Jewel Thais-Williams, founder of Jewel’s Catch One, dies at 86

Jewel Thais-Williams, the founder of the pioneering Black lesbian and queer nightclub Jewel’s Catch One in Los Angeles, has died. She was 86.

Thais-Williams’ death on June 7 was confirmed by her sister, Carol Williams. No cause of death was immediately available.

For decades, the Mid-City nightclub — known to regulars as The Catch — was L.A.’s hallowed sanctuary for Black queer women, and a welcoming dance floor for trans, gay and musically adventurous revelers. Artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Madonna and Whitney Houston sashayed down Catch One’s winding halls, while the indomitable Thais-Williams fended off police harassment and led care programs during the height of the AIDS crisis.

The Catch was singularly important to the development of Black and queer nightlife in L.A., and belongs beside New York’s Paradise Garage and Chicago’s Warehouse in any account of the most important nightclubs in America.

“It was a community, it was family,” Thais-Williams told The Times in a 2018 interview. “To be honest myself, I was pretty much a loner too. I always had the fears of coming out, or my family finding out. I found myself there.”

Thais-Williams, born in Indiana in 1939, moved to San Diego with her family as a child. Her sister, Carol Williams, said “she was one of the most brilliant individuals I’ve ever met,” a gifted athlete and a history buff who graduated from UCLA. “She always had a sincere interest in what had happened, and how to contribute to making the world a better place.”

While her religious father did not accept her sexuality, even into adulthood, her mother and siblings were more supportive.

“She gave a sense of pride to everyone who was different from the norm. They felt good because she felt good in her own skin,” Carol Williams said.

Thais-Williams didn’t have ambitions to open a generationally important nightclub, just a more resilient business than her previous dress shop. However, her experience of being shunned as a Black woman by other local gay clubs bolstered her resolve to make the Catch, which opened in 1973, more welcoming for those left out of the scene in L.A.

“I didn’t come into this business with the idea of it becoming a community center,” she said in 1992. “It started before AIDS and the riots and all that. I got the first sense of the business being more than just a bar and having an obligation to the community years ago when Black gays were carded — requiring several pieces of ID — to get into white clubs. I went to bat for them, though I would love to have them come to my place every night.

“The idea is to have the freedom to go where you want to without being harassed. The predominantly male, white gay community has its set of prejudices. It’s better now, but it still exists.”

Jewel’s Catch One became a kind of West Coast Studio 54, with disco-era visionaries like Donna Summer, Chaka Khan, Sylvester, Rick James and Evelyn “Champagne” King performing to packed rooms. Celebrities like Sharon Stone and Whoopi Goldberg attended the parties, glad for wild nights out away from the paparazzi in Hollywood.

“People came from all over the world to party there. Europe, South America — they’d come straight from LAX and leave their bags at coat check,” Carol Williams said. “The club was universally known for its acceptance.”

Thais-Williams “opened the door for so many people,” said Nigl “14k,” the Catch’s manager, doorperson and limo driver for 27 years up until its sale in 2015. “A lot of people that felt not wanted in West Hollywood had nowhere to go. But people found out who she was and put word out. She was a great friend and a shrewd businessperson who allowed people to just be themselves.”

The club’s many rooms allowed for a range of nightlife — strip shows, card games and jazz piano sets alongside DJ and live band performances [along with Alcoholics Anonymous meetings]. The boisterous, accepting atmosphere for Black queer partiers contrasted with the constant surveillance, regulation and harassment outside of it.

“There was a restriction on same sex dancing, women couldn’t tend bar unless they owned it,” Thais-Williams said in 2018. “The police were arresting people for anything remotely homosexual. We had them coming in with guns pretending to be looking for someone in a white T-shirt just so they could walk around.”

“When she opened the club, African Americans couldn’t go past Wilshire Boulevard without being stopped and harassed,” Carol Williams said. “She wanted a club for gay individuals to feel safe and loved and adored just as they are. They didn’t have to do anything, just be themselves.”

