The World According to Allee Willis

Allee: Six weeks ago, I'm sitting in my house

thinking no one knows me, no one knows who I am.

- Allee: When the phone rings. - (phone ringing)

Allee: It's a friend. He's just read

that the Russian government

singled me out as the most dangerous person

in the world.

Reporter: The Russians call her

the most dangerous woman in America.

This is the most dangerous woman in America.

Dangerous person.

Oh, my God. Well, we knew that to begin with,

but I'm glad she got the Pravda seal of approval.

The most dangerous person in the world.

- (indistinct chatter over TV) - Reporter 2: Allee Willis.

- (laughs) - She was very proud.

Attention was never bad.

Reubens: I'm sure Allee called up the LA Times

to get that article going.

Don't you think?

Why do they call you that?

I wrote a song called "Neutron Dance."

They mistranslated as "Neutron Bomb."

The song, "Neutron Dance," was really very much

about "You can change your life, it's in your hands."

Someone could push the button tomorrow

and we could all be up in smoke, so do not sit here

and complain, do something about your life.

- And... - (audience cheering)

- Yeah. - Now, see, there you go.

They just took that to mean, you know, "Blow up the world."

We kinda left it how she left it.

Smooch mark, which I look at that and I say,

"Well, she was saving that for something

because I end up seeing these in other places."

Her house is kind of like Graceland.

I mean, since her death, nothing's been touched.

There's all kinds of crazy stuff up along here

like for instance, the spitball gum catcher.

Sean: Allee Willis' shoes.

Cyndi Lauper. It's got to be Bob Dylan.

Random, old computer parts.

Feig: Warhol, at the end of each year,

he would just sweep everything off of his desk into a box.

And it seems like Allee did the same thing. (chuckles)

Just a little closet with just a couple things in it.

I thought it was crazy.

What is she going to do with this?

Out the corner of my eye, I saw this person

with these pants that looked like the dots

on the end of Wonder Bread.

Somebody else might look like a derelict,

but it worked for her.

I don't think people realized how she touched their lives.

She was ahead of her time.

The acknowledgement and validation,

it wasn't gonna come to her so quickly or easily

in this lifetime.

Allee: My feeling was

I'm not gonna be discovered artistically

until after I'm gone.

Reporter: Her name may not be familiar to you.

Her music certainly will be.

Reporter 2: She sold over 60 million records.

She's an Emmy, Tony and Grammy winner.

Reporter 3: She was an artist...

- Reporter 4: Art director... - Reporter 5: Set designer...

Reporter 6: She had an early presence on the internet.

Allee Willis.

My Andy Warhol of my scene, of my time.

She's damn near written half my memories.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

Allee Willis to the show.

- Yeah! - Yeah.

I'm the world's best kept secret.

- Yeah! - (host chuckles)

Andrae: She said, "I don't feel that these projects

will be completed while I'm alive,

so I want to do my best

to tell you all what to do." Basically. (laughs)

Allee: I all of a sudden became conscious

that someone actually would read this

and I really should be commenting to the person

reading this 'cause I've always known

that my final art piece would be someone putting together

the trail I've left behind.

Sean: These are the kinds of things

that we're digitizing.

My name is Allee Willis.

They have filmed my life since 1978.

They had video cameras in 1978?

Yes, they did.

I was the original reality show.

There's always filming here.

We're on the air.

Yeah! So, she trips out.

Hi, Hollywood.

What was interesting is this was done

before everybody was doing it.

Mark: Her life was a movie.

I only hired the finest in crew.

And she was always rewriting the script.

Host: Maybe it makes sense now

because you have everything.

Allee: This room is my computer. There's 1,000 terabytes here.

She would've loved to have been sitting

in that chair asking me about her.

Dream come true. No question.

I can practically hear her talking,

telling people who's directing it

and who's doing it and who's in it.

- (chuckles) - Oh, yeah.

All this is going on and Allee

is orchestrating all of this from above.

Clapper: A mark.

Allee, I am talking about you in your house.

Have you ever been happier?

You're gone. I'm in your house doing a documentary about you.

Ready to roll?

Stan: And you're probably discovering things

as you go along the way that she has given you

and this movie license to find out parts of her

that for whatever reason, didn't feel comfortable

or wasn't ready yet.

I think there was a lot going on in here that...

nobody knew about.

The camera's rolling?

I've been under a lot of pressure lately.

Pamela: Allee was an open book,

but everybody has an intensely private side.

That's it.

Put it on pause. Shut the camera.

I always knew that in the end, I wouldn't let myself down

and chicken out right before my death

and destroy everything.

I'm gonna shut you off.

She literally knew that this would be the process.

Allee: Ta-dum!

Friend: Allee, honest to God. Open up the light.

Allee: Wait a minute, you've never...

You don't know that this is here?

This is one of the greatest spaces in the house.

You're gonna die.

My very first songs through my first hits,

like, through the song I'm writing today.

Every sheet of paper, including background notes

and scratching things out. Coffee stain.

- Friend: How many songs? - Thousands.

Interviewer: Were you always such a success?

I actually started from scratch.

I started writing in 1972 in New York,

but I've moved to California because

if I'm gonna starve to death, I'm doing it in the sun.

Bruce: Anybody who wanted

to make it in the music business

had migrated out here.

And Allee lived in this terribly ratty apartment...

...on Hollywood Boulevard.

She already had beginnings of her collections.

A world that was Allee Willisville.

What we're here for today is to look

at my postcard collection.

Can you come in and...

Satellites, the whole shape is atomic.

There was an abandonment

of any kind of accepted rules to style.

Everyone took chances. That's what I like about it.

Everyone had guts and that's what I wanna be doing.

All my friends were songwriters,

my whole little clique,

we were basically just starving together.

I was getting food stamps.

Even when it's bleak, you do not feel

like a starving songwriter.

You're young, you're in this clique of people

trying to do the same thing.

We are here to document the album that hopefully

will build us house additions,

allow us to go to Tahiti on the weekends and...

Do you remember when you called me to tell me

that Daddy had had a mild heart attack?

- Kent: Right. - Allee: And he always asked me

how much money I had, and I would never tell him.

That day when he asked me, I told him, and I had 74 cents.

That was the last thing that he said to you.

And so, I totally took that to mean, you know...

I did cause the heart attack.

I certainly, you know, was the trigger.

She was fearless. Fearless 'cause she took

chances to do what she wanted.

Allee: My father only wanted me to be a teacher

and get married.

I remember very well when Allee was born. (chuckles)

There was a new, little princess in the house.

She couldn't wait for Daddy to come home

and dance around with her.

Allee: He had an incredible personality.

Especially when he was trying to impress you.

He lit up like a Christmas tree or a Hanukkah bush.

My mom was a teacher.