"Oh, Wendy O.!"

Jeff Cohen was getting exasperated. As Playboy's Managing Photo Editor, he'd trained himself to keep an eye peeled (and a lens polished) for all things sexual, sensuous and exotic. And Wendy O. Williams seemed to fit the bill. Formerly of the group The Plasmatics, now a soloist who has been alternately called "the high priestess of metal," "the dominatrix of the decibels," "the Evel Knievelette of shock rock," Wendy was flattered when Cohen brought up the subject of posing for Playboy but not too interested. Maybe I should appeal to her musical sense, thought Cohen. After all, she's a rock star. She's even been nominated for a Grammy. So he suggested that she do a special shooting for Playboy's Girls of Rock 'n' Roll pictorial (January 1985). Again, Wendy felt honored; but, again, she declined. So Cohen gave it one last try: "All right," he said to Wendy. "If you do a pictorial for us, we'll make sure that we have you doing something truly outrageous. How's that?"

Now, you've gotta be careful when you say "outrageous" to Wendy O. Williams. See, she's the one who sledge-hammers her equipment on stage. She's the one who drove an exploding school bus through two walls of television sets. She has tangled with female pro wrestlers (pre-Cyndi Lauper), bailed out of a souped-up Caddy seconds before it plowed through a stage and into the Hudson River and even blown up a car on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show. A Milwaukee cop once called her "an incarnate of the Devil." And Jeff Cohen is pitching outrageous to her?

Ten hours later, Williams called Cohen. "I'd love (text continued on page 178)Wendy O.(continued from page 70) to do a pictorial," she said cheerfully. "I have lists of things I've always wanted to do, so I'll give you number one: I'm gonna walk on the wing of a plane. At 400 feet. Naked." Those within earshot of Cohen later testified that his only response was a slightly muffled gulp.

Wendy O. Williams, by her own admission, has always been a little off the wall. Although her first gig (at the age of six) was winning a tap-dancing contest that landed her on the Howdy Doody talent show, there was still something ... well ... weird about her. "When I was a little kid, I liked to smash things," she says as a way of explaining her destruction fetish--a fetish that once included a "world tour of blowing up cars in choice cities." Nowadays, that obsession, like Wendy, has grown into womanhood: "Smashing expensive things makes me come."

The rockin' road to stardom hasn't been an easy one for Wendy. In fact, it's been eight years of blood, sweat and gas-powered chain saws. She went through 14 musicians with The Plasmatics ("I go through musicians the way I go through cars") to get to the "speed metal" sound of her new three-piece band. But it's been worth it: Her new LP, Kommander of Kaos, on which there's a cut called Work That Muscle, Fuck That Booty, has been highly applauded by Britain's Kerrang! magazine.

So this is the lady who wanted to walk on a wing--without a net, without a harness, without insurance and without a care. The locale, it was decided, would be the jagged western coast line of Mexico, due south of Manzanillo. Why complicate an already treacherous stunt by doing it over rocky cliffs? "Simple," replied Wendy. "It was the most dangerous spot we could find."

The aircraft--a World War Two Stearman biplane--took off at dawn. At the helm was Chuck Wentworth, known to be one of the best stunt pilots in Hollywood. And flying shotgun was Wendy O. Williams. As it turned out, she wasn't entirely naked. Her manager, Rod Swenson, insisted that she wear a parachute (though at the low altitude of 400 feet, a parachute would have been less than effective). So in return, Wendy demanded one other bit of legendary apparel: her trademark, leather chaps.

There was little conversation on the ride up, for a couple of reasons, really. First, not everyone was sure this was such a smart idea. "I think we underestimated the feat," Swenson would later say. "It was almost a suicide mission--like Fitzcarraldo pushing the boat over the mountain." Swenson, who produced the actual shoot, wasn't exaggerating. Wendy had had no real training. Sure, she'd taken an ... er ... crash course at Skydive Deland, a training school in Florida. "But this was something you couldn't really rehearse," said Swenson. "And, well, only a handful of pros had ever attempted a wing walk, and they were men. Strong men."

The lack of chatter in the cockpit could also have been due to the adrenal rush Wendy was experiencing. "I'm an adrenaline freak," she confesses with an almost junkie-esque pride (though she'll sternly add that she never does drugs). "But before I perform a stunt, I can't talk. I can't eat. I can't do anything. I'm nuts--I'm outa my mind."

So here's the rundown: We're at 400 feet. A half-naked rock star sits in the cockpit of an antique biplane, looking out over the Mexican coast line. She glances across to the photographers' plane several hundred feet away and sees the man behind the camera wave his hand--a simple gesture that performers of Wendy's caliber recognize as one thing only: a cue. Zero hour. Time to move. Luckily for us, Wendy is pretty professional in this department, too: "I don't hesitate. Before a concert, I'll appear calm and quiet, and then, suddenly, I'll explode."

So she stepped out onto the wing. The first thing she noticed was the wind. Given the altitude, the speed of the plane and the highly dangerous "prop draft," Wendy found herself somewhat overwhelmed: "You can't compare that wind to anything. It was stronger than, say, if you were lying--no, standing--on the roof of a car going 80 miles per hour. I was vibrating."

She then started to make her way across. "You can't step right onto the wing of a plane," she explains in an oh-so-pro manner, "or you'd go right through. So I had to walk along its reinforced edges, holding on to the struts and anything else I could get my hands on. If I had let go, I would've been whipped right off. I felt my toes grabbing the wing right through my sneakers." (Which reminds us: No special stunt shoes for Wendy--just plain ol' Reeboks.) "The only thing that pulled me across that wing was fucking desire. I was an animal working on instinct. My mind was out the window."

Then, suddenly, while her somewhat nervous photographers clicked away, Wendy began to enjoy herself. Intensely. "Being dragged around with the wind beating on me was one of the most sensuous feelings in the world--a real rush. See, I've got a real tight body," she continued--as if she really believes she needs to explain her sexiness--"so the wind wasn't painful. In fact, it was a real turn-on. It's sorta like fucking: You can tell people about fucking, but they won't understand till they actually do it."

Well, she brought it up. So we asked the question that had occurred to us when we first saw the shots: "How turned on were you, Wendy? Did you want to jump your boyfriend the minute you touched down?"

Her answer was typical Wendy O.: With a bit of a smirk, she cracked: "You mean, did it make me horny? I'm always horny."

Eventually, it was time for the grand finale--a 12,000-foot free fall--and it actually took a bit of hollering, we later learned, to get Wendy up and ready for it. There she was, perched on the edge, oblivious to everything but the onrushing horizon. "It was gorgeous up there," she said. "The photographers were sweatin' and I was groovin'.

"I have dreams at night that I'm flying--that I step off a building or something, and I actually fly. So I wake up with this feeling that stays with me all day. I want everybody to get off on the pictures as much as I got off doing the stunt."

And then, with a shrug, she added, "It's great to get off."