Looking back on her life, Myra Williams married her second cousin, singer Jerry Lee Lewis, in 1957, when she was just 13 years old. She has been through good times and bad times with her and has two children. Influenced her Lewis career and her legacy – sometimes she wonders if it was all her dream.
“But it happened,” the 78-year-old author and former realtor told The Times over the phone from his Atlanta home the day after Lewis’ death.
All the “huge” affairs were married at 13 and married at 13. 14 year old mother. Lost her first child when she was 17 years old. She gave birth to her second child at the age of 19.
“Yes, being a wife and mother as a teenager was turbulent,” Williams said. There is very little that can knock me off the block with.”
Hours after Lewis died at the age of 87, obituaries of rock legends flooded the internet, each one of which raised Lewis’ star a year later when his marriage to Williams was made public during a tour of the UK. It featured a transitional paragraph pointing out that it fell as quickly as it did. His debut album, which featured the smash hit “Great Balls of Fire,” soared to his No. 2 spot on Pop’s charts.
“I was doing bad things in his life,” Williams said, explaining how people viewed her. You know, you were judged for everything you did back then.”
And the judgment was swift and fierce. The radio station stopped playing Lewis’ music. His label, Sun Records, stopped promoting him and the offer to play evaporated. Williams said it was tough for a young girl to carry, adding that her misconceptions that haunted her at the time were still true today.
“I was called a child bride, but I was an adult and Jerry was a child. It means that there is no good excuse for
Williams said she nevertheless took on all the responsibilities that came with her new role.
She bought the couple’s house while Lewis was out, and also bought the car that Lewis wanted. He told her to find her red Cadillac her convertible, Williams recalled, and she did.
“I mean, I didn’t even have a driver’s license,” she said. “I did all the work, made all the decisions, took care of all the operations and business, etc.”
Williams even controlled finances, she said.
“One time I took a large sum of money to deposit in the bank…and the teller told me, ‘Myra, a policeman was sitting outside his car and he I’ve followed you here. So when you’re ready to leave, I’ll take you home,” she said.
The Cadillac was parked in the bank’s parking lot that day.
Williams said drugs had irreparably damaged her marriage. Before Lewis started using drugs, she said he was silly, playful, and kind. Couples played goofy pranks like having pillow fights, joking, and grabbing doorknobs from opposite sides of doors to stop each other from breaking in. When drugs became a permanent fixture , Lewis has changed.
“His character became mean. And nasty. He was like a different person. Just bad, you know?” she said.
Williams and Lewis divorced in 1970, with Williams suing for adultery and abuse. But they stayed in touch over the years because of the bond they shared through her daughter, Phoebe Allen-Lewis. drowned when
Williams then married briefly — an 18-month romance she described as “absolute fiasco and stupidity”. She has been married to her current husband, Richard Williams, for 39 years. The couple own a real estate company in Atlanta, but are retired from day-to-day business.
“We just flop around. We don’t have to do anything. ‘We just live a really simple life of sleeping late and watching ‘I Love Lucy.'”
Williams did her best to hold back tears when talking about Lewis’ death. Her Lewis’ death came weeks after the death of her father, JW Her Brown, a musician in her own right and her Lewis’ cousin. Williams said it was Brown who went to Natchez, Mississippi, where Lewis lived as an unknown musician, and took him to Memphis, Tennessee to record with Sam Phillips at Sun Records. invited to live in his house with his family. This is how Lewis and Williams fell in love.
“He got a gun,” Williams said when Brown heard that the young couple had eloped. “It wasn’t a happy moment. Dad felt very betrayed by it. I was his 13-year-old girl.”
Brown chased Lewis, but Lewis was gone.
“As soon as my dad left the house, my mom called Sam Phillips and said, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe what happened, Sam,'” Williams said. Myra got married and Jay [J.W.] has his pistol He’s on his way to Sun Records. You better get Jerry out of there.”
Phillips “drives Jerry away” and tells him to get on the plane. He said, “I don’t care where you go. Just go,” Williams said.
Williams said Lewis was away for three to four days, during which time Phillips sat Brown down and did his best to calm him down.
“Sam Phillips was a real talker, if you ask me. He was able to convince you that what you were seeing wasn’t there,” Williams said.
Williams said that Brown has since come to accept the marriage.
“I didn’t have a choice. I mean, killing Jerry wasn’t an option. That was his first thought, but it wasn’t an option,” she said.
When Lewis returned, Brown shook his hand and said, “You better be nice to my daughter.”
Williams stopped talking to Lewis after he married Lewis’ former sister-in-law, Judith Brown, in 2012. She said Judith was her friend and part of her family. (Brown was Williams’ brother’s ex-wife.)
Williams doesn’t remember the last time she spoke to Lewis, but tried to reach out to him about two years ago. she couldn’t speak I hung up. ”
If Williams could give her 13-year-old self any advice, she said, she doesn’t know what it would be.
“Hopefully I’m not going to go back and change it,” she said. Then she stopped and thought for a moment and she started laughing. “Maybe a little tinkering. I’ll tweak it a lot. I’ll tweak it. I’ll be smarter.”
“But how smart are you at fourteen?” she asked. “You’re a stupid kid at that age. You’re not ready for it. You’re not ready for prime time.”