clothes , even for the &# ;s She was like a Lady GaGa, always in costumes.
Thank you Amy.
Nice to hear from you again.
He has plenty of laughter, like it.
He still sees his first wife Toots restaurant La Coupole ahead with all the silverware hidden under her skirt.
Just before the door clanged on the pavement.
Oh &# ; New York.
He was thirteen, fourteen.
The schoolmaster insisted that he and two other quiffs cut off their boyfriends (hair).
And well, not nice.
So that was his school career. &# ;What Joey Bacuzzi did not know, but Robbie and I went to the Village.
We&# ;d also be bluuuesmen.
Yeah!
Well, Robbie has a few years ago by the head shot &# ; and I # ;m still here. &# ;It&# ;s automatically translated by the machine.
Thanks, Marianne, mag je een link sturen?
Misschien kan ik het vertalen.
Digiom, here is the link to the interview from Sander Donkers in the Netherlands.
The Robbie Willy is talking about is Fast Floyd aka Robert McKenzie. it fell out of the skirt on the sidewalk in front of the door of the restaurant.
Yes, indeed: Hij ziet nog zijn eerste vrouw Toots restaurant La Coupole uitlopen met al het tafelzilver verborgen onder haar rok.
Kletterde vlak voor de deur op de stoep. -> He can still see (before his inner eye) his first wife Toots walk out of restaurant La Coupole with all the silverware under her skirt.
Just before the door, it plonked down on the doorstep. her social security death record gives new york as her birth state.
Not sure about&# ;the maiden name and the former boyfriend were part of this blog&# ;s thread so maybe those people can give you more info.
I love the comparison of Toots to Lady Gaga, that&# ;s brilliant, really!
I was just wondering the other day as I was watching one of her videos if Willy was aware of her music in his last years and was he a fan.
No way to know now.
Sorry just thought it was an interesting bit of synchronicity.
Toots was half-French, half Pima-Indian.
Truth Factor: Unlikely.
Her mother&# ;s maiden name was Harrison (Source: ), she went to school at Windsor Mountain, which was a private boarding school in the Berkshires (Massachusetts).
It closed in .
My older sister was a friend of Willy&# ;s , and his girlfriend before Sue.
I was only in his company once when I was with my sister, we smoked cigarettes on his street,I was they were about .
He was so cool and my sister had a huge crush on him, very charismatic even then.
I know that Toots family was very well off , they lived in a very wealthy part of town in Stamford called Revonah Woods.
I got chills when I read what you wrote.
I # ;m with Marianne, would love to hear more about Willy and Suzie back then. @csk I agree, I think only heard of him seven years ago or so.
He had released a new CD (I think), and SPEX (German magazin with an intellectual approach to pop music &# ; then) had a story on it.
Apparently all music connoiseurs knew him.
I didn&# ;t until then.
Amy, what a great story. &# ;Miscellaneous- Bottom Line gig: Willy entered wearing West Side Story vines, smoking a cigarette, Toots&# ; red lipstick print on his cheek.
Later I met him and Lisa somewhere, and saw what he meant about her eyes: the most gigantic, luminous blue headlights ever&# ;.
I just realized the person I thought was Sean Borsey in your photos is in fact Willy&# ;s nephew Kevin &# ;Brien.
Sorry for the mix up.
It is his nephew that looks so much like Willy, not Sean.
Opps.
Digiom, WDR sometimes played Willys songs, even concersts.
A few weeks before his death they played the Rockpalastconcert at cologne in .
PS.
This is Jerry Scheff.
If you have listened to Le Chat Bleu then you have heard my bass playing.
I had just finished a year with Bob Dylan in when Steve Douglas who was also in that Dylan band called me about going to Paris to record with Willie Deville.
I had never heard of Willie but Steve was producing him and said he was great.
Anyway, I didn&# ;t know it at the time, but I was about to work on one of my favorite albums ever.
We stayed at the Hotel Meurice and had a great time playing music and hanging out.
The reason I am writing is to say hello.
The other reason is I know there are photos from those sessions and street shots that are out there somewhere and I would love to have them for my own collection.
To many Willy Deville fans, le chat bleu is his masterpiece.
I would be happy to share anything I can. p s Mr Jerry Scheff, how nice of you to write.
JerryO&# ;you`ve played with my two favourite songwriters of all time.
I m cursed to have never seen .
Deville live.
Dylan I finally saw last year.
I ve always heard he (Dylan) was intense to be around.
In Canada, Willy Deville records are rare and CDs even more so.
I ve heard him once on listener-supported radio after his death: &# ;Storybook Love&# ; on CKUA.
Don&# ;t know if anyone has already seen this vid.
Interview with Willy and his bandmembers, all talking in a very affectionate way about him.
The backgroundmusic is a little irritating.
You can see Nina as well.
Part / and / are also on youtube.
Thank you for the nice interviews.
I love this one very much.
Especially at the end when Willy walked with his dog Dixie. taller&# ; I think he never lost his looks, malgé drugs-abuse, maybe he lost the innocence of his looks -but we all do very soon.
I do not know if I think that Lady Ga Ga is similar to Toots, I do not see it; Amy Winehouse yes for the physical ressemblance.
I interviewed him once, when he was on Atlantic.
It was a bit of a nightmare &# ; his girlfriend actually shot him up in front of me (and this was in his manager&# ;s office).
I was just an innocent young lad from the burbs and to say I was shocked is a bit of understatement.
Funny thing is, he was super nice, really smart, and we talked music the whole time this was happening.
Surreal is the word.
But I liked him.
A lot.
And every album had something to recommend it.
Thank you Guest for the interesting quote.
Garth Cartwright from guardian wrote after Willy&# ;s death in august in an article about Willy also about his heroin addiction during the Atlantic period as well as the loss from his farm in picayune due to unpaid taxes much later. &# ;DeVille was flown to London to meet the press and immediately things got off to a bad start, when the singer angrily confronted journalists who had upset him by classifying him as a &# ;punk rocker&# ;.
I believe that without their addiction to heroin their behaviour wouldn&# ;t have been the same.
And this behaviour under the influence of drugs may have been the reason for so much misfortune on the way to success.
Thank you for being in this blog.
I hope you will tell us some of your impressions from the recording time in Paris.
I hear the chat bleu very often when I drive to work.
Great Work from Willy and you and the other musicians on this record.
Nina sang Background Vocals in &# ;Chieva&# ; on Crow Jane Alley ( ). for a small audience in Turnhout, Belgium.
Suddenly a woman came out of the audience, climbed up on the stage to hand over some flowers to Willy.
Very interesting comments on Toots, Nina, Lisa and Sean.
I already had heard his relationship with Sean was difficult, seems they reconciled before his death.
Sorry, this isn&# ;t gonna work, you have to read the comments that go with this vid. thanks, guest &# ; anybody knows what Nina&# ;s job was before becoming Mrs No he didn&# ;t play the USA a lot I think Nina was a tough one to deal with And yes so many of the great artists turn to drugs. hinamauka: Because he didn&# ;t play the .S much I didn&# ;t get to see him in person until .
But I followed his music.
Nina was nice to me once (in person) and then never again.
Weird.
Willy might have been naive, most romantics are!
