Miss Mercy

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Miss Mercy aka "Mercy Fontenot" (real name: Judith Edra Peters, L.A. County, California, February 15, 1949) was a member of the GTO's.

Biography

She left home at age 16 and went to the freak scene of Haight-Ashbury. Despite their strong disapproval, she went ahead and filed for her own emancipation, becoming a ward of the court within a couple of weeks. Miss Mercy went to live with Miss Cynderella and Christine Frka in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, California. Some of their earliest neighbors included members of the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and even a young Charles Manson. Eventually, Miss Mercy and Pamela des Barres heard from peers that Los Angeles was the mecca for meeting entertainers and especially rock & roll musicians. In addition, Miss Pamela wanted to pursue her acting career in Hollywood, and in early 1969, they moved south, immersing themselves into the local scene. Then, one of Miss Pamela's childhood friends, Captain Beefheart, took the girls to a large castle-like compound in Laurel Canyon, where she became part of The Laurel Canyon Dance Company with Vito Paulekas and Carl Franzoni. There she became a member of the GTO's.

After the group's breakup she had an affair with blues guitarist Shuggie Otis, son of Johnny Otis.[1] They married and had a son named Lucky. Later the couple divorced and Miss Mercy battled with drug addictions for te next 15 to 20 years. She was remarried from 1991 until her divorce in 2000. Then she decided to quit all her self destructive habits and to this day works in a thrift shore in Hollywood. She attributed a chapter to Pamela des Barres' autobiographical book "I’m With The Band".

References

See also