Myra Lewis Williams

Biography

Myra Gale Lewis Williams (née Brown; born July 11, 1944) is an American author, best known for her controversial marriage at the age of 13 to then 22-year-old rock and roll musician Jerry Lee Lewis, who was her first cousin once removed and still legally married to his second wife. They had a son, Steve Allen Lewis (named after the talk show host), and a daughter, Phoebe Allen Lewis. Their son Steve died from drowning in a swimming pool at the age of 3. She divorced Jerry Lee by the time she was 26 in 1970. She hired writer Murray Silver to co-write a book that was meant to be her autobiography, but after a publisher's editing it became Great Balls of Fire: The Uncensored Story of Jerry Lee Lewis, and was originally released in October 1982 by William Morrow and Company. It was adapted into the 1989 film Great Balls of Fire!, starring Dennis Quaid as Lewis and Winona Ryder as Brown. She was paid $100,000 for her story, but was resentful that she was not consulted for the script or casting of the film despite being promised. The producers did not want Brown or Lewis involved with the film, but she visited the Memphis set anyway. Although she found the actors to be talented and friendly, she was not satisfied with the book or the film. She had wanted to tell the story of a woman surviving difficult circumstances and inspire women to understand their own strengths, so in 2016 she published her memoir, The Spark That Survived, which details her tumultuous marriage to Lewis and her life after their divorce.