Also a lot of the most talented artists in the world in any genre turn to drugs to help mask the pain.
Willy and Sean reconciled before his death!
Toots of course died some years ago.
His wife Lisa was an angel and all the fans loved her.
Nina was more like a guard dog. remember a gig in Holland when he was still with Toots.
She came up on stage asking for heroin in a loud voice.
He himself hit rock bottom way back than.
Lisa died too early But I truly believe Nina kept him alive the last years.
Maybe she was not a lovely person to the fans But the fans also had dropped Willy on several occasions.
Hope he knew how much he was appreciated.
Current wife didn&# ;t want fans anywhere near him.
Seems like he had a knack for hooking up with jealous women.
Picture of Willy & Toots.
Scroll down to the rd picture.
A very precious picture, thank you, Rita.
Carol, she also posted a comment on another blog.
Toots killed Willy.
She was a white trash junkie bitch and I guess I am damn lucky I never got anything put out in my eye because Willy and I checked each other out each time we passed each other in the street.
Toots tore up the proposal I gave Willy to shoot a film of him set to one of his songs.
This was before MTV.
Yes, you are lucky because the way you describe it, you were just another slut looking to pork a rock star.
Susan was justifiably protective of Willy, especially when there were predators like you around.
Csk, the comment of Belinda Rachman is at the beginning of this blog, August . and . @Carol Yeah, saw it, also remember that I was a bit taken aback, as it was the very first comment on this blog and I thought &# ;Wow, what have I gotten myself into with this post?&# ; It sounds like she was just jealous &# ; and also thought, if I were a divorce mediator (check out the website) I probably wouldn&# ;t comment in such a way, or not under my real name anyway.
Unless it was someone else posing as her, of course.
I found this quote on Revonah Woods, the neighborhood where Toots lived with her parents in Stamford.
She might have been &# ;poor&# ;, but only in a symbolic way&# ; I wonder whether she got financial support from her parents after the divorce. &# ;On the fringe of downtown an association of homes called Revonah Woods, built in the &# ;s as a restricted enclave, &# ; an oasis of million-dollar homes in a country setting five minutes from the center of downtown&# ;.
More comments bij Ms Rachman on Youtube.
She&# ;s obviously frustrated about the fact she never got together with Willy.
HIs horrid junkie girlfriend, Toots, used to kiss him and leave lipstick marks on his face before each encore.
We used to pass each other in the street and each time I would look back at him as he was looking back at me.
But he was still with this awful girlfriend and we never hooked up.
I will always wonder if he would have left her for me would he have spent all those years as a junkie, beating up his body.
I love him so much.
When I was still in film school at NYU (sometime prior to June ) I proposed making a film of him set to music (this was before MTV) but that bitch Toots tore up my proposal and took him away from where we were talking.
He was such a dynamic performer.
None of these videos even comes close.
I saw him perform in NYC, Paris & LA and he was just amazing.
The Berlinsky Family Tree shows that Maurice and Harriet Berle were both born in , so when Toots was born in they were already , a bit late for that time, (especially for a mother) , and being an only child with enough money around you can easily guess that she was heavily spoilt.
Tina,what makes you believe,&# ;Toots&# ; was an only child?Read the obituary of her father: there are named two girls and two stepdaughters;FOUR girls (a poor man)And who says,that &# ;Toots&# ; was the first?Maybe,she was the last child-in any case the rd or th (the stepdaughters of her father must have been older than her). carol, here you can find the explanation, its a slang expression for sweetie or tart.
Carol, I think I know what mistake you&# ;re making: the two stepdaughters are MENTIONED in the obit: Harriet .
Keith and Susan .
Slotnick.
They are Helen Laufer Dwork&# ;s daughters from her first marriage.
You can also read this from Helen&# ;s obit.
Anyway, just look at the Berlinsky family tree, you&# ;ll see that Maurice only had one child Susan with his first wife Harriet.
His second wife Helen is also mentioned but no children were born, because they married at later age.
Toots&# ; mother died in so she was and Maurice also.
And &# ;so real&# ;: thanks for the explanation of the name,you&# ;re right: what a choice!Twenty or thirty years ago,in German language it was the same,a adored girl was a &# ;Törtchen&# ;-such naming depends a little bit of fashion.
Put myself on the place of willies wives&# ;it must have been horribly annoying to deal with the constant attempts of all kind of women trying to call willies attention . i can understand &# ;Toots&# ; aggression because its respectless to do such things in front of her- but it seems that willy had something that made women believe they were the one&# ;made them dream.
The fact that he chose no typical modeltype girls propably made it look easy to steal him away but indead for showbizz years or more relations are faithfull enough and are too long to call willy a bad boy&# ;thats a very long time and indicates deap love-maybe in different ways.
A merry christmas and a peaceful new year to all those wonderful and nice people here. mia, maybe there were more problems coming up for Lisa &# ; on top of the ending of her marriage. could be that the financial part was not very glorious any more either.
Found this on the web about Nina&# ;s mother, CSK.
Christina has to be Nina.
Actress etc.
Daughter of director Victor Sjöström and actress Edith Erastoff-Sjostrom.
Educated at the Royal Dramatic Theater and performed on the stage in various scenes and appeared in nine films.
From to married Sture Lagerwall with whom she had three children, Jorgen; Christina and Edith.
After separation by Sture Lagerwall she settled with the children in the .S where she married a music publisher.
She became known as Julie Seastrom and lived in the United States to the mid- s Here you can see Lisa (Mr DeVilles second wife) for a short time.
What a great photo with Kevin and here&# ;s one with Toots from the same group.
But Kevin is his nephew not his cousin.
Kevin looks good, could be a male model.
I heard from someone who was at the festive memorial in New York that he resembles Willy in many ways.
Same height, parts of their faces are alike, same speech patterns and opinions.
Look here, people, this is real simple: Susan Berle was a rich little Jewish girl, who was short and had a homely face.
She wore heavy make-up, masks and facial piercings from an early age in an effort to offset her unattractive facial features.
She was fiercely possessive because she was insecure about her looks and her ability to hold on to Willy DeVille.
She insisted on thrusting herself into lots of the promotional photos, as if she were a part of the band.
Even though she was the mother of a young child, she allowed herself to become a heroin addict.
She ended up looking like an insecure, skanky LOSER.
Y # ;all are wasting a lot of bytes on someone who was pretty transparently shallow. @ csk: here is another photo with Mr DeVille and Lisa.
When Mr DeVille started his career in Germany he and Toots where separated (maybe divorced, I am not sure) and Toots was really unknown in Germany.
But Lisa was with him.
But I am still fascinated about Toots &# ; I think she was real tough. @Crissy: great picture!
Lisa had Elizabeth Taylor&# ;s eyecolour.
I # ;d also like to know if you knew Toots, Harold.
Willy didn&# ;t seem like the guy to go for looks only.
He himself was intelligent and witty so there had to be something more to keep him interested.
Enough women around who are beautiful but also deadboring.
I # ;d still be interested in Toots even if insecurity was the reason for her to demand her minutes of fame, too; also, I # ;d like to know why demanding attention from a WOMAN causes some folks (like Harold or Belinda) to be so very negative about someone who isn&# ;t anymore.
