Carolyn Wills, Atlanta arts scene patron and community activist, dies at 89

Putting a toe in the water, trying something new on for size, floating a trial balloon.

Dictionary definitions of those phrases boil down to making tentative inquiries or trying something briefly without real commitment.

That most assuredly didn’t fit the profile of entrepreneur, arts patron, community activist and business executive Carolyn Wills, who helped save Atlanta’s Fox Theatre from being leveled.

“Anything she joined or got involved in she just immersed herself in,” Rhonda Milner, a cousin, said. “She was always a leader and willing to work and take on whatever job needed to be done.”

Her immersive enthusiasm covered everything from a strong involvement in Atlanta’s French sister city of Toulouse to a thorough study of theater as an art form to raising a record amount of money for Zoo Atlanta.

But arguably the most impactful of her campaigns was her work helping to spare the Fox, which had fallen on hard times, closed and was scheduled for demolition.

Wills died Jan. 22 at her home from complications of a fall. She was 89. A memorial service was held Feb 5. She is survived by Milner and members of Milner’s family, plus several godchildren. Her husband and an infant daughter preceded her in death.

Wills’ obituary proclaimed, “The Fox was her favorite place in the world.” And when the ornate, Moorish theater faced the wrecking ball several decades ago, she swung into action.

Wills pulled together a men’s fashion show with local and national celebrities, followed by dinner, dancing and a movie. It was so successful that people were lined up outside the front doors of the Fox, clamoring to get in.

“She alerted everybody,” Rodney Mims Cook, a principal in Youth for the Fox and its own fundraising push, said. “She started the big money coming in.”

Donations snowballed with $3 million eventually raised from donors great and small, ensuring the landmark’s future.

Asked what made Wills such a prodigious fundraiser, Amanda Brown Olmstead, who worked parallel to her in public relations in the 1960s and ’70s, was short and to the point.

“Fearless. Ask and she’d be there.”

Those qualities, coupled with her confidence and power of persuasion, served her well as she worked her way up the ladder at the now-defunct Eastern Airlines — becoming the company’s southeast regional manager for public relations at a time when female airline executives were thin on the ground.

And in addition to coordinating news releases and media interviews, Wills helped burnish the airline’s image.

“She had a great stage with Eastern because they wanted her out in the community and being visible and she was a master at it,” Olmstead said. She spoke to many community groups, joined a number of them, and lent her name and talents to worthy causes.

But her work with the Fox and her immersion in all facets of theater seemingly captured the highest praise.

In her 80s, said Allan Vella, president and CEO of the Fox, Wills trekked to New York to see several Broadway shows in a single week.

“She would come back with all kinds of information and tell us shows we should look at and try to bring to Atlanta,” Vella said. She also jetted to London to take an in-depth course in theater arts.

“She was one of many catalysts who ignited a passion for theater in Atlanta,” he said.

And across the state as well.

Serving on the board of the theater’s parent nonprofit, Wills and others fostered a program providing grants to similar historic theaters in Georgia to help with renovation and other needs.