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Eyvonne Williams Born (Phyllis Yvonne Williams) in Oakland, California’s inner city, Eyvonne discovered the best free entertainment her parents could offer was the Public Library where books and music captured her imagination. Then movies thrust her into the fantastic world of story and song from which she has never returned.
At California State University, Hayward she fell in love with classical music and literature, then at the University of California, Berkeley she acquired a B.A. in Dramatic Art.
After graduation Eyvonne took off to Haiti as a volunteer during Papa Doc’s brutal dictatorship. Leper camps and abandoned children pierced her heart and provoked her to write. Bob Hope’s USO sent her to Vietnam during the last stages of the war to sing for US troops. World Vision took her to the Philippines right before martial law was declared, and then to Cambodia, where she escaped only days before the Khmer Rouge overran the country. Trying to play it safe, she accepted a role with a San Francisco Shakespearean company and toured the U.S. From there Eyvonne headed for Los Angeles to work in Hollywood’s entertainment business.
Under the professional name of Phyllis St James she wrote chart songs for various recording artists while working as a studio singer, vocal arranger/contractor, producer, actor, and concert performer. With Andrae Crouch she toured the US, recorded several Grammy award-winning albums, and performed with ‘gospel legends’ at the first Gospel Festival at Solomon's Pool in Jerusalem. Signed with Famous Music Publishing and Motown Records she wrote, recorded and released her first album. Another composition “So Primitive,” recorded by the exiled South African artist Letta Mbulu, was released in England and South Africa. She performed the South African national anthem in a celebrity choir honoring Nelson Mandela, greeted, and shook hands with the soon to be leader of that nation. A great honor.
In the course of recording four independent CDs, she has appeared on numerous television shows as an actor and singer; has sung on scores of film soundtracks, television movies, title themes of TV series, and commercial jingles with a substantial discography of Albums, CDs, and Soundtracks. Eyvonne was nominated for best supporting actress by the NAACP Theater Awards in “Achieving the Dream,” starring the late Yolanda King (eldest daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr).
After years in the industry, Eyvonne returned to academic life at California State University, Northridge to earn a Masters degree in Mass Communication (Screenwriting) her long time dream. She received the prestigious Abraham L. Polonsky Graduate Critical Writing Scholarship and graduated with Distinction. She hones her craft in Robert McKee seminars and as a member of Women In Film writers’ workshops. Since then she has completed a Writing Fellowship sponsored by Drs. Bill & Camille Cosby, and has placed in the Page International Screenwriting Competitions for three years as a Quarter and Semi finalists. |
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