Pearl Williams was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 entertainer.

Williams started out as a secretary, but quickly turned to playing the piano by ear and became an accomplished player. In 1938 she went to an audition for a singer as accompaniment. She was hired on the spot and that same night went on stage at the Famous Door on 52nd Street with Louis Prima

Louis Prima

Louis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...

's band. But it took 14 year and a heckler to make her find her calling. One night, in 1952, a heckler was consistently telling her to get off and that her jokes were horrible, and she said to him, "Oh Fuck off." The audience howled, and she quickly became a hit.

In 1961, she recorded her first album, A trip around the world is not a cruise. Known for her bawdy humor and aggressive manner, she released nine best-selling "party" records during her career, including:

• All the Way
• Bagels & Lox!
• She's Doin' What Comes Naturally!
• A Trip Around the World is Not a Cruise
• You'll Never Remember it, Write it Down!
• Battle of the Mothers! (with Belle Barth)
• Party Snatches – the Best of . . . (featured)

Williams is one of several female Jewish comedians (along with Belle Barth

Belle Barth

Belle Barth , née Annabelle Salzman, was a Jewish-American comedian who worked primarily during the 1950s and 1960s. She was known for her bawdy, irreverent humor.-Comedy career:...

, Patsy Abbott, Rusty Warren

Rusty Warren

-Early life:Warren was born Ilene Goldman in New York City and adopted six months later by a couple from Milton, Massachusetts. She studied piano at the New England Conservatory of Music and then taught there briefly after obtaining her degree...

 and Totie Fields

Totie Fields

Totie Fields was an American comedienne.-Life and career:Fields was born Sophie Feldman in Hartford, Connecticut. She started singing in Boston clubs while still in high school, taking the stage name of Totie Fields...

) who traced their "bawdy" performance style back to Sophie Tucker

Sophie Tucker

Sophie Tucker was a Russian/Ukrainian-born American singer and actress. Known for her stentorian delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertainers in America during the first half of the 20th century...

. The back cover of A Trip around The World is Not a Cruise repeats the anecdote that when they met, Tucker told Williams that "You're me at your age, only better." An echo of Tucker can be discerned when Williams says in her act, "I get broads come in here, they sit in front of me and they stare at me. Everything I do, they stare at me. Then they walk out saying, 'She's so dirrr-ty!' If they're so refined how come they understand what I'm saying?"

Williams performed for 18 years at the Place Pigalle in Miami, Florida

Miami, Florida

Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

, before retiring in 1984, commenting "I'm tired, I need a rest. After 46 years in show business, night after night, day after day, non-stop, I'm tired". She hung up her microphone for good in April of that year. She lived out her final years in North Miami Beach and Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

.

On September 18, 1991, aged 77, she died in her sleep from heart disease.

Posthumous

In 2007, she was proposed to be featured in the Off-Broadway production The J.A.P. Show: Jewish American Princesses of Comedy, which includes live standup routines by four female Jewish comics juxtaposed with the stories of legendary performers from the 1950s and 1960s, Betty Walker

Betty Walker

Betty Walker was a Jewish-American comic who performed primarily during the 1950s and 1960s. She was born Edith Seeman in Elizabeth, New Jersey to Latvian immigrants.-Life and career:...

, Belle Barth

Belle Barth

Belle Barth , née Annabelle Salzman, was a Jewish-American comedian who worked primarily during the 1950s and 1960s. She was known for her bawdy, irreverent humor.-Comedy career:...

, Totie Fields

Totie Fields

Totie Fields was an American comedienne.-Life and career:Fields was born Sophie Feldman in Hartford, Connecticut. She started singing in Boston clubs while still in high school, taking the stage name of Totie Fields...

, Jean Carroll

Jean Carroll

Jean Carroll was an American actress and comedienne during the 1950s and 1960s.Carroll was born as Celine Zeigman on January 7, 1911 in Paris, France She began her career as part of the comedy dance team Carroll and Howe, with her husband, vaudevillian Buddy Howe, who later became her manager...

and Williams.

Source

• Roberta Mock, Jewish Women on Stage, Film, and Television (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).