07/01/2007

Film festival 'angel' shies away from spotlight

Benefactor a strong supporter of annual event

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS

mdrahos@record-eagle.com

Harold "Buzz" Wilson

LAKE LEELANAU — Harold "Buzz” Wilson may be chief executive officer of one of the country's largest providers of brain injury rehabilitation, but he'd like nothing better than to be the projectionist at the State Theatre in downtown Traverse City.

"I love theater and I love good popcorn,” said Wilson, who has pledged to fund hundreds of thousands of dollars in needed theater improvements — and a top-notch popcorn popper — for new owners, the Traverse City Film Festival. Since stepping forward as an "angel” at last year's festival founders party, Wilson, 65, has remained something of an enigma. A former Cincinnati resident who moved to north Lake Leelanau in 2006, he prefers to keep a low profile except when going public can aid one of his favorite causes. Besides the film festival, his causes include migrant issues, affordable housing, stem cell research and land conservation. He also finances a recording studio in Portland, Ore., run by his nephew.

Together with his wife, Barb, a former clinical social worker whose great-aunt has owned a place in the area since the 1930s, Wilson has made "significant” contributions to the Leelanau Conservancy, said Executive Director Brian Price.

"He seems to have quite a grasp and a genuine concern about the community and the environment up here,” Price said. "He's very interested in water quality issues, the general protection of the environment and wetlands in particular.”

Nicknamed "Buzz” by a former baby sitter, Wilson's love affair with film goes back to his early days growing up in Shelby in Oceana County, where his grandfather was a fruit farmer. A 1960 graduate of Shelby High School, Wilson was projectionist for school assemblies and went to movies every Friday or Saturday at the downtown theater in Muskegon, about 30 miles away.

But it wasn't until attending the University of Michigan and, later, the University of Detroit, where he earned his MBA and law degrees respectively, that he became a film aficionado.

"It's an insight to people's culture, psyche and state of mind,” he said of the art form's appeal.

A former attorney specializing in commercial, tax and employee benefits law, Wilson said he stopped practicing when it was no longer fun and turned to other occupations including computer systems analysis. Now he's on his "fourth or fifth” career as CEO and chairman of Rainbow Rehabilitation Centers in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, which he took over in 1987 when it was $1 million in debt. Now the agency is an industry leader with some 300 clients and 600 employees.

"I've never had trouble making money but it's not something that drives me,” he said. "I'm on a mission to do what I can and have a good time.”

Not surprisingly, the company was a corporate sponsor of the Traverse City Film Festival in 2005 and a major sponsor in 2006. Its philanthropy has supported several panel discussions and 13 films Wilson thought were important, including the controversial "The Woodsman,” in which Kevin Bacon plays a convicted pedophile released from prison.

This year, Wilson has not only pledged to fund needed repairs to the State Theatre, which he estimates will cost $200,000 to $300,000 initially, but to sponsor films others don't. He said his increasing support of the festival is inspired in part by watching the decline of his childhood theater and in part by his experience as a festival-goer.

"The festival is the greatest thing to happen to Traverse City,” he said. "I stayed up until 2 in the morning as I watched '2001' at the State Theater. I thought, 'This is the way it ought to be: big screen, big sound system, a lot of people around you, watching an epic movie.'”

Then there's his oldest son, Charles, a 26-year-old struggling actor in New York — two other sons, 22 and 24, are college students in Miami and Cincinnati — and his admiration for festival founder Michael Moore, whom he calls "misunderstood.”

"I think he's an important director. He's a phenomenal guy. He's so into Traverse City and the film festival that I'd do anything for him,” Wilson said.

Festival angel or no, the former Republican Party fundraiser downplays his role.

"I'm just a foot soldier,” he said.