Allee Willis Blog » Hollywood

08Mar 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s Academy Award Screen Stars Stamp Album

08Mar 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1950’s Academy Award Screen Stars Stamp Album

Screen-Stars-Stamp-Album_6064

This is an amazing movie find, especially for a stamp collecting movie nut (which I’m not but I can appreciate the passion). Sixty pages of blank squares, each ascribed with the name of a 1920’s – 50’s star, from Academy Award winners to TV stars, “The Young Set”, International stars, World-Famous Women, Animal stars, Shootin’ stars (Western), Symphony stars, Singing stars, Comedians and every other category that Hollywood could possibly subdivide itself into.

The Screen Stars Photo Album was made in 1955 by the Harlich Manufacturing Co. of Chicago and approved by the National Poster Stamp Society with “All Rights to Screen Star Stamps and Stamp Albums fully protected by Hollywood Star Stamps, Inc. in cooperation with the Stars, Studios And Motion Picture Relief Fund, Inc.”.

07Mar 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1976 Do-It-Yourself Oscar

07Mar 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1976 Do-It-Yourself Oscar

Oscar-do-it-yourself_5779

This is a product worthy of an Oscar for Best Kitsch, a fake wood cardboard stand-up “plaque” that looks suspiciously like the piece of cardboard that comes with any cheap picture frame, stapled on, staples askew, emblazoned with a cheap gold embossed sticker with three imprints, none of which have anything to do with the Academy Awards other than a trophy atopped with a nude female athlete that kinda sorta is in that Oscar trophy pose.

All of this is encased in a really cheap brittle plastic enclosure that’s tinted gold to make it look more fancy. The writing on the package slays me. As if any idiot wouldn’t know to “INSCRIBE IN ALLOTED SPACE YOUR OWN GRAND AWARD WITH ANY BALLPOINT PEN”. How elegant! And how worthy of ALL CAPS!

These “Awards for those you Love and Admire” – I guess ALL THREE stickers are Oscar worthy despite the lack of tie-in – were made by Syd Art Novelty Company, Inc. of New York in 1976.

The Do-It-Yourself Oscar is “Fun Giving for Gags”. Then come the words “Sports” and “Occasions.”, the latter of which somehow also merits a period. Perhaps next time Syd Art could hire an actual writer rather than some family member to create the language for a product that supposedly honors achievements in creativity.

An excellent feature of this is that the price tag is still on and it’s from the Hollywood Magic store, a relic a lot older than this do-it-yourself Oscar that’s still alive and well on Hollywood Boulevard, just down the street from where the real Oscars take place tonight.

24Feb 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ Soul O’ The Day – My Color Purple Sound Of Soul party!

24Feb 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ Soul O’ The Day – My Color Purple Sound Of Soul party!

ruuuuIMG_0393

. Me and RuPaul

I go through this after every party I throw. I work for weeks and sometimes months doing everything from fixing my house up to handmaking invitations, building displays, making mix tapes, signs, planning theme food and drinks, games, lighting the place like it’s Disneyland, basically doing anything I can to make this the most amped up party atmosphere on Earth.

I’ve long viewed my parties as my ultimate art form so I put every ounce of strength and sweat I have into it. I want to have the greatest time of my life and unless my guests feel the same way it doesn’t work for me. I not only host these things but emcee, produce and direct them as they evolve throughout the evening. All of this means I end up being a verrrrrrrrrrry tired little girl once they’re over. So as much as a great hostess should be conscious of posting photos in a time sensitive fashion befitting of the web, the only thing I saw yesterday, the day after the party, was my bed and the tail end of the evening’s performance of The Color Purple at The Pantages. So I apologize for the now 36 hour delay…

The Sound of Soul party this last Monday night, February 22, 2010, was one of my favorite AW extravaganzas ever. In commemoration of Black History Month and the fact that my baby, The Color Purple musical I spent five years co-creating, is in town for the very last performances of the First National Tour, it seemed ripe to tie the occasions into the bi-annual fundraiser I do with Pacifica Radio Archives to raise money to digitize never-before-heard, historic 24 track African-American audiotapes and get them into schools. This stuff is heavy duty like Rosa Parks’ first interview after getting out of jail, Alice Walker’s first ever reading of The Color Purple and Coretta Scott King reading the speech Martin Luther King was to deliver the day he was assassinated to 30 of their closest friends in Central Park 3 weeks after the assasination. The only other time that was heard was when Pacifica digitized the tape and sent it to Mrs. King’s funeral. This stash includes incredible speeches, casual conversations and performances by every major Black figure of the 20th century including Martin Luther King, W.E. B. DuBois, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Malcolm X, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Marcus Garvey, Mohammed Ali, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Miles Davis, Dorothy Dandridge, Fannie Lou Hamer and hundreds more… An apt cause to celebrate, which we did… heavily.

