ERIK LARSEN

When 'Daddy' Warbucks moved into Monmouth U

Erik Larsen
@Erik_Larsen

On Friday, Columbia Pictures will release its second major film adaptation of the original Broadway musical "Annie," starring Jamie Foxx and 11-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis in the title role.

The first movie, directed by the legendary John Huston and released in June 1982, starred Albert Finney, Carol Burnett and then 11-year-old Aileen Quinn in the title role.

Between March and June 1981, the interior and exterior scenes at the grand estate of fictional billionaire, Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks, were filmed at Monmouth University in West Long Branch. Its neoclassical French administrative building, Wilson Hall, which in real life was built in 1929 as a home for Hubert Templeton Parson, president of the F.W. Woolworth Co., was transformed into the mansion of a 1930s-era steel tycoon.

Wilson Hall at Monmouth University in West Long Branch has a storied past, but perhaps its most famous occupant was the fictional character Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks, in the 1982 musical film version of “Annie.”

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"It was probably the last of the great old Broadway musicals produced in the traditional Hollywood style," Roger Paradiso, production manager for the film, told former Asbury Park Press film critic Eleanor O'Sullivan in 2006.

Actress Aileen Quinn, then age 10, on the set of “Annie” at then-Monmouth College in West Long Branch in 1981.

"When I met the ('Annie') production executives at the Hotel Pierre in Manhattan, I told them I had the perfect location for Daddy Warbucks' home. I went to college there for two years. It was in New Jersey. I knew the scale of the show and there was only one place to shoot, in my mind — Woodrow Wilson Hall," Paradiso said.

Filming of the 1982 musical “Annie,” outside of Wilson Hall at then-Monmouth College in West Long Branch in the spring of 1981. The exteriors and interiors of the mansion on campus served as the estate of Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks. The movie musical was released in theaters about a year after principal photography was shot here.

"When we brought John Huston and (film producer) Ray Stark to see Wilson Hall, it was a done deal," he said. "Mr. Huston said it was one of his favorite locations, which is quite a compliment to Wilson Hall."

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Ultimately, the filming of "Annie" made an indelible impression on Monmouth.

Huston was awarded an honorary degree from what was then-Monmouth College in 1981 and Quinn would return to the campus as an adult where she taught a course in the music and theatre arts department as an adjunct professor, said Petra Ludwig Shaw, a university spokeswoman.

In April 2006, Monmouth University's annual scholarship ball brought Quinn back to Wilson Hall to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie's filming on campus. Once again, Wilson Hall was transformed into the Warbucks' mansion, Shaw explained.

In 2009, Quinn was also Monmouth's commencement speaker and just as Huston had 28 years earlier, she received her own honorary degree. While on stage, Quinn even sang the film's signature song, "Tomorrow."