What ever happened to Toots DeVille? (Did Heroin kill her?)

Willy DeVille died on August 6, 2009. He had contracted Hepatitis C and, beginning his treatment, doctors found he had pancreatic cancer. That was in June. R.I.P Willy DeVille.

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. Doing this research sounds like an interesting side project.

EDIT: Please be sure to read the comments too, as the opinions about Toots seem to be rather controversial.

Who was Toots DeVille?

„Willy DeVille was married in the late 1970s 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 (2007) Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus. New York: De Capo Press. p. 214 (Wikipedia)

In a 1996 interview with a Sheila Rene, Willy was asked:

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.

So little can be found out, it seems, about Toots DeVille! The first photograph of her I found in forum where she is debated as Amy Winehouse’s paragon: „Before Amy Winehouse, there was Toots DeVille„:

I used to road manage Mink DeVille in the late 70’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. Last edited by: LarryR, March 21, 2009 12:28 AM

An article from a Dutch fan page suggested that her real first name was Susan: „Willy [...] was accompanied by his wife „Toots“ (Susan) who was dressed like one of the Ronettes with a beehive hair-do and tight dress. “ It also included a picture where the couple can be seen, with Susan ‘Toots’ DeVille sporting her do:

This one is from a NY Times Punk rock piece:

This one is taken from a lovely gallery dubbed „Pre-Junk ‘B’-Girls“ by New York Junk, yet I doesn’t seem Toots was part of of the B-Girls:

The legend of her rather implacable character is either confirmed or reiterated in another blog post on The Belly of The Beast, which reminisces the Fast Lane Summer of 1980; the Fast Lane seems to have been a concert house:

The Fast Lane was a magical place and a magical time, inhabited by a denizen of characters with a capital C.

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 WW2 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.

And in the comments, radiogirlpnr adds:

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.

DrumBob toots the same horn (sorry for the pun:)

The truth is, I knew Willie was using hard drugs back in the 70’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 (1980/81) belong to Toots DeVille.

This scan of a magazine spread (couldn’t find out which mag) shows that Willy and Toots shared the tattoo:

EDIT Please take the time to read the comments below – they’ve got many useful links!