I’m just beginning to feel my legs attached to my body again. I wanted to throw some captions on the photos but I don’t want it to be 2011 by the time I finally post them. Just know that I enjoyed having all these beautiful, handsome, happy, uplifted, talented and generous folks here at Willis Wonderland and we did, in fact, raise lots o’ cash to get these tapes into many of the schools that my guests went to. And as if that wasn’t enough, thank you, Colt 45, for those 15 cases.

Here’s the whole party!

19Feb 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Ancient Greece Comes To North Hollywood

19Feb 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Ancient Greece Comes To North Hollywood

greek-building-noho_0876

There’s a block of Lankershim in North Hollywood, CA that’s littered – I use that word lovingly – with square brick buildings adorned with Greek and Roman plaster columns, gods and godesses split in half and glued against the buildings in attempts to make them look like ancient Greek and Roman temples. I love this kind of architecture, especially when most of the time they’re trying to make strip joints look classy and exotic. That’s the case here.

It’s next to another edifice of similar antiquity:

I love North Hollywood!

21Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – ‘I Love Lucy’ Phillip Morris Christmas Gift Cigarettes

21Dec 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – ‘I Love Lucy’ Phillip Morris Christmas Gift Cigarettes

Lucy-cigarettes_1346

It says a lot about the Atomic Age that America’s pre-Kennedy First Family, the Ricardo’s, hawked cigarettes for the holidays. Now we know why Lucy’s voice was lower than James Earl Jones’ as she progressed through the years most likely puffing on her lifetime supply of Phillip Morris.

25Nov 2009

Pigmy Will – “Happy Thanksgiving!”

25Nov 2009

Pigmy Will – “Happy Thanksgiving!”

16Nov 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Eva Gabor’s Fix-A-Fashion Chin Strap

16Nov 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Eva Gabor’s Fix-A-Fashion Chin Strap

eva-gabor-chin-strap_0559

If it’s Eva Gabor it’s got to be good and this certainly lives up to all expectations! This incredibly cheaply made – one piece of elastic, two alligator clips and one plastic “decorative ring” – fashion strap “keeps your wig securely in place while your wig is being combed, brush or styled.” It looks like all you do is attach a clip to either side of your fake hair and tighten the noose around your neck by sliding the “decorative ring”. The final instruction, as if written for an idiot, is “comb or brush your wig into desired style.”

This product was made in 1972 for Eva Gabor International in Hong Kong and was sold at the May Company for $4. I’ve never worn a wig but I would’ve bought a case of these had I seen them at the time.

23Sep 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Photos from Party #2 for the Grand Opening of The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch!

23Sep 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Photos from Party #2 for the Grand Opening of The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch!

awmok2_4965

Seems like there are hundreds of photos circulating on the Internet from my party Monday night where, among a zillion other things, members of Earth Wind & Fire performed in a parking lot for anyone who wanted to sing my EWF hits, “September” and “Boogie Wonderland”.

The Grand Opening Party #2 at Ghettogloss for The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch at awmok.com also featured a Thrift Shop Art auction,

a raffle to win a personally-conducted-by-me tour of Willis Wonderland, the physical home of the AWMoK, and massive amounts of gourmet Street and standard faire junk food to keep the minds of the 400 attendees tweaked to Kitsch perfection.

I usually go through the photos and pick out the 20 or so best ones but I loved the fantastic mix of people and ages so as long as it was in focus it’s here.

People keep sending me new photos everyday so I very likely may be adding to these everyday. And video of the insanely kitschy performances with EWF is coming as soon as I can grab enough minutes to edit something together.

