Ava Williams papers, 1880-2004

Comedienne, songwriter, singer and pianist Ava Williams (aka Ava Lorraine) made her show business debut at the age of 19 in Sacramento, California, and soon moved on to Los Angeles and Hollywood. In 1939, Williams moved to New York City and began a thirty-year residence in East Coast cafes, nightclubs, hotels, and cocktail lounges. In 1962, she commenced an annual tour as the "Piano Lady" in Provincetown, Massachusetts, giving her final performance there in 1983.

Williams was born on March 4, 1912 in Pendleton, Oregon, to parents Joseph A. Williams and Laura Merritt Williams. Her brother, Dick, was born eighteen months later. The family moved to La Grande in 1916, and eventually owned both a barber shop and an adjacent restaurant. Ava Williams' early exposure to music came through her father's barber shop, the local church, and her mother's restaurant, where local vaudeville acts dined. She began vocal training at age 12. Williams attended high school in Enterprise, Oregon, where the family lived for one year, and graduated from La Grande High School in 1931. She married Jorge (George) Carlozzi in 1941 in the Panama Canal Zone, but returned to New York without him after a few months. The marriage later ended in divorce.

During her years on the East Coast, Ava Williams regularly returned to Portland in the summer months and performed there in order to spend more time with her parents. After her mother passed away in 1982, Williams gave up her apartment in New York City in 1984 and followed her forty-three boxes of music to Portland, where she lived until her own death on June 4, 2003.