Willona Woods
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| Willona Woods | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Getting Up the Rent |
| Last appearance | The End of the Rainbow |
| Portrayed by | Ja'net DuBois |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Willie |
| Aliases | Willona Young |
| Species | Female |
| Gender | Female |
| Age | 29 (series beginning) 34 (series ending) |
| Date of birth | 1945 (confirmed in the series) |
| Date of death | Unknown (still alive as of 1979) |
| Occupation | buyer at a Boutique |
| Family | Penny Gordon Woods (adopted daughter) |
| Spouse(s) | David Young (divorced) |
Willona Woods is the supporting character on the television series Good Times. She was played by Ja'net Du Bois.
[edit] Foxy and independent
Willona is the next door neighbor and best friend of Florida Evans, Willona was born in 1945 in Jackson, Mississippi, but then moved to Chicago, Illinois. She and Florida met when they were both kids in Mississippi. Willona works at a clothing boutique and is often defined as independent and single. Having been divorced, and on her own since the age of sixteen, she has seen the tough side of life.
She is very exuberant and has a tendency to gossip about almost everyone (James Evans, Sr. would refer to Willona as "The Rona Barrett of the projects"). After Florida's first husband, James Evans, Sr., died in a car crash, Willona helped out as much as she could; mainly offering moral support to her friend, and did even more after Florida married a man named Carl Dixon, and moved with him to Arizona for his health. Willona then became the surrogate mother for the Evans siblings (also effectively making her the main the main character of the show), J.J. Evans; Thelma Evans and Michael, and also took in a young girl named Millicent "Penny" Gordon. Penny had been violently abused by her biological mother, and after she abandoned her, Willona adopted her. Like Penny, Willona grew up in a single parent household, so she knew what it was like. Although unlike Penny, Willona's mother wasn't abusive toward her.
With Penny coming into her life, Willona, once the show's spitfire, settled down to become a stable influence for her. Although she still had a sharp sense of humor, shown most often when she clashed with the building's superintendent Nathan Bookman and the Alderman Fred C. Davis, who had a frequent tendency to (seemingly on purpose) mispronounce Willona's name, calling her Winifrieda, Winifred, Willa, Wyomia, Winsomnium, Wilma, and Wilhelmina among many others. When the show ended, Willona and Penny moved into the same luxury apartment building that Florida, Thelma, and her husband Keith Anderson, were moving into, in a nice part of Chicago, and she was made head buyer at the boutique.
