FRESNO, CALIF. - Susan Montgomery Williams, a Fresno, Calif., woman with a talent for blowing enormous chewing gum bubbles, parlayed that skill and a keen understanding of the news media's enthusiasm for superlatives into eccentric international semi-celebrity.

Williams, 47, died Oct. 1 of an aneurism after suffering a stroke the week before, apparently unrelated to her hobby.

She painstakingly inflated her bubble gum abilities into appearances on the Johnny Carson and Jay Leno late-night television programs. Her talent won her travel for appearances on broadcasts in Spain, Germany, England and Japan.

Williams was born in National City, Calif., and as a child moved with her family to the San Joaquin Valley. She attended, but did not graduate from, Roosevelt High School, said her former husband, Joseph C. Williams Jr.

The talent she cultivated in high school proved more attractive to her than pursuing a diploma because it drew media attention around the world. Smithsonian Magazine featured Williams in its July 1990 edition on bubble gum, and included a photo of her blowing a 22-inch bubble, the record at the time, the magazine said.

Bonnie M. Becerra shared her mother's enthusiasm over her bubble gum success. "She was very famous," Becerra said. "She was known all around the world."

Williams cultivated recognition. Her "ChewsySuzy" Web site on myspace.com celebrates and explains her renown: "She learned that she could touch a bubble without popping it. Then she found she could begin a bubble by holding it with her fingers and holding it away from her nose and chin."

Failures were occasional and explosive, but Williams persevered.

A photo accompanying the Smithsonian article showed her blowing a record bubble and appeared next to a photo of Walter Diemer. He, an accountant with the Fleer Chewing Gum Co., had experimented with gum recipes to find one prone to bubble, says a brief history on the Victory Seeds Old Time Candy Store.

It wasn't the size of her bubbles that got Williams into trouble, but the sound explosions. She came to court first for gum-popping at a Smokey Robinson concert in Fresno and again, in 1990, when she was arrested for making the cracking sound in the hallway outside a murder trial.

Court Commissioner Michael J. Feinberg ordered her to serve 30 days in jail and pay a $150 fine. He granted two years' informal probation on the condition that she never snap or pop gum in the courthouse again.

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