Myra Gale Brown

Myra Gale Brown (born July 11, 1944) is an American author. She is best known for her marriage to rock 'n' roll musician Jerry Lee Lewis who is her second cousin.

Life and Career

Brown was born on July 11, 1944 in Winnsboro, Louisiana, the daughter of Lois and Jay "J.W." Brown. In 1949, the family moved to Memphis when Jay Brown took a job with Memphis Gas, Light and Water, where he worked as a lineman. He later played electric bass and piano in a band with his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis. Brown has a younger brother, Rusty Brown (b. 1954).

Brown married Lewis in Hernando, Mississippi on December 12, 1957, at the age of 13. When Lewis arrived in London for a 37-date tour, Brown revealed to curious journalists that she was his wife. Lewis asserted that Brown was 15 years old and was his wife of two months; however, it was discovered that she was only 13, and that they had been married for nearly five months. This caused an uproar and after a few dates, the tour was cancelled. By the time they returned to Memphis, it had been discovered that Brown was the daughter of Lewis' cousin and bass player, J.W. Brown. In addition, Lewis had not yet divorced his previous wife, Jane Mitcham. After Lewis finalized his divorce from Mitcham, he remarried Brown on June 4, 1958. The scandal over the marriage destroyed Lewis' promising rock career, but strengthened their marriage. Lewis eventually found success in country music.

In 1970, Brown filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery and abuse; charging that she had been "subject to every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable." Their divorce was finalized on December 9, 1970. The couple had two children, Steve Allen Lewis (1959–1962) who drowned at age three, and daughter Phoebe Allen Lewis (b. 1963) who later became her father's manager and lived at his ranch in Nesbit, Mississippi until he married Judith Brown, the ex-wife of Brown's brother Rusty Brown, in 2012.

After her divorce, Brown was briefly married to the detective she had hired to trail Lewis and document his infidelities.

Together with Murray Silver, Brown wrote a biography of Lewis, Great Balls of Fire: The Uncensored Story of Jerry Lee Lewis. This book was originally released in October 1982 by William Morrow & Company. The book inspired the 1989 film Great Balls of Fire!, starring Dennis Quaid as Lewis and Winona Ryder as Brown. Brown wasn't satisfied with the book or the film, so she released her memoir, The Spark That Survived, with details of her tumultuous marriage to Lewis and the life after him.

Brown remarried in 1984, and is now known as Myra Williams. She resides in Duluth, Georgia with her husband Richard Williams. She is currently a real estate agent in Atlanta, Georgia.

Books

• 1982: Great Balls of Fire: The Uncensored Story of Jerry Lee Lewis (ISBN 9780688014803)
• 2016: The Spark That Survived (ISBN 9781944193164)