The genius of Allee Willis was boundless, known for writing 600 songs, and selling 60 million records, and she didn’t even play piano! They include “September,” “Boogie Wonderland,” and more for Earth, Wind and Fire. She also wrote the theme song “I’ll Be There for You,” for the 90’s mega-hit “Friends” TV series, as well as the theme for Beverly Hills Cop, and the music for Broadway’s “The Color Purple.” Director Alexis Spraic went through 10,000 hours of videos friends and Allee took, starting shooting in 1978 until her death Christmas Eve 2019, leaving for others to make the documentary when she was gone.
Watch our interview with Director Alexis Spraic who told us how Pee Wee Herman brought her to the project and how she boiled down thousands of hours of video into Allee Willis’ fascinating autobiographical film.
This film is about someone you should already know, who made sure you’d know all about her after she died. She saved everything from videos, photos, diaries, and kitsch furniture in her Pink Streamline Moderne Party House in Los Angeles. Videos of her amazing parties show celebrity friends, including Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman), Patti LaBelle, Cyndi Lauper, Lesley Ann Warren, Bonnie Raitt, The Pointer Sisters, Lily Tomlin, and Mark Cuban.
The parties with friends were where she combined her many talents in art, set design, music and even technology. She invented the prototype for an internet social network and marketplace combining art, music, and technology. She collaborated on this with Mark Cuban on what was to be called “Willisville” and pitched it to a major tech company who tried to hire she and Fenton to do it. See more about it in the film.
I knew Allee. She was a few years ahead in school but we lived on the same floor in a dorm at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she would blast Motown to get everyone moving. Allee grew up in Detroit, going to Mumford High, a school that was half Jewish, half Black. She just loved Black Culture and Motown music. Close with her mother who died when Allee was in her teens, her father remarried immediately and their relationship took a dive. He wanted her to dress and act more feminine and stay away from Black culture. Fat Chance.
Despite her father’s constant nudging, Allee became her own person, a fairly unsuccessful performer at first, but lyrics and beats were rolling around in her head.
Allee denied being gay for most of her life, but found the perfect partner, Prudence Fenton, and were together for 27 years living together in her Pink Castle. Still stuffed with her memorabilia, friends and fans hope it will someday become a museum or school for songwriting. She collected 200 pairs of Saddle shoes, and wore thrift shop clothes mixing colors and wild patterns for her eclectic, expressive look.
Allee won Grammy’s and Emmy’s and was Tony nominated for The Color Purple, and was awarded the only female inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018. When she and Maurice White wrote “September,” she complained when he kept singing the lyric, “ba-dee-yah” until he told her “Who cares?” She said that was the greatest lesson in songwriting, teaching her to never let the lyric get in the way of the groove.
Director Alexis Spraic structures a fascinating documentary out of 10,000 hours of material to consolidate Allee’s bold, unvarnished personal tribute to herself as an imaginative, driven and talented art, music and tech genius, way ahead of her time.
Magnolia Pictures 1 Hour 37 Minutes Documentary
