Allee Willis - Overview

Overview

In 1995 Willis was nominated for an Emmy for her #1 hit, "I'll Be There for You", the theme from Friends, one of the best selling television themes of all time. In 1985 she won a Grammy for Best Soundtrack for Beverly Hills Cop. Her songs have sold over 50,000,000 records, including "September" and "Boogie Wonderland" by Earth, Wind & Fire, "Neutron Dance" by the Pointer Sisters, "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" by Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield, and "Lead Me On" by Maxine Nightingale. Willis has collaborated with hundreds of leading artists and composers from all fields of music, including Bob Dylan, James Brown, Herbie Hancock, Deniece Williams and Motown legend Lamont Dozier. She co-authored the Broadway musical version of The Color Purple, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Alice Walker and film by Steven Spielberg, which opened on Broadway at the Broadway Theater on December 1, 2005, and continues on national tour.

In September, 2009, Willis opened The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch, a virtual museum and social network at AWMoK.com built around Willis' world renowned collection as well as user submissions that Willis curates.

Willis is also an accomplished artist and designer, selling thousands of paintings, sculptures, ceramics and furniture designs, many with her alter-ego, Bubbles the artist. From 1986-1990 she contributed to certain elements to Pee-wee's Playhouse. In 1999, Bubbles and Willis collaborated with Lily Tomlin to build lilytomlin.com, a non-linear exploration of Tomlin's Tony-winning show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Willis and Bubbles video, "It's a Woman Thang" was named an Official Honoree in the viral category of the 2008 Webby Awards. As early as 1992, Willis was one of the first pop artists to have a presence in cyberspace, developing willisville, a prototype for a visual collaborative social network and story-driven online world that linked to all traditional pop media and mobile devices. Willis also consulted for various technology and entertainment companies throughout the 1990s including America Online, Microsoft, Silicon Graphics, Fox, Warner Bros., Disney and Intel, who also funded the partial development of willisville. In 1997, she addressed the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property regarding artist rights in cyberspace.