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“It was uncanny. She said it 
in many places — in her diary, 
on tapes — she said it a lot. 
When I first met Allee in 1992, 
when she was 45, she said that 
she wanted her house to be a 
museum. ‘I want to leave a big 
legacy for people to see how 
it’s possible to live a happy life.’ 
She was always saying that.”
The legacy continues 
today through the Willis 
Wonderland Foundation that 
Fenton established two years 
ago to educate and advance 
songwriters and multimedia 
artists in underserved commu-
nities. 
And Willis’ Pepto-Bismol 
pink mid-century house in 
the San Fernando Valley in 
California has, indeed, become 
a museum. 
Designed in 1937 by noted 
architect William Kesling, 
Willis’ house is filled with one 
of the world’s largest collec-
tions of pop-culture memora-
bilia. It’s all-things kitsch, and 
audiences will be treated to an 
insider’s look at Willis’ collec-
tions as well as clips of some of 
Willis’ legendary house parties. 
Even Willis’ great friend, the 
late Paul Reubens (aka Pee-
wee Herman), affirmed in the 
documentary that Willis’ home 
was truly the unique, real-life 
Pee-wee Herman funhouse.
The 97-minute documenta-
ry, which started production 
in 2022, features interviews 
with 30 of Willis’ inner cir-
cle, including Detroiters 
Lily Tomlin, Paul Feig, Stan 
Zimmerman and Willis’ broth-
er and sister, Kent Willis and 
Marlen Frost. Jim Budman 
served as the archive videog-
rapher.
During COVID, Fenton 
contacted Primary Wave Music 
Publishing founder and CEO 
Lawrence Mestel, who owns 
Willis’ music-publishing cata-

log and life story rights, about 
jumpstarting the documentary.
“I said to him, “You know, 
we’re in COVID, everybody’s 
home alone. It’s a great time 
to be making a documentary 
because it’s very conducive to 
going through a lot of archive 
footage and editing,” said 
Fenton, who then brought on 
Alexis Manya Spraic as the 
director and editor. 
“I gave Alexis big, big 

terabytes of disk storage [of 
footage and home movies 
since 1978] and said, ‘Here 
you go,’” Fenton laughs. “
And 
Alexis would go through it and 
work with Sean Welch whom 
Allee had hired as an archivist. 
Sean became way more than 
an archivist and a do-any-
thing-guy for Allee. He really 
knows how to find Allee-filed 
stuff. He could jump into 
Allee’s mind and be able to 

find footage from different 
eras that Alexis asked for.
“
And Alexis kept finding 
more things to tweak and sub-
stitute with different footage. 
She just couldn’t stop making 
the documentary better. I 
wanted the goal for Alexis to 
present the story as if we were 
inside Allee’s brain and to 
understand how Allee thought. 
I wanted it more focused on 
Allee and the sort of things she 
had overcome. I felt like Alexis 
really depicted Allee as Allee 
would have liked,” Fenton 
added.

MICHIGAN MUSINGS 
For any Detroiter, The World 
According to Allee Willis is a 
veritable walk down memory 
lane. Willis is seen throughout 
the film sporting Mumford 
(where she graduated from in 
1965), Roots and Michigan 

ABOVE: Allee Willis poses 
in front of a mural of herself, 
painted by a fan. LEFT: 
Executive Producer Prudence 
Fenton and Southfield native 
Stan Zimmerman on the red 
carpet at SXSW Film & TV 
Festival March 11, 2024.

