Ms. Anne Marie Gillis of Brentwood, a retired former Carthage business woman and media executive, died at the age of 66 surrounded by family and caregivers at the family’s Bluff Road home at 8:17 p.m. Monday evening February 22, 2021 under the care of Caris Hospice of Murfreesboro. