Jane Wiedlin

According to Wiedlin, she was present "pretty much from the beginning"[6] of the Los Angeles punk scene. While attending college in the Los Angeles area for fashion design, she worked at a fashion-design house where she created song lyrics by scribbling ideas on clothing patterns. Under the moniker Jane Drano, she would later design punk-style clothing that she sold at Granny Takes a Trip, a store on Sunset Boulevard.[6] She became part of the scene that spawned bands such as X, the Germs and the Weirdos.[1]

Wiedlin and Belinda Carlisle formed the Go-Go's as a punk band called the Misfits in 1978, with Margot Olaverra on bass and Elissa Bello on drums.[7] The Go-Go's pop punk sound emerged when Charlotte Caffey joined on lead guitar and keyboards, and Gina Schock replaced Bello on drums. After a 1980 tour of England, the band added Kathy Valentine on bass. They signed with IRS Records in April 1981.

In 1981, Wiedlin and Terry Hall of Fun Boy Three and the Specials co-wrote "Our Lips Are Sealed".[8] The song peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at No. 20, where it remained until 1982.[9] Hall also recorded the song with Fun Boy Three, hitting No. 7 in the U.K.

Wiedlin remained part of the Go-Go's until October 1984 when she left to pursue a solo career. Her most successful single was 1988's "Rush Hour", which performed well in both the American and British charts. The song appeared on her second album, Fur.

After a series of reunions during the 1990s, Wiedlin, Carlisle, Caffey, Schock and Valentine reunited in 2000 to record God Bless the Go-Go's (originally titled Vision of Nowness), their first studio album in 17 years. The album's title and concept came from Wiedlin.[10]

In 2010, the Go-Go's announced their "Happily Ever After" farewell tour.[11] Although scheduled to begin in July, the tour was canceled because of ACL tears that Wiedlin had suffered in both knees after falling during a nighttime hike.[12] She recovered and the band rescheduled the tour for 2011, no longer billing it as a farewell tour and changing the name to "Ladies Gone Wild."

Wiedlin has released four solo albums: Jane Wiedlin in 1985, Fur in 1988, Tangled in 1990 and Kissproof World in 2000.[13] From 1995 to 1998, she was also a member of the band FroSTed, which released one album, Cold, in 1996. In 2017, Wiedlin teamed up with the American-born Italian multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Pietro Straccia to form a new psychedelic/pop/electronic duo called Elettrodomestico.[14] Their debut album, If You're a Boy or a Girl, was independently released on October 20, 2017.

Wiedlin's early acting credits include a brief appearance as an officer seen on a Starfleet Command video screen in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), an ill-fated singing telegram girl in Clue (1985), the White Fairy in Golan-Globus's Sleeping Beauty (1987) and as Joan of Arc in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989).[15] Of her 1980s acting career, Wiedlin has stated: "It turned out to be much harder than it looks, and as much as I enjoyed those experiences, I don't think I'm very good at it."[16]

In 2000, Wiedlin sang in Frasier episode "They're Playing Our Song". In 2001, she had a regular role in MTV's Spyder Games, portraying the "ex-rock chick who runs the local coffee house" where the characters hang out.[10]

In 2005, Wiedlin appeared as herself on the fourth season of VH1's The Surreal Life, in which she talked about her interest in BDSM.[17]

Wiedlin portrayed the bus station lady wearing a neck brace in Steve Balderson's 2005 surrealist crime drama film Firecracker, which Roger Ebert listed among the year's best films.[18] She worked twice more with director Balderson, in Stuck! (2009), an homage to film noir women in prison dramas,[19] and in the 2013 action film Culture Shock.

In 2011, Wieldin played Tess in the independent movie I Want to Get Married.[20][21] She portrayed a mathematics teacher in the 2016 horror film HoneyBee.

Wiedlin has also provided voices for characters in television and film animation, such as Bruce Wayne's girlfriend in an episode of The New Batman Adventures, Gwen on Mission Hill and Dusk of the Hex Girls, a recurring character in the Scooby-Doo franchise.[22]