In the early comments on this blog Toots was called: &# ; one of the most memorable persons ever&# ;, and: &# ;a captivating person&# ; by people who really knew her. ( apart from her cleverness and talent to create her looks and publicity for herself and Willy ) while we all know Willy&# ;s but I am sure they had a great time together before they went downhill &# ; together or separated.
I cannot blame her for getting hooked to whatever addiction, we are no judges &# ; and she paid a high price for whatever fun she had in life &# ; I only hope that she could find a way to her son.
Crissie, yes Lisa&# ;s eyes are the bluest I # ;ve seen &# ; Liz Taylor&# ;s were darker, one dark blue the other purble, full of mystery &# ; Lisa&# ;s were frank and straight, I would not compare the two beauties at all. what we know about people we don&# ;t know (and most of us neither knew willy nor toots) we know through the media &# ; and if there were any reports about toots, then it was because she was willy&# ;s wife, and all reports we got about her depicted her through that lens. e g we learn that she created his looks. this is why she mattered to the media &# ; but that doesn&# ;t mean that this is all there was to say about her.
When I first learned about Willy&# ;s death in August it felt like a dull blow to the spirit.
I # ;d seen him perform with Mink DeVille in , at Lupo&# ;s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, RI, when he was in his cool, smouldering, Toots-inspired mode.
I saw Toots, as well.
Very close up, in fact.
Although I was just another young, female audience member at the intimate club, Toots stared at me for awhile, glowering but aloof, from her place next to the stage about five feet away from me.
She was assessing the threat level, I guess.
Her looks and confidence really knocked me out: Bouffant hair, jet black eyeliner, stilletto heeled, pointy toes shoes, tattoos, facial piercings, skin-tight s style dress, tons of retro jewelry&# ;She was walking art.
Nothing like any woman I # ;d ever seen before.
I # ;d heard a rumor that she and Willy were deep into a kind of Santeria voodoo and both of them were hooked on dope.
Although, at my impressionable age, I found all that rather romantic in a vampire/goth sort of way, it also carried a vaguely treatening message that said: &# ;Don&# ;t even think about trying to imitate us!&# ; I could tell that there was a co-dependency between them that might just be fatal.
To somebody.
Well, I always loved Willy&# ;s music, nonetheless.
In the mid s I married a Blues musician who was jealous of Willy.
So, I put away his albums for about years.
After that man left me for a radio DJ, I dug them back out and &# ; God as my witness- they really helped me heal from the emotional trauma.
My ex died last year, of cancer, at age .
Finding a live Dutch release on CD entitled &# ; Meter Sessies&# ; in , I rapidly snatched it up.
It reamains my favorite Willy DeVille record to this day.
Boy do I feel old.
Having outlived Toots, Willy and so many other talented people I so deeply admired has brought me a sense of gratitude for my own talents and skills.
I aim to use &# ;em all up, well and wisely, before it&# ;s my turn to meet the reaper, too.
Thanks for this great blog!
I do believe a movie will be made about Willy and Toots.
Cool insights about Toots, Mari!
Thanks for sharing.
Also, in terms of a blog about Toots, I agree that everyone is unique and that there&# ;s lots to be said about each person.
Each person is a mystery.
Wow Mari, thanks for that.
My husband went to URI and knows Lupo&# ;s well, what a great place to see them.
Can I ask you: was Toots watching Willy and then looking at who ever he might be making eye contact with or was she just watching the attractive women in the audience to try and discourage them?
I # ;m just wondering if her behavior was a reaction to Willy and what he was doing or just strictly paranoia.
Thanks again.
I also had heard about their interest in black magic, as Willy put it in several inerviews.
A lot of people in that scene in NYC at the time were reading Aleister Crowley and claiming to be into Witchcraft and Willy was right there with them.
He also had a strange quote in one of the English music papers in the late &# ;s about admiring the Nazis for being truly decadent, which is awful in and of itself, but all the more strange when you consider Toots was Jewish.
Willy&# ;s interest in the occult never waned and he still mentioned it in some of the last interviews he did.
He was a strange guy, but a great performer, and Toots was truly inspiring in terms of his art.
She even inspired other women at the time at least in downtown New York to get nose rings and go for the corpse bride look.
Also someone has uploaded all these incredible performances of Mink Deville from a German tv show in , Rockpalast or something, on youtube.
They are definitely worth checking out.
She used to be in Creem magazine (with and without Willy) all the time and yeah, she really seemed like the coolest chick…so different from all the others at the time. @Digiom-I had all the copies of Creem magazine from till but they were thrown out when I went to college &# ; a truly sad day.
However, you can purchase back copies from Creem at their website.
I believe it&# ;s run by some of the former editors.
I wish I still had them, they were gold to me.
Good luck.
Willy was not likely to make eye contact with anyone in the audience due to the bright stagelights aimed at his face.
Toots would look at him, then observe the audience reaction, just as I did when my ex was performing onstage.
Musicians tend to like a critical appraisal of their performances after a show, yet, often suffer from low self-esteem.
Her behavior, at that time, appeared to be more like a manager&# ;s than a jealous wife&# ;s She never cracked a smile, though, or made any efforts to associate with the audience.
As he finished his last encore she was right there to grab him as he left the stage and rapidly led him away to the dingy &# ;green room&# ;.
I was a live music reviewer for over years (for the Martha&# ;s Vineyard Times) and I never met a musician who didn&# ;t ask me : &# ;How was it?&# ; &# ;Was I OK?&# ; &# ;Did it sound alright?&# ; I also understand that some women get carried away by the spectacle (and lots of liquor) and can be very pushy in attempts to get closer to the performers who &# ;turn them on.&# ; It&# ;s something of a nightmare to be married to a charismatic musician, no matter how trusting you are of your spouse&# ;s fidelity.
The saddest thing for me is that I # ;d always hoped to see an older, mellower Willy perform live again.
Not because I was attracted to the man but because I was a true, loyal fan of his music.
Toots deserves a higher place in Rock &# ; Roll history than she witnessed while she was still living.
So does Willy.
Thanks for the kind words.
I should start writing my musical memoirs immediately!
Got some really interesting stories to tell.
Honestly.
Meanwhile I took time enough to read &# ;Harold&# ;&# ;s post and I think,that he&# ;s right: he doesn&# ;t misjudge the facts we know from a lots from other posts.All them together give a picture (maybe,there are missing other facts&# ;).It seems,that his post isn&# ;t hateful,but a little impatient-impatient with many people,who see and read,but don&# ;t understand.
Isn&# ;t here anybody,who knew &# ;Toots&# ; after her separation from .d V ?We only have informations about a job and her dead,not more.
Netherlands.
Can I find more information about Willy Deville, family, friends, etc. was looking at here Willy on stage and I saw a deeply love in here eyes and a deep respect for Deville as a brilliant singer songwriter, this evening she was wearing a big yellow flower in her hair, it&# ;s a shame that such people have to go so earely.
You need to upload it to the web &# ; the link looks like you just copied the mailbox link -> won&# ;t work.
And this is an interview with Willy ( th of january ) in Humo Belgium.
Susan Berle, whom her husband, Billy Borsey, later named (by Susan) Willy DeVille, was married to Billy in the EARLY s I believe or &# ; .
