When Willis and Dorothy Miller first heard the pitch for "Beautiful Dreamer," they couldn't help being struck by how familiar it felt.
The independent film they'd been invited to invest in told of a World War II romance between a B-24 Liberator pilot and his childhood sweetheart
Willis knew the cockpit of a B-24 Liberator like most of us know our cars, having flown 30 missions over Germany as pilot of a bomber nicknamed the Starduster.
"I almost got killed three times," says Willis, 85. "But I never lost a man in my crew."
And Dorothy, who wrote Willis every single day he was away, certainly knew how it felt to live with the worry that her beau might not come home.
"You never knew," says Dorothy, 82. "You'd read in the newspaper how many had been lost on a mission. And you wondered."
So, they put in some money, earned in a life of farming and land development in Orange County, and in 2004, the story of the pilot and the wife was shot in 17 days and edited.
But then the money ran out, and the future of film was thrown into question.
Willis and Dorothy had to decide: Let the film sink or swim on its own, or take a bigger risk and make sure that this story, so close to their own, got told as best it could.
• • •
Willis grew up in Long Beach, raised by his grandfather after his father was struck and killed by a streetcar.
Dorothy lived in Huntington Beach, where her family, the Murdys, was prominent.
They knew each other at Huntington Beach High School and eyed each other at the church where her father taught Willis' Sunday school, but didn't fall for each other right away.
Willis enlisted in the Army at 17, before the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, hoping to land a coveted slot as a pilot.
"After he got his commission and his wings, we got serious," Dorothy says.
"I was a second lieutenant at that time, and I saw her at church," Willis says of the moment their smoldering romance burst into flames.
But by then, Willis was bouncing from one base to the next, from Stockton to Visalia to Albuquerque, N.M., where he found out he'd pilot a B-24 instead of a fighter.
Back at Muroc Army Air Field - now Edwards Air Force Base - Willis and Dorothy kept dating, with Willis occasionally flying to great heights to show his feelings for Dorothy, a Whittier College student.
"One time, I was supposed to be flying to Las Vegas, but I took a turn and came to Whittier College - I went over it at 1,500 feet," he says.
"I had just come out of the Campus Inn where I had eaten, and I thought, 'Oh, my gosh!' " Dorothy says.
As a gesture, it was effective - as a way to win a bride, less so.
"He wanted to get married or engaged before he went overseas, and I said, 'No, no, no!' " Dorothy says.
• • •
In 1944, six months after they'd started dating, Willis headed for England, soon getting orders to be lead pilot in the bomber runs.
"I said, 'But sir, that's the one they shoot at!' " he says, with a sly grin. "And he said, 'You're learning fast.' "
Willis piloted the Starduster for 30 missions and never lost a man on his plane, though he came close. Once, a shell hit the plane, briefly knocking out him and his co-pilot. Three times, they crash landed.
Dorothy wrote him daily, while Willis had six red roses delivered to his girl every week.
"It took all my money, but I did it," he says. "I thought I was going to get killed, so I wanted to send her flowers while I could."
By March 1945, he was due to come home, though a general offered to make him a colonel if he flew two more weeks.
"He wrote and said, 'Should I stay?' " Dorothy says. "And I said, 'Don't push your luck.' "
Back in the States, Willis traveled by train, plane and automobile to Los Angeles, where Dorothy went to pick him up at his hotel.
The moment she arrived, Willis asked again, and this time, Dorothy said yes. They've been married 62 years.
• • •
Willis started college but when the first of seven children arrived, he quit for a job he didn't want to do - farming.
It paid off in time, though. The land he bought to farm he developed in later years, moving his farm operations out of Orange County.
Willis and Dorothy's original link to Hollywood was through their son-in-law Brad Sublett, who knew a producer of the "Beautiful Dreamer" project.
So, when "Dreamer" - with its nostalgic story of a dramatic era in their own lives - later ran into trouble, the family had resources to invest more.
"They've never been ones to go away from a risk," says daughter Dottie Miller-Sublett, who with Brad Sublett, has helped with the business end of the film venture.
The Miller family decided not only to put in the cash needed to finish the film but also to buy out all the other investors.
In effect, they bought and now own the entire movie, paying cash for a film with a budget that Brad Sublett will only say is "less than $1 million."
"The reason we got into it is as a tribute to my dad and his crew," says Dottie Miller-Sublett.
"And for what they did for our country," Brad Sublett says.
What the Miller family did for the film, once they decided to take it over, was make sure that it would be as good as it could get, says director Terri Farley-Teruel.
"It was 100 percent essential to get the movie that we all ended up getting," says Farley-Teruel, herself an Orange County native, making her feature directing debut.
"The fact that the movie is likable, lovable, adorable - their acquiring the film is what made it survive in this fashion.
"It's only successful because of them," Farley-Teruel says.
The movie stars a mix character actors and up-and-comers. Its best-known star - James Denton - shot it right as his career was taking off as the hunk on "Desperate Housewives."
And though it's won best feature in the three film festivals it has played so far, plans for theatrical and DVD release are still up in the air.
Sublett hopes to find a distributor and get it into a limited number of theaters - including Orange County - this year. A companion documentary titled "Starduster," the story of the Willis' crew, is also looking for a home on TV.
As for Willis and Dorothy, executive producers for the film, after seeing it at the Temecula Film Festival, they came away moved.
A love story at its heart, "Dreamer" also carries lessons on the hardships families undergo during war, a point Willis thinks is one reason why people enjoy it.
For those who lived it, as he and Dorothy did, some of it was difficult for the memories it provoked.
"So many men that I lost, I can't forget," says Willis of the three or four planes that usually didn't return from most missions he led.
"I've always carried that in my head."
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