Inside Famed ‘Friends’ Theme Creator Allee Willis’ Wacky Pink Palace as It Becomes the Star of a New Documentary

A kaleidoscopic house was the home of composer and songwriter Allee Willis—the woman responsible for megahits like Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Boogie Nights” and the Friends theme tune, “I’ll Be There For You.” Willis’ life is laid bare in “The World According to Allee Willis.”

In her lifetime, Willis’ songs sold more than 60 million records, and she was the first to admit that the home was part of her creative process. The documentary reveals not only the Hall of Fame songwriter’s ups and downs but also many, many clips of the whimsical, pink, two-story house.

“I’m very much fed by what’s around me,” she says in a clip unearthed for the documentary. “Having this stuff does give me the strength to go, ‘I gotta be me.'”

It also features interviews with some of her closest friends, including Mark Cuban, Mark Mothersbaugh, Julie Brown, and Bruce Vilanch—all of whom spoke to producers from inside Willis’ sanctuary, which has been preserved almost exactly as it was when she died of an aortic aneurysm on Christmas Eve 2019.

Willis spent years chronicling her friends, her house and her parties on film long before selfies even became thing.

This both helped and complicated the job of director Alexis Manya Spraic, who said Willis “meticulously kept [but chaotically organized] archives—video archives that filled many terabytes of footage and physical archives that competed for space with her unmatchable kitsch collection in six different storage units and many ‘hidden’ storage units on her property camouflaged in her signature design style.”

“She could pick a house anywhere, but she picked the Valley,” says her friend, Van Nuys-born actress, singer, and comedian Julie Brown. “She loved the style of it, when it was built, and what happened there. That wasn’t how people picked out houses, but she did.”

Emmy Award-winning comedy writer Bruce Vilanch joked that “the standard joke was, ‘What’s the difference between syphilis and a condo in the Valley? Well, you can get rid of syphilis.'”

Once Willis got the keys to her very own wonderland, she set to work decorating and accessorizing it. It became a neverending obsession.

“She’s one of the few people I knew who created her own theme park, inside and out,” says prominent pop culture humorist and historian Charles Phoenix. “So you can’t just have a blank wall. If you’re going to put in a wall and a gate, it’s gotta be something special. A radio, a TV tube …”

“She’d curate every room in her house,” said Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, who created the original music for the film.

Of course a colorful home and personality would attract plenty of colorful friends. Willis’ home lived up to its origins and became a party palace, with people as diverse as Timothy Leary, Angeline, Tab Hunter, Leslie Ann Warren, Linda Ronstadt, Elvira, Cyndy Lauper, Lily Tomlin, Patti LaBelle, Katey Segal, and Joni Mitchell congregating there.

“I always had a music career, an art career, set designer, film and video, technology,” said Willis in a New York Times article. “The parties really became the only place I could combine everything.”

And while it may seem the Willis’ home was saturated in kitsch from the past, in many ways, she was ahead of her time. It’s how Mark Cuban ended up in her orbit. As early as 1992, Willis developed a social network, with Cuban joining as CEO in 1993.

“This was even before the internet,” laughs Cuban, who appreciated her imagination, creativity, and foresight and collaborated with her on a number of virtual show projects.

In 1997, she was also the first artist ever to address the U.S. House of Representatives on artists’ rights in cyberspace.

Willis was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018, she won a Grammy for Best Soundtrack for “Beverly Hills Cop” and was nominated for an Emmy for the “Friends” theme song. In 2019, her song “September” was inducted into the Library of Congress National Registry for Historic and Culturally Significant Recordings to become a permanent part of American history.

“Her house is kind of like Graceland, nothing’s ever been touched,” says Vilanch.

Two years ago, there were efforts to preserve the spectacular residence as a 21st-century museum that would support songwriters and multimedia artists from underprivileged communities.

It’s unclear if those plans are still underway and whether Willis’ home will remain a time capsule; but for now, the documentary serves that purpose.