They were together even before that.
Susan met Billy in Stamford, CT where they both grew up (Susan went to boarding school with my sisters), and they were inseparable for years.
Susan was the one who named the band &# ;Mink DeVille&# ; and suggested Billy change his name to &# ;Willy DeVille&# ; so it would be clear he was the bandleader and she thought &# ;Willy&# ; sounded more macho.
Conceptually, the band was as much her creation as his, along with his image as a New York ghetto king, when in fact they were both originally hip but suburban kids from Connecticut.
I knew them starting in .
I went to the Woodstock Festival with Billy and his former girlfriend, Marie Poisson but after they broke up, he and Susan got back together and were inseparable for at least years after that.
Susan did NOT die of a drug overdose.
She had a lingering disease, I believe lupus, and suffered horribly before she passed away a few years ago.
It&# ;s true that Susan had a drug problem but most people in the music scene used drugs quite of their own volition in those days, including Willy.
She did encourage him to use heroin which was not great and he later acknowledged that had cost him some time and creativity.
But he did plenty of drugs on his own because that&# ;s what everyone did back then, certainly in the New York (and Connecticut) music scene.
Meanwhile, more importantly, Willy was a musical genius in his own right, but he always acknowledged Susan&# ;s (&# ;Toots&# ;)&# ;s contributions to his image and creative direction; that IS her (Susan, not Will) n the &# ;Le Chat Bleu&# ; album cover.
When they met he had curly, shoulder length hair and was mainly into blues (Delta style), folk artists such as the Incredible String Band, and Van Morrison; Susan took him in the direction of urban, ghetto Spanish-influenced ballads and a more &# ;rock&# ; image.
While you (previous poster) may well believe there was a &# ;special connection&# ; between you and Willy, I assure you that (a many, many women felt that way, and (b in fact Willy was basically very monogamous and loyal.
Yes, Susan was very protective of her marriage &# ; hey, he was a rock star.
Can you imagine how many women hit on him at every gig?
She did get a little out there about it but we were young, hanging out in bars, everyone was crazy, so yes, she got in some womens&# ; faces about flirting with her husband, which they shouldn&# ;t have been doing in the first place (listening to the music is kinda more what you&# ;re supposed to be doing).
Willy and Susan (&# ;Toots&# ;) had a deep, true love, he adored their son Sean, and they were a happy family for the years I knew them well (and we did remain friends until each of them passed away, although I lost touch a bit after I moved to Austin, TX and before we had the Internet).
I knew they did later divorce, but Susan was extremely influential on, and important to Willy (Billy) and I don&# ;t believe he would appreciate the trashing of her going on here.
He was also a very compassionate and caring person, and he stood by his loved ones, even when acknowledging troubles that did arise.
Dear Mandy, thanks a lot for this story!
You wrote more about Toots and Willy, than I expected after asking you to write some words on this blog.
The photo&# ;s in this blog showed the big love between Toots and Willy and you confirmed that.
In Holland at february th there is a Willy Deville Memorial Night.
I will be there and enjoy his music.
I think it will be strange to hear and see someone else singing his songs&# ;&# ;&# ;but it&# ;s nice to be there with so many fans.
Thank you so much for sharing your memories with us.
I hope Willy is again walking his little girl home with Susan&# ;s arm tucked in his.
I think the speculation about whether Sean is Willy&# ;s biological child is hurtful and pointless.
I know the truth of the situation (I was there) but refuse to discuss it.
I do have respect for Willy&# ;s subsequent wives and I repeat, while his music was sensual and soulful, he was NOT a &# ;dog&# ; and I believe this woman (&# ;Belinda&# ;?) is living in a fantasy.
Willy/Billy was kind to everyone and appreciated beauty but he was in general one of the most faithful men (romantically) I have ever known &# ; and we knew each other (even all stayed in the same house from time to time) for years as a close FRIEND.
BTW the dedication on &# ;Where Angels Fear to Tread&# ; is to Harriet Berle, Susan&# ;s mother, I am pretty sure.
Another dedication on the same album is to Willy&# ;s stepbrother, and also there is one to Catherine Mercier, my sister, who died in .
She and Susan (and my other sister) did all go to Windsor Mountain, a progressive prep school in the Berkshires, but Susan did not meet Willy through me &# ; they met in Stamford when they were both kids.
They were apart while she was away at school, etc. and as I mentioned above, Willy did have a different girlfriend when I met him but when he and Susan reconnected they were inseparable from then on, and had a great marriage and a true family.
I # ;m sure he also had a great love with Nina, to the end and I am glad she was with him as he passed.
Sean was also there with Willy in his last moments and I am quite sure there was great love in that room.
Neither Sean nor Willy would appreciate the horrible, hurtful and mean-spirited comments about Susan (&# ;Toots&# ;) made here.
Yes, she was one of the very first people (the first person I knew) to get piercings, WAY before they were fashionable (by like, or years).
She was a true original, a genius, she loved Willy (she called him &# ;Will&# ;) and he loved her.
She was certainly vigilant, because the biz is full of poseurs and because women DID hit on him.
But he never dogged around and never cheated the entire time I knew him (even though other guys in our crowd, did).
Some of these women (ahem) wouldn&# ;t take no for an answer but that doesn&# ;t mean, my dear, you were or ever would have been his &# ;true love&# ; just because you had an attraction to him yourself.
When someone is kind to you, a fan, or even admires your beauty, that does not mean he was &# ;meant&# ; for you or that you have the right to say horrible things about the wife HE CHOSE.
I assure you, he was definitely into her as much as vice-versa.
And as Dominick, who was also there, knows, the truth IS complicated but oversimplifying it just to put her down serves no point.
PLEASE THINK OF SEAN BEFORE YOU WRITE THIS HURTFUL GARBAGE ABOUT HIS MOTHER.
She adored him, and Willy, and they were a true family.
He did not &# ;run out on&# ; them, things wound down as they sometimes do in young marriages.
Sean is alive and may well come upon this blog if he hasn&# ;t already.
I am very happy Willy&# ;s music and his genius live on, and I # ;m sure Sean is too, for what that&# ;s worth, but this voyeuristic and cruel commentary is abhorrent to me, and truly pointless.
If you want to know about Willy, it&# ;s all there in the songs.
What a nice picture from a young and innocent(-looking)Willy on your homepage,Mandy!And what a cruel information about Susans&# ; later disease &# ; if she really suffered lupus,she had the hell on earth.This blog is really a mosaic or a puzzle;fascinating.It&# ;s not easy,to make a difference between that so-called &# ;trashing&# ; and the facts.
A thank you also from me Mandy Mercier.
Mandy, I # ;m just curious.
Did you perform with Willy in recent years?
I saw some vids of you on YouTube, you have an awesome voice.
It&# ;s nice to know Willy was no hound dog&# ;happy for the clarification, especially that he did not run out on his wife and son.
Hard to know what is true and what is not sometimes especially when some of the misinformation comes from interviews that Willy did.
Thank you again Mandy and let us show due respect for those who have passed on and those that are still here.
Thanks, Eire&# ; &# ; beautiful picture.
Why (still) the other mean comments I wonder?