A fire in 1985 claimed much of the venue’s top floor, closing it for two years. Thais-Williams suspected that gentrifiers had their eye on her building.

“It’s very important not to give up our institutions — places of business that have been around for years,” she said. “Having a business that people can see can offer them some incentive to do it for themselves. I’m determined to win, and if I do fail or move on, I want my business to go to Black people who have the same interest that I have to maintain an economic presence in this community.”

Thais-Williams’ AIDS activism was crucial during the bleakest eras of the disease, which ravaged queer communities of color. She co-founded the Minority AIDS Project and served on the board of the AIDS Project Los Angeles, which provided HIV/AIDS care, prevention programs and public policy initiatives.

“She was a surrogate mother for anybody with HIV who had been ostracized from their families,” Carol Williams said. “They knew that with her, they were taken care of.”

With her partner, Rue, Thais-Williams co-founded Rue’s House, one of the first dedicated housing facilities in the U.S. for women living with HIV. The facility later became a sober-living home. In 2001, Thais-Williams founded the Village Health Foundation, a healthcare and education organization focused on chronic diseases that affected the Black community.

Jewel Thais-Williams in 2015.

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

“Jewel is a true symbol of leadership within our community,” said Marquita Thomas, a Christopher Street West board member who selected Thais-Williams to lead the city’s Pride parade in 2018. “Her tireless efforts have positively affected the lives of countless LGBTQ minorities, [and her] dedication to bettering our community is truly inspiring.”

After decades in nightlife, facing dwindling crowds and high overhead for a huge venue, in 2015 Thais-Williams sold the venue to nightlife entrepreneur Mitch Edelson, who continues to host rock and dance nights in the club, now known as Catch One. (Edelson said the club is planning a memorial for Thais-Williams.)

“People in general don’t have appreciation anymore for their own institutions,” Thais-Williams told The Times in 2015. “All we want is something that’s shiny because our attention span is only going to last for one season and then you want to go somewhere else. The younger kids went to school and associated with both the straight people and non-Blacks, so they feel free to go to those spots. The whole gay scene as it relates to nightclubs has changed — a lot.”

After the sale, the importance of the club came into sharper focus. A 2018 Netflix documentary, “Jewel’s Catch One,” produced by Ava DuVernay’s company Array, highlighted The Catch’s impact on Los Angeles nightlife, and the broader music scene of the era. When Thais-Williams sold it, the Catch was the last Black-owned queer nightclub in the city.

In 2019, the square outside of Jewel’s Catch One was officially named for Thais-Williams.

“With Jewel’s Catch One, she built a home for young, black queer people who were often isolated and shut out at their own homes, and in doing so, changed the lives of so many” said then-City Council President Herb Wesson at the ceremony. “Jewel is more than deserving to be the first Black lesbian woman with a dedicated square in the city of Los Angeles for this and so many other reasons.”

L.A.’s queer nightlife scene is still reeling from the impact of the pandemic, broader economic forces and changing tastes among young queer audiences. Still, Thais-Williams’ vision and perseverance to create and sustain a home for her community will resonate for generations to come.

“Multiple generations of Black queer joy, safety, and community exist today because of Jewel Thais-Williams,” said Jasmyne Cannick, organizer of South L.A. Pride. “She didn’t just open doors — she held them open long enough for all of us to walk through, including this Gen-X Black lesbian. There’s a whole generation of younger Black queer folks out here in L.A. living their best life, not even realizing they’re walking through doors Jewel built from the ground up.”

“Long before Pride had corporate sponsors and hashtags, Jewel was out here creating space for us to gather, dance, organize, heal, and simply exist,” Cannick continued. “We owe her more than we could ever repay.”

Thais-Williams is survived by her wife and partner for 40 years, Rue, and siblings Carol Williams, Lula Washington and Kenneth Williams.

“She was an ear for those who needed to speak,” Carol Williams said. “And a voice for those who needed to be heard.”