Victor Willis was born in 1 July 1951 in Texas. He grew up singing in a Baptist church run by his father. He performed in a high school band, the Ballads, which supported the Temptations. After leaving school he became a Broadway performer, and met his future wife, Phylicia Rashad (then Phylicia Ayers-Allen, who would later star on The Cosby Show), while starring in the musical The Wiz. The couple were married from 1978 to the early 80s. It was on Broadway that Willis was discovered by French musical producer and composer Jacques Morali and business partner Henri Belolo, who invited him to sing on an album they were making aimed at gay dancefloor crowds in the US. Morali had the idea of creating a disco group based on archetypal American stereotypes: “We have an idea,” they told their lawyer, as recounted in Mojo magazine in 1998, “to put together a very special group, very American and very happy.” Willis also wrote songs for another Morali group, Philadelphia disco act the Ritchie Family. After that “happy” record, 1977’s Village People, became a hit, Willis and Morali recruited the rest of the group’s characters - largely bit-part actors, models and dancers - from an ad stating: “Macho types wanted. Must have moustache.” They steadily established the band’s multi-costume look, including a leather daddy, construction worker and cowboy. Willis performed as a naval officer or policeman. With the lineup solidified, the band released the album Macho Man, which spawned a hit single of the same name and the enduring 1978 smash YMCA, which hit No 1 in 17 countries. “I liked the fact that it was so obviously gay, while everybody denied that fact,” Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant said of the song. “It became de-sexed. There was almost a conspiracy to not realise it was about having sex with men in the YMCA showers. It was too good a record to admit that. I thought it was outrageous!” Pet Shop Boys would go on to cover Village People’s 1979 hit Go West. That year, the Village People had another hit with In the Navy. The US navy allowed the band to use their craft to record the video in exchange for using the song in a recruitment campaign, until the navy realised what it might be inferring (“They’re signing up new seamen fast”) and changed their minds. Willis left the band in 1980 as they were preparing for a feature film, Can’t Stop the Music, which bombed critically and commercially. Morali and Belolo thought it was time for him to go it alone, although a solo album recorded in 1979 would remain unreleased until 2015. Willis returned to the group for the 1982 album Fox on the Box, but departed again the following year. Willis then retreated from public life and experienced longstanding substance abuse issues. In 1993, he was charged with raping and beating a woman and later acquitted. In 2005, he was arrested in California and found in possession of cocaine and a handgun. He pleaded no contest but failed to appear for sentencing and went on the run, even appearing on the TV programme America’s Most Wanted.