Many of us have more than one relationship in our lives, certainly artists do &# ; and &# ;Toots&# ; (Susan) and &# ;Willy&# ; (Billy) were both true artists who created a great creative project (Mink DeVille; again Susan named the band and gave Willy his new name); and they were very much in love for many, many, many, many years.
BTW I am pretty sure the &# ;Billy Borsey Jr.&# ; dedication on the first Mink DeVille album was meant for Sean, since it was right next to Susan&# ;s name under &# ;Soul and Inspiration&# ; and they had just gotten married (not too long ago), then were so happy when he got his record deal (again, I was hanging out with them at the time and Sean was a toddler).
I always was pretty sure that reference was meant to &# ;claim&# ; Sean as his true son, which he (Sean) remained throughout Willy&# ;s life &# ; no matter whom he was married to.
Enough said, I hope.
Again, all due respect to Nina, and to Sean, who were with him in his last moments, and to Susan, RIP (I was told her illness was lupus, by one friend, then I have heard elsewhere, a form of cancer; I do know she suffered greatly before her death, and that yes, she also went &# ;straight&# ;).
She did not get Willy &# ;into&# ; anything, everyone back then did stuff and if they survived, eventually had to stop.
Sadly they are now beyond anyone&# ;s criticism although I hope not beyond our love.
Oh, finally Susan was anything but &# ;white trash&# ; (what a horrible expression anyway).
She was extremely literate, went to an excellent prep school, came from a very well-to-do family and she was the one in love with the music of Edith Piaf, and turned Willy on to it, not vice versa.
I wasn&# ;t going to write on this blog since my memories are personal and precious.
But I felt compelled to clear up some of the ugly things said about &# ;Toots&# ; (Susan) she was my friend, and she certainly never acted hostile to ME.
Maybe because I wasn&# ;t hitting on her husband!!!
They were both my friends, and my boyfriend back then, Richard, was Willy&# ;s best friend throughout his life.
If you&# ;d like to see a picture of how Willy looked before Susan created the &# ;Mink DeVille&# ; concept there&# ;s one on my website taken by Linda Nafey, Richard&# ;s first wife.
We are all still friends.
Peace to everyone.
Well that last post pretty much made me well up and want to bawl at my desk.
Thank you for setting the record straight and standing up for your friends.
I can only imagine that Susan/Toots was some kind of hot, hot, hotness and there were probably more than a few men that gave her the eye too!
Let&# ;s face it, even now if she and Willy walked down a street she would probably be the one that would garner more attention.
I love the fact that she was chic, smart and strong and wasn&# ;t gonna let any bimbo mess with her man.
God, I hope there is a big old heaven place when we all die&# ;I can&# ;t wait to meet her.
Thanks very much to everyone for your kind words.
I won&# ;t continue posting here because I # ;ve said what I have to say, I am pretty sure.
Please show mercy and consider there may be more to any story &# ; our own, other peoples&# ;, certainly mine!!
But yes, Willy was a kind, loving and romantic man, with great loyalty and a ton of class.
Susan (&# ;Toots&# ;) was a genius and a sweetheart.
Sean was beloved by each of them and I am glad to hear (from a friend who actually knows what has happened in the last year or so), that he (Sean) is being treated with compassion and love by Nina.
Peace to all.
Thank you again and I do hope if someone does in fact write a book they contact you as a reference.
We should all remember that Sean has lost both of his parents and although he may be a grown man he has feelings and memories that are no doubt very precious to him.
The fact that you could give testament to the character of both Willy and Susan is important and most appreciated.
Most of us were not there and did not know either of them and need to be cautious not to get led down a path of misinformation and speculation.
If anyone has any fantasies it is best to keep them to yourself and in your own head and let the truth be what is remembered.
Ich werfe mich mal eben dazwischen, hier is der link.
Ich glaube da sind noch Karten.
Thanks Mandy for writing everything I would have posted on this blog, particularly your last post.
I ran across the digiom piece while researching some stuff to send to Richard Marcus for his book.
I knew Willy and Susan since we were all - yrs. old.
I loved them both.
We (me, my husband Richard Nafey, Susan, Willy, & other members of our band) lived together, I was the maid of honor at their wedding in the house we lived in, yes, Sean was born before they were married, and we all &# ; Toots, Willy, Richard &# ; stayed in touch throughout our lives.
As Mandy said, Toots was smart, funny, loyal, protective not just of Willy, but of her friends.
And gutsy &# ; in the late s she called me from the East Coast to let me know she was hitchiking out to the West Coast with her cat, Chi-Chi, and would be stopping by.
Never a dull moment around Toots.
She influenced Willy&# ;s style a lot.
Susan was not pretty, but she was beautiful; she had a presence that could not be ignored.
And the style &# ; migod.
Amy Winehouse should give Susan credit for her entire persona.
And this was Toots in &# ; when a nosering could get you arrested in certain parts of the country.
There was a lot of love between Willy and Susan for a very very long time, and much love for Sean.
I haven&# ;t seen Sean since he was about - , but he was a happy kid, very creative, I still have pictures he drew for me.
And Willy &# ; such a romantic &# ; loyal, funny, and sweet, and would do anything for his close friends.
He wasn&# ;t the &# ;screw around&# ; type.
One love at a time, with love remaining for past loves.
Willy and Susan were not just my friends, they were family, and I also would like to say &# ;think of Sean and Nina before you post&# ; &# ; truth, not speculation or fantasy, please.
Thanks, also, Dominick for your posts.
So glad you were there for him in August (and throughout).
Though I haven&# ;t met Nina, I know Willy loved her very much, and wish her all the happiness she can find now that he&# ;s gone.
But he&# ;s not really gone, and neither is Toots.
They live on in his music, and in our hearts.
This will be my only post.
Namaste.
Thank you also, Linda Nafey, for your post !
How wonderful to hear the truth from Willy&# ;s friends.
I love the image of Toots, this tiny, &# ;little girl&# ;, nevertheless intelligent, funny, a real personality.
I think she and Willy looked great together.
Isn&# ;t it wonderful that this page never gets bored, or cheap or mean, always someone there to put things in the right place and make the memory richer. thanks a lot for clearing up many things about Susan/Toots and her husband and for sharing your memories.
I am sure you have had a very true and human friendship with both of them for many many years.
The picture I have from Toots is getting clearer and clearer and I think she was a wonderful, strong and unique person and a wonderful mother for her son Sean.
But in every blog/fanclub i e you will find some people with neurotic thoughts.
Its a shame but a reality too &# ; forget about them and dont let them hurt your feelings or your memories.
Can only second the previous posters &# ; thank you, Mandy, thank yo, Linda, for stopping by and sharing your memories.
Tammi, latest news is that on the th of february in Holland (memorial concert for Willy), Boris Kinberg, Willy&# ;s percussionist, will also be present, as well as guitarist Freddy Koella (if his schedule allows it).
David Keyes isn&# ;t fit to fly yet but will be talking to us via Skype on a big screen.
Hi Tina!
Great news on a rainy sunday, thanks a lot!
Do you know, what is with David?
I heard at another place that he is falling ill.
I hope,that he will feel better soon!
I wish you a nice sundayevening and a good start into the new week, also anyone who is interested in this theme!
