For former "America’s Got Talent" star, retired clown sensation and decorated community servant Dorothy Williams, being almost 95 is no excuse to not get things done.
She goes shopping with friends. She repaints her home every five years. She organizes the annual talent show at the Hilo Senior Center. She still drives, does yard work and solves word puzzles.
Williams, a resident of Hawaii since 1975 after falling in love with the island on her honeymoon a few years prior, believes there is never a reason to not do whatever you can to help others.
“No matter what befalls you in your lifetime,” said the 94-year-old matter-of-fact. “I have had a mastectomy, I have had two artificial knees, I had a slight stroke in June, and now they say I have high blood pressure. But I keep on doing what I like to do, which is try to help other people.”
Williams, who lost her husband in 1981 to a heart attack and did not remarry or have children, spent 40 years as the face behind the identity of Yummy the Clown, the singing, dancing, multilingual persona who would turn cartwheels and stand on her head to make a local child’s birthday party special.
From Japanese to Filipino to Portuguese to Hawaiian, there was scarcely a native tongue on the island that Yummy the Clown couldn’t speak. Williams learned six languages to sing "Happy Birthday" in so every child could be included.
Williams didn’t hang up the red nose until she was 89, but her journey as an entertainer was far from over.
At the Hilo Senior Center annual talent show in 2014, Williams decided to tap into her show business background and make a splash with a new sort of number for the senior center: strip-teasing.
“I remembered what all the striptease dancers did when I was in show business,” recalled Williams, who started her entertainment career as a tap, acrobatic and character dancer at 17. “And so it ended up that I won the talent show first prize of $100, but somebody put it on YouTube.”
Williams, who firmly told Ohana Times that she is no user of email, became an internet sensation, and one day received a phone call from the continental 48. It was "America’s Got Talent," and show's staff loved the striptease number.
At the time, Williams was 90.
“They said they wanted me to audition for 'America’s Got Talent,'” Williams said with a laugh, “and I said, ‘What for, comic relief?’”
With nothing to lose at 90, Williams performed on "America’s Got Talent."
Although she’s not under the spotlight as a performer or standing on her head as Yummy the Clown anymore, Williams continues to dedicate herself to the community of Hawaii that beckoned her out from her cold, snowy Chicago suburb back in 1975.
“I keep busy,” she said.
Williams has been volunteering in Hawaii, whether through the Senior Center, Meals on Wheels or being Yummy the Clown, for more 40 years, with no plans to stop. She was the recipient of the Exchange Club Golden Award in Hilo last year for her service. She plans to get the COVID-19 vaccine Feb. 9, and hopes to see the Senior Center re-open soon to get back to normal.
“I try to keep my mind and body busy because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re almost 95,” she said.