You may not know the name Allee Willis but it’s almost impossible to imagine you don’t know her work. She would have been successful if her resume only included the songs she wrote or co-wrote songs for artists like Bonnie Raitt, Patti Labelle, Cyndi Lauper and the Pet Shop Boys, including hits with The Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance” and Earth Wind & Fire’s “Boogie Wonderland; she also co-wrote the musical “The Color Purple.”
But Willis co-wrote Earth Wind & Fire’s party staple “September” and The Rembrandt’s “I’ll Be There for You,” which has been heard by anyone who has watched “Friends,” which is practically everyone. So her music will probably live for eternity.
And now, so will Willis’ life and times, in a new documentary, “The World According to Allee Willis.” The documentary captures her songwriting and her other skills as a multimedia artist and designer, with an inimitable visual flair.
This remarkable, inspiring and hugely entertaining documentary relies heavily on hours and hours that Willis recorded over the decades, to orchestrate a film of her life to be made after her death. (She died at 72 in 2019.)
It features her endless collection of kitsch and art, her equally impressive collection of friends and admirers (many of whom attended her house parties, which were long famous in Los Angeles), and her inimitable personal style — “Paul Feig said she never wasted an opportunity to tell people who she was in terms of every accessory,” says documentary director Alexis Manya Spraic. It also explores everything she overcame along the way, from her father’s dislike of her love for Black culture to the music industry’s patriarchy to her struggles with acknowledging her sexual identity.
Spraic and Willis’ longtime partner Prudence Fenton (who is also an executive producer) spoke recently by video about Willis and trying to capture her on film. The film arrived in theaters on Nov. 15 and begins streaming Nov. 22. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. Allie had plotted out how she wanted her story told but Alexis how did you end up as the director?
Spraic: I was friends with Paul Reubens and he introduced me to Prudence. He was looking for someone to fulfill this wish Allie had that everything that she’d left behind be put together into a documentary.
Eventually, the conversation came to Allie and I didn’t recognize the name. So I Googled her and, I’m a fourth-generation Angeleno, so the second I saw her. I knew her – she was this figure in LA everyone knew about and I knew about her house.
Prudence and I got to know each other and I got to know Allie that way and I had some strong points of connection in what interests me in music and LA history and vintage and collecting and all the social and emotional stuff – her personal struggles and things like that. I am always looking for stories of outsiders and underdogs. And Allee was that even though she was also larger than life.
Great artists have a point of view. Without that point of view, you’re just sort of floating out there and it doesn’t matter how much talent you have or effort you put in. Allie had a really strong point of view about her from a very young age, which was amazing.
Fenton: When I saw Alexis’s film “Shadow Billionaire” and I realized I was watching a scene of a lawyer reading a contract and I was on the edge of my seat. I thought, “This woman knows how to tell a story.”
Spraic: “We started talking about what the film would look like. And it was daunting because of the amount of material in her archives and because there was so much expectation in terms of what Allie’s vision was.
Q. What do you imagine Allee would think of the film?
Spraic: She left behind 20 hours of footage so while I’m sure I left out things she loved – we left out things we love too – I think she’d be happy with what’s there.
Fenton: The outline of the documentary Allee left would have ended up being a big puff piece. She would’ve found it hard to put in actual conflict. Often with people who make documentaries while they’re still alive, it doesn’t quite reveal really who they are.
Q. Prudence, you shepherded this film to life and are on camera. What was that like for you emotionally?
Fenton: It was cathartic and kind of healing. I was curious to learn about things she didn’t want to disclose even in her later life.
I do feel like I know her better now. In some ways, I still think, “Why were you holding that back?” I know why but maybe she’d have been emotionally more comfortable if she had fessed up. I was not comfortable with it all but I think you don’t get anywhere if you’re too comfortable, if you just strive for comfort, it’s going to be boring.
Q. How did you balance the story of this woman with incredible zest for life, who’s endlessly colorful, inventive and creative, with the more serious side of her struggles with her father and her sexual identity and her career?
Spraic: When you start a documentary you’re drawing a map to a place you’ve never been so you have to be really adaptable and flexible. The big question mark for me was, “What is the conflict?”
It wasn’t immediately apparent what we ended up really unearthing in the archives. Allie was this beacon of individuality and self-expression and wanted to inspire people. And she was incredibly positive. We interviewed a lot of her friends who only really saw that side of her. I think that’s partly why she wanted the documentary to be completed after she passed away and by a third party – she hadn’t figured out how to bring in that other part of it. And she knew it was an important part of making people feel seen; the kind of people that she wanted to activate their own creativity and their own sense of individuality, needed to know that it was a struggle for her to accept herself even if she made it look easy.
Q. Did she finally understand and appreciate everything she’d accomplished?
Fenton: In the last couple of years, yes, she started to. When she got into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame things really started to change and she realized in a way who she was and what she was here to do. I often think that artists get plucked off the planet once they realize that; it’s like, “You found it, now you can move on.”
Q. When the movie ended ,my son immediately wanted to go work on something creative.
Spraic: So many of the points of reference with Ali are for people who are a lot older, but I feel like she’s such a Gen Z icon. I get more excited about hearing people in their 20s liked it than anything. One of the things the film does is it gives them permission to go do what blows their dress up.
Related Articles
Real Housewives of Orange County: Friend-zone celebration
‘Parks and Recreation’ was Jim O’Heir’s dream job. So he wrote a book about it.
Sharon Horgan says ‘Bad Sisters’ ending was ‘perfect.’ Here’s why it came back.
Real Housewives of Orange County reunion: Constipation consternation
Jason Alexander shares journey from Broadway to ‘Seinfeld’ to ‘Fiddler on the Roof’