Unfortunately it was very still this week.
Hi Tammi, from what I heard David had a rare form of cancer, I believe this was in .
He received treatment and it seems the cancer is gone now.
I also hope he&# ;s well now.
Not only is he a great bassplayer but those who met him told me he is also a very kind, friendly person.
Hope you have a nice evening too.
Take care, Tina. @all: did you see the new site? &# ;Willy de Ville social network&# ; ???Unfortunately I # ;m not able,to copy the adress into this post,but I think,you&# ;ll find it with the combination of words.Until now it&# ;s not too busy,but they&# ;ll need some folks more to make it&# ;.
Thank you,Crissie &# ; I hope,that I # ;ll learn it by myself by time&# ;It&# ;s a shame,maybe I # ;ll need some more time.
Hi to all of you, here is another youtube video with the &# ;Mrs Are you referring to the photo with Willy and Lisa in formal dress on a red carpet?
That&# ;s not their wedding, that&# ;s the Academy Awards.
I didn&# ;t see any photos of Nina in this video, did you?
Love the photos of Toots though.
Does anyone know how tall Willy was?
He looks very tall in some photos and then in others not so much.
Like a yesterday&# ;s party &# ; Nina and the smoke, the two of them looking very weak and frail &# ; the glory had left them &# ; at least on the photos&# ; all my love to her. coming back to toots &# ; I think we need to make some collages of toots and amy winehouse, to get her some of the recognition she deserves, and to show how rad she was (while poor wino meanwhile got a boob job and is apparently think of a butt job too).
Has anyone seen the photo of Willy on this website where he has bangs?
Not one of his better looks.
Someone changed the willy deville social network site so that we have to sign in and give a lot of personal information.
Sorry, I tried to put the willy deville social network site URL in but it didn&# ;t work.
That is the website I was referring to in regards to willy&# ;s pic.
Just a Fan: Was it the general URL to ?
You pasted that one in the &# ;Website&# ; field, if one clicks on your name, one get&# ;s there.
If you want it to appear in the message text, you need to paste it in the message field.
Sean and Kevin at uncle Willy&# ;s funeral. ) Sean is one of the sweetest, kindest, funniest, most generous people you will ever meet in your life. ) Kevin actually was a male model and does some acting from time to time.
Never met a bigger-hearted individual with that high of an IQ!
I am amazed at how much of Willy I see in him and in Marlene. ) Nina is very smart, savvy, and gave me some very poignant advice at just the right time in my life. ) I have heard nothing but the very best about Willy&# ;s women from their friends and family. ) I met Willy&# ;s sister (Mimi) at his memorial and she was absolutely angelic.
I cannot understand how anyone could post something so bitter and nasty about this delightful woman.
Life is what we make it, while we are all still alive.
God bless &# ;em, Toots and Willy both died in the past decade.
Crossing my heart.
My son lives and plays like the devil (Angels cost extra).
Just don&# ;t know.
People keep on making a mighty loud sound.
Toots would approve, no doubt.
Willy, Toots, Sean&# ;Vaya con Dios, mi amigos.
Willy DeVille was born as William Borsey in Stamford, Connecticut (he took the name Willy DeVille in ).
His maternal grandmother was a Pequot, and he was also of Basque and Irish descent.
Carol if you want to know something for sure you should try and ask on the new Willy Deville forum, link above.
Kevin Obrien&# ;s (willy&# ;s nephew) girlfriend Stephanie Crow is also a member.
She should know.
I can&# ;t get used to the new forum, sorry, don&# ;t know what it is, too busy, too much info, guess i # ;m getting old. oops &# ; ended up in the spam queue, retrieved it (spammers always post links, that&# ;s why).
I would just like to say something in response to what Gail said in November.
Willy was very close to his sister Mimi and would be very unimpressed to read what you wrote Gail.
You have added nothing but highly offensive comments on this site.
I was close to Willy and he would talk about his mother all the time about how much he loved and missed her.
Eddie passed away in March and would also be highly offended by what you have said.
I know this information because those kids that came to Florida, I was one of them.
I always thought your father was a delightful man.
I loved my grandmother, Marion very much and cannot believe you wrote comments on an internet site when you clearly don&# ;t know these people.
You spoke to Willy on the phone, loved Eddie yet you&# ;re happy to post vicious rumors about their loved ones on the internet.
My mom is the kindest woman I have ever met.
She has raised a great family and she cared for Marion until the end.
Willy was always grateful for that.
And as for Sean, you couldn&# ;t find a nicer guy.
I am proud to have these people as my blood and family.
YAAAY Megan!
So glad to see you setting the record straight as well. longtimefanofWilly.
I agree.
To read all these lies about your family must have really pissed you off.
Well, you have every reason to be proud. @Eire.
That was a great vid !, also part II.
Toots looks so old !
She must have been in , she looks much older.
Maybe it&# ;s the heavy make-up or the drugs.
Anyway, great to see Willy and her together. longtimefanofWilly.
I think you mean this one.
Part II. &# ;Jim had resumed his wanderings, sleeping outside or with one of the many LA women who wanted to nurse a down-and-out rock star.
One promising venue was the Park Sunset Plaza, just opposite the Coronet, which was a favored place for Hollywood&# ;s wealthy businessmen to install their mistresses.
Naturally, the women had a lot of spare time on their hands.
Even more incongruously, by now Jim had an established hideaway in the shape of a huge beachfront property in La Jolla, near Sand Diego.
Mike Page, a San Diego musician, had brought his girlfriend Lisa Leggett toLA for some clothes-shopping on Melrose, and a mutual friend offered to introduce them to Iggy, who was crashing on his couch.
Within a few minutes of their meeting, as Mike visited the bathroom, Lisa had invited Jim to come and stay at her parents&# ; home in San Diego.
Somehow, Jim sensed this was no ordinary property, and he was soon a regular visitor to the Leggetts&# ; house, which had been built by the hotelier Earl Gagosian, founder of the the Royal Inns chains; the place was crass and tasteless and looked like an overgrown Ramada Inn.
Mike Page would have long, earnest discussions about blues music with the impoverished but charming Osterberg; only later did he realize that during her visits to LA, Lisa was inviting Iggy to stay in their suite at the Chateau Marmont, where he would drink Dom érignon and order Lisa around like a flunky. longtimefanofWilly.
This is highly interesting Eire.
Finally some background info on Lisa.
According to the book&# ;that&# ;s the way it reads.
Mike Page went on to play with Iggy Pop for a few years. longtimefanofWilly.
Leggett, Charles ., . - , .S , theft-tax evas.
A notorious criminal, Charles Leggett, embarrassed the .S Justice Department after becoming one of the government&# ;s star informants.
Leggett began his criminal career in the s He was convicted of interstate transportation of stolen cars and sentenced in to one year in prison.
Later, he was convicted and sentenced in to eighteen months in prison for wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property.
Leggett was convicted again in and sentenced to eighteen months for charges of tax evasion.
He was released after serving only two months of his term, however, and he became an informer for the .S Justice Department&# ;s Organized Crime Strike Force in Chicago.
He proved very effective, helping to regain about $ million in stolen Treasury securities, bonds, and stocks.
In May , Leggett turned on the government.
