Jackie Fox

There is more to me than just having been in the Runaways. And even though I’m really, really proud of what the band accomplished, I just don’t want what I did when I was 17 to be the defining factor of my life.  — Jackie, after winning close to $88,000.00 on Jeopardy!

wiki:

Jacqueline Louise Fuchs (b. 12/20/59) is an American former musician. Under her stage name Jackie Fox, she played bass guitar for the pioneering all-girl teenage rock band The Runaways. She is the sister of screenwriter Carol Fuchs and sister-in-law of Castle Rock Entertainment co-founder Martin Shafer.

A Merit scholar, Fuchs had gained early admission to UCLA to study math when the opportunity to join the fledgling rock band The Runaways arose. Fuchs was “discovered” dancing at the Starwood by Rodney Bingenheimer (the self-proclaimed “mayor of the Sunset Strip”), who introduced her to producer/impressario Kim Fowley. Initially she auditioned for lead guitar, but the band hired Lita Ford. Some time later, she was called back to play bass; she accepted the offer, in 1975, shortly before her 16th birthday.

Fuchs played on the Runaways’ second studio album, Queens of Noise, but not on their 1976 debut album. According to multiple sources, including Cherie Currie’s memoir Neon Angel and the liner notes of the Raven Records release of The Runaways, Blondie bassist Nigel Harrison was hired to play bass on the first album due to Fowley’s refusal to let Fuchs play on the record, confirmed by Fuchs.

Fuchs’s final appearance with the Runaways was on their 1977 Live in Japan album. It was during the Japanese Tour on which that album was recorded that Fuchs decided to leave the band. According to Fuchs, in the 2005 documentary film Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways, she was distraught over the band members’ inability to get along with each other and called her close friend Randy Rhoads of the L.A. band Quiet Riot, who encouraged her to come home. Victory Tischler-Blue (AKA “Vicki Blue”) was quickly hired as her replacement.

Fuchs could still be seen on Flaming Schoolgirls (1980,) an outtakes compilation featuring songs recorded during the Queens of Noise recording sessions in 1976. She later appeared again on the compilation albums Neon Angels and The Best of the Runaways.

Fuchs played bass at the Runaways reunion in 1994 with Currie and West. Currie’s sister Marie also performed with the band that night. Fuchs denied permission for her name to be used in the 2010 feature film The Runaways. Instead, the producers created a fictional character, Robin (portrayed by actress Alia Shawkat,) as the band’s bassist in the film.

After her tenure with the Runaways, Fuchs worked in a variety of fields, most notably as a record promotions executive,a modeling agent, the promoter of Tony Robbins’s Firewalking seminars, and most recently an entertainment attorney in the motion picture and television business, representing actors, writers, directors, authors, and producers.

In a live rendition of the song “Suicide Machine” by punk rock band Germs, Darby Crash is heard saying he is looking for Jackie and that the song is dedicated to her.

Fuchs earned her B.A. summa cum laude from UCLA in linguistics and Italian, with a specialization in computing, and her J.D. from Harvard, where Barack Obama was one of her classmates. She has written a script called “Delilah’s Scissors” with Victory Tischler-Blue and appeared in Tischler-Blue’s 2005 documentary Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways. Fuchs has also written for the Huffington Post blog.

In July 2015, six months after Kim Fowley’s death, Fuchs alleged that Fowley raped her on New Year’s Eve 1975 at a party following a Runaways performance at an Orange County club. Sixteen years old at the time, Fuchs was reportedly given Quaaludes by a man she thought was a roadie and, while she was incapacitated, Fowley raped her in full view of a group of partygoers and her bandmates Currie, West, and Jett. Lita Ford was not present. Look Away, a documentary about sexual abuse in the rock music industry, features Fuchs’ story.  I looked for the documentary but was unable to find it.  

In 2015, Joan stated,

Anyone who truly knows me understands that if I was aware of a friend or bandmate being violated, I would not stand by while it happened. For a group of young teenagers thrust into ’70s rock stardom there were relationships that were bizarre, but I was not aware of this incident. Obviously Jackie’s story is extremely upsetting and although we haven’t spoken in decades, I wish her peace and healing.

Read more about Jackie’s win on Jeopardy here.

Official website: Jackie’s writing on her blog, but no new posts since 2017.

And looky here!