People magazine said of my parties, “Invitations to Allee Willis’s ultra-exclusive … parties are the campiest hot tickets in LA.” I’m confident I quite lived up to my reputation with this one!

Go to AWMoK.com to join a fantastically witty and friendly community of very cool people with very kool Kitsch.

Sincerely, Your hostess/curator aKitschionado, Allee

21Sep 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Party Photos from The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch Grand Opening Party #1

21Sep 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Party Photos from The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch Grand Opening Party #1

The response to awmok.com has been insane, beyond my wildest and most hopeful expectations both from the press and from the public who has been contributing so much mindboggling Kitsch to the museum it staggers even this ol’ aKitschionado. Once I get through party #2 tonight at Ghettogloss, the cap to the end of a glorious week of Grand Opening festivities, and taking the physical display down tomorrow and setting everything back down in my house and studio I hope to properly document what has truly been one of the most thrilling weeks of my life not to mention events in my career. I know the nature of the Internet is to post these things immediately but it’s all part of a massive, organic, oozing project of connections to me and I don’t want to just slap up a bunch of photos and thoughts online without giving them their proper creative do. So enjoy some photos from party #1 now, have a chocolate milk or Kool-Aid on me, and know that much, much, much, much more is to come.

The response to awmok.com has been insane, beyond my wildest and most hopeful expectations both from the press and from the public who has been contributing so much mindboggling Kitsch to the museum it staggers even this ol’ aKitschionado. Once I get through party #2 tonight at Ghettogloss, the cap to the end of a glorious week of Grand Opening festivities, and taking the physical display down tomorrow and setting everything back up in my house and studio I hope to properly document what has truly been one of the most thrilling weeks of my life not to mention events in my career. I know the nature of the Internet is to post these things immediately but it’s all part of a massive, organic, oozing project of connections to me and I don’t want to just slap up a bunch of photos and thoughts online without giving them their proper creative do. So enjoy some photos from party #1 now, have a chocolate milk or Kool-Aid on me, and know that much, much, much, much more is to come.

Please proceed directly to AWMoK.com to see some of the glorious submissions to the Museum. remember, it’s the beginning of what I hope will become a great social network so don’t be shy. The people there are very cool and they’re showing some really crazy, cool stuff..

Xx, Your hostess/curator/ Kitsch luv’r, Allee

Please also proceed directly to AWMoK.com to see some of the glorious submissions to the Museum. Remember, it’s the beginning of what I hope will become a great social network so don’t be shy. The people there are very cool and they’re showing and talking about some really crazy, cool stuff.

Xx, Your hostess/curator/ Kitsch luv’r, Allee

Photos from Party #1

26Jun 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Michael Jackson Beat It Doll

26Jun 2009

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Michael Jackson Beat It Doll

michael-jackson-game_9191

I only met Michael Jackson once. It was 1980 and I was at Hollywood Sound recording with Earth Wind & Fire and he was working in the room next door. This was before Billy Jean shot him into the stratosphere but Michael Jackson was still a music God. He walked over to me but as he gave me a big grin and very gentle almost-handshake someone burst into the studio and said Richard Pryor had set himself on fire. Everyone just froze and I quietly slipped out of the room. Those old school recording studios are as soundproof as tombs but I could hear all the commotion in the lobby as he ran out.

Though many of my friends co-wrote many of his classic songs I never wrote for Michael until a few months ago when Steve Porcaro, of Toto and ‘Human Nature’ fame, called and said Michael had called him looking for hit singles. We worked on and off over the next few months and finished a fantastic lush and layered Human Nature type song called “The Little Things”. Though Michael never got to hear it, the Man In The Mirror type chant that opens it will forever remind me of him.

This 1984 Limited Edition Michael Jackson “Superstar of the 80’s” Doll features the King in his Beat It outfit. He came with ‘glittering “Magic” Glove and microphone’ but I’ve lost those over the years. Thriller, Billy Jean, American Music Awards and Grammy outfits were also available. He twists at the waist and bends with moveable arms so you can “recreate his famous dance steps”.

I’ll break open the 1984 box of Michael Jackson Dress-Up Set Colorforms on another Kitsch O’ The Day within the next few days. R.I. P. M.J.