He asked for a large sum of money so he could pose as a rich prospective buyer of stolen securities.
The FBI and the strike force secured a fake, nonnegotiable certificate of deposit (CD) for $ . million from Continental Illinois National Bank.
The strike force assumed responsibility if the CD was negotiated.
It was, and the government was held liable for the actions of the wily Leggett.
He first bought a thirty-five room mansion in La Jolla, Calif., from Earl Gagosian.
Under the contract terms, Leggett was to pay $ . million for the property, with a $ , down payment.
Using the La Jolla real estate and the fake CD as collateral, the crook negotiated a $ . million loan from Baltimore Federal Savings & Loan Association in Maryland.
He paid the down payment on the estate and kept the rest of the money.
Gagosian did not receive the final settlement, and in August , Leggett defaulted on the Maryland bank loan and Continental would not redeem the fake CD.
The savings and loan, Gagosian, and a California title company all sued the government and Continental.
In October , Leggett was convicted of grand theft for stealing money from Baltimore Federal Savings & Loan Association.
He was sentenced from one to ten years in San Quentin.
The mansion was repossessed and sold, although the bank had difficulty evicting Leggett&# ;s wife and daughter.
In a proposed settlement, Continental Illinois was to put up $ , , paying $ , to the Maryland bank and $ , to Gagosian, and the government was to pay $ , , including $ , to the Maryland bank, and $ , to Gagosian.
This used to be the Gagosian Mansion which Charles Leggett bought.
The original house is gone though.
Seems to be worth the money&# ;.
Well, it seems that Lisa is just as interesting as Toots !
Love all these posts.
By the way, I think Toots looks very Jewish in those vids.
She also resembles Edith Piaf, maybe she wanted to look like her; Check out the eyebrows.
Picture of Lisa&# ;s father ?
She has his nose.
Just wanted to say &# ; people, be nice.
Carol, what ever drives you to have your say about people you claim to have been friends with and call them animals and miserable people: go ahead, it&# ;s your karma. just don&# ;t expect to find many friends on this thread, as this thread is dedicated to gathering information, and not to obstructing our view by prejudice and bias.
Here&# ;s a vid of Fast Floyd.
I just hope Willy&# ;s not included in the &# ;animalclassification&# ;. @ digiom: If this thread is dedicated to gathering information, then you should be open to ALL information&# ;the good, the bad, and yes, the ugly.(As long as it is truthful).
That&# ;s right.
Carol was there, this was obviously her personal experience at that time.
An experience very different although from the ones Mandy Mercier and Linda Nafey describe.
You may ascribe whichever motives to my remarks as you see fit.
I lived with McKenzie, who, in fact, lived under the assumed name of Robin Corey, and who before me, lived with a woman from Brooklyn in San Rafael CA, by the name of Rhonda Moskowitz.
Floyd (aka Mc Kenzie) dug up a fake birth certificate in the library by finding the dead babies file and that&# ;s how he established a second identity.
When I tried to leave him, he locked me into a small apartment, and then put a gun in my mouth and said we were going to do a double-homicide-suicide &# ;like Sid and Nancy.&# ; The first time I tried to leave, he held a straight-edge razor / inch from my face for an hour and a half, threatening to slice my face open.
After I left, he took up with a very pretty girl named Eva Marie Tuffanelli, whose father Dennis, was, and is, a well-respected dermatological surgeon in SF.
The next time I saw Eva, Robert had slashed a -inch scar down her right cheek with a broken beer bottle.
I assume she still has it.
You might want to check in with Eva to find out a little more about this swell crowd.
Willie and Robbie were thick as theives.
Robert broke into the loft I shared with The Mutants at Third and Folsom in SF and threatened to kill me again, and just then Vicki Schrott who also lived with us, walked in and he split, until he stalked me all the way to NYC.
I met McKenzie at a party at my friend Mark Dunwoody&# ;s Mark played with the Flamin&# ; Groovies, and another band called Kid Courage in San Francisco.
At the time, Mark and Larry Ogden, who was also in Kid Courage, lived across the hall from me on Presidio Street in Pacific Heights.
So yes, you&# ;re probably right.
I # ;m making all this up.
I didn&# ;t know Reuben or Manfred or Susan (who, since you&# ;re so fascinated with these people, was never called &# ;Toots&# ; by Willie in private&# ;.and did not start serious implementation of her new moniker until much later.
The reason Willie stayed so long with a singularly unattractive woman, was because her unhip, suburban father paid all their bills.
This is why Susan got away with all her Borderline Personality nonsense, killing any chance that all but the most devoted would go anywhere near Susan, and thus Willie, so she really destroyed him in some ways.
There is a striking coincidence in the timing of his ditching Susan and his starting to make a little money, so he didn&# ;t need Mr Berle anymore.
Were they sad misfits?
Yes.
But they were also adults, raising a little boy who watched a houseful of adults shooting drugs around the clock, myself included.
I could write a whole book about these people, but in my current project, they are only getting two chapters.
Robert McKenzie (aka Fast Floyd) was indeed a bad guy and extremely violent.
In May , Floyd shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend in San Francisco and then turned the gun on himself.
He was facing a life sentence in prison on drug and weapons charges.
His girlfriend, he believed, and ratted him to the police.
Robert McKenzie (aka Fast Floyd) was indeed a bad guy and extremely violent.
In May , Floyd shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend in San Francisco and then turned the gun on himself.
He was facing a life sentence in prison on drug and weapons charges.
His girlfriend, he believed, had ratted him to the police.
Two chapters isn&# ;t enough, it&# ;s fascinating. &# ;There is a striking coincidence in the timing of his ditching Susan and his starting to make a little money, so he didn’t need Mr Interesting that your experience is so vastly different from what Mandy and Linda had to say.
So classy of you to disrespect both Willy and Susan in a forum that their son might read, never paying attention to the fact that others have asked for that exact thing not to happen.
The truth isn&# ;t always pretty, nor should it always be sugar-coated just because other people want it to be that way.
I think they all have their own stories to tell.
I don&# ;t think they are trying to disrespect anyone.
They all have their own take on the situation.
What I don&# ;t like is when people get on here and tell others what they can or can&# ;t say just because they are trying to protect someone&# ;s memory or spare someone&# ;s feelings.
If this blog is truly trying to find out information, then no one should be censored.
Exactly, Eire you yourself were also speculating about Willy&# ;s supposed &# ;cheating behaviour&# ; in your earlier posts, while we learned from Mandy that he was utterly faithful.
But&# ;how do we determine what is true?
Maybe Carol too had some interest in Willy that was being thwarted by Susan?
Did Susan have some kind of personality disorder?
Is Carol a physician who can make such a diagnosis?
Maybe Carol was the one with issues&# ;after all she hooked up with a nutter boyfriend and lived with him for years.
Because of the way her posts were written (a little venomous) in contrast with the way that Dominic, Mandy and Linda wrote theirs I would tend to believe the latter.
As far as I can tell no one has been censored, just questioned about their intentions.
And, excuse me but I think the remaining family members do deserve some respect as well as the dead.
So it&# ;s okay to take Mandy&# ;s word that Willy was perfect but not that Susan was a good friend, mother and wife?
How is that fair?
And, I am glad to believe Willy was not runaround jerk.
My point exactly&# ;people will believe what they want to anyway, so why not let people who were there speak about what they saw or give their perspective.
I don&# ;t think Carol has any motive whatsoever.
I went back to the university, got my English Literature degree, amongst others, and became an economist and somewhat well-known art dealer on the New York and international contemporary scene.
I dare say you&# ;d be hard-pressed to find any major comtemporary art dealer in Manhattan who doesn&# ;t know who I am.
Carol Leigh is a pseudonym.
I am well-known by my proper name (which you don&# ;t know) as an analyst of the art business through my publishing concerns.
So I really have no bones to pick&# ;I find these people inordinately pathetic.
Why I was with Robbie had a lot to do with things that you can read in my books.
I was - when I was with him, so I # ;d hardly think my those long ago and niggardly few salts in the hour glass of my life says anything definitive about the ensuing years and how I chose to live them, which is who I am now.
Which is what matters.
I feel I lead a charmed life, as few who were as entrenched as I made it out of Mink de Ville bedlam.
I worked with Bill Graham, Jerry Pompeli, Clem Burke, Brendan Early, poor misunderstood Frankie Infante, Jerry Nolan, The Hooters, and many others before I got out of Dodge.
I still have our original recordings, which are quite compelling.
Oddly, when I was living in Tiburon and using limousines to go to LAX on business, one day they sent a new driver who looked very beaten, and old enough to be my father, but eerily familiar.
It was Reuben.
He was working for Corporate (or was it Executive?)
Limousine in Marin County.
My husband did not know that part of my life and I was petrified that Reuben (who was a very nice man) would inadvertently give me away.
He recognized me instantly: &# ;Wow!
You&# ;re still a babe!&# ; Yes, Reuben, because I got out of Borderline Personality Disorder-Land in time.
So as you can tell, this is all complete fabrication.
And oh yes&# ;..I bewail, whilst not pining away, to this very day of the calendar year , for the affections of our sociopathic (for the curious amongst our ilk, this be shorthand for the cluster of character traits of the Pathologically Lying Parasitic, yet worthy of an entire six-page DSM III-Classification) lead singer of Mink de Ville.
What a life I # ;d have had, if the Darling of Avenue , no&# ;.The Adonis of Tompkins Park, had nary glanced my way!
For the record, I was one of the few women intimates of that crowd, because for some reason Susan liked and trusted me.
Far more than I can say of my feelings for her.
She was more than a loose cannon and I was good at dissembling and staying out of the range of her Howser.
In the beginning, before I understood, I was smitten with Robbie and quite certain it showed.
I had no interest in Willie, other than the shared interest we all had in old rhythm & blues music.
Please bear in mind, I lived with Susan, Willie, Robbie, Manfred, Reuben and Sean for quite a while.
Susan Berle was a land mine&# ;as soon as Willie could financially afford to get away from her, he did. &# ;Nuff said. @Carol If being &# ;well-known by your proper name&# ; is so important to you, I am wondering why you are not giving it away here.
Do you fear it might look back if you badmouthed people in public who are no longer?
You might be right.
And I am sorry that Susan &# ;liked and trusted you&# ; &# ; what if she knew what you&# ;d say about her in public a few years later!
And thanks for the name-dropping, wow, you really knew them all.
Some people just can&# ;t live without surrounding themselves with names. @Just a Fan This thread is perfectly open to anyone, as I am not deleting any comments even though some people have asked me to via mail and other channels, people who felt that this would be hurtful to Willy&# ;s family.
I am just tired (this being my blog) of people stopping by and unloading their grudges on Toots and/or Willy (because they probably cannot stand the fact that they didn&# ;t manage to get laid with Willy), especially if they are mainly coming her to plug their book.
I might close this thread eventually if this keeps happening.
And no, unloading your grudge is not the same as offering information.
Carol&# ;s comments are obviously more about her and about reinstating that she&# ;s &# ;still a babe&# ;, while Susan allegedly was &# ;a landmine&# ;.
I don&# ;t need people on this blog who mainly comment to make themselves look good.
I do not give my name because I # ;m a legitimate business person and frankly, my previous association with these folks has little to do with anything in my life for the past years.
No one I know would even know who any of these people are.
And I think of them rarely.
The reason I think of it now, and looked on the web, was to jog my memory for a book I # ;m writing.
I am hardly looking for publicity or to sell books.
If I were, I would be shouting my name from the rafters.
I # ;ve not given the names of my books, so how could I possibly be promoting anything?
My books are not about Willie or Susan particularly, as far as Susan, she gets barely a mention, other than a line or two about her attire.
The musicians I mentioned were all people with whom I sang or cut records.
And I only mentioned them as my veracity was questioned.
So I gave chapter and verse.
I had no idea this was a website for a Fan Club, and had I known I # ;d have written nothing.
My intent is not to hurt the feelings of those enamored and dedicated to preserving a myth about people they seem to love.
I am in the truth business.
And believe me, there is nothing anyone can tell Sean Borsey that he is not more than well aware of himself and in spades.
Doc Pomus, with whom Willie worked, is writing a biography and is in need of historical data.
And he is getting it from many sources.
He is not a man who will make himself foolish by writing a puff-piece for a Fan Club.
All of this will come out very soon, and I assure you that I am far from the only person who knows these facts.
Doc will ask Reuben, Louis, and Manfred who are well aware of what went on, and are not married to any idea about preserving a myth about Susan and Willie.
Reuben and Manfred were treated very badly.
They got Willie where he was, and as soon as he got things going, he dumped them, just like he dumped Susan when he didn&# ;t need her father&# ;s money anymore.
There is a pattern here, whether a pleasant revelation or to the contrary.
So you think this man was a good man?
He leaves a wake of tragedy and broken lives behind him.
So you can be the first to know these things before Doc&# ;s book comes out and then everyone will know&# ;or not.
I think your fans are very defensive about knowing the truth, and I # ;m not sure why that is.
And one more thing&# ;I never had the impression that Willie was a womanizer&# ;there was always much speculation about whether he and Susan even had sex.
Of course how many heroin addicts can you name who care about sex?
Willie used women who had something he needed.
I don&# ;t think the man was capable of loving anyone&# ;.he certainly didn&# ;t love or respect himself, so how could he love or respect anyone else?
My impression was that he could take it or leave it.
Robbie said they were like brother and sister, draw your own conclusion.
Comments are now closed.
I might open them at a later stage.
I am not deleting anything, but I certainly do not need people who flood this thread with speculations which deliberately cross the line.
I am leaving Carol&# ;s comments here so that you can assess for yourself what kind of a needy and attention-seeking person such a flooder must be.
EDIT: Sorry to the others who enjoyed this thread.
You may thank Carol Leigh, who even lowers herself to speculating about other people&# ;s sexual activities.
How low can one sink.
She gave you her email address in a previous post.
It&# ;s very easy to google and find out her real name.
See also the beginning of this blog post for an explanation why I closed this thread.
EDIT: Ha ha ha!
One of you readers was so kind to point out to me that Doc Pomus &# ; who according to Carol Leigh is writing a biography and gathering historical data, after which everything will come out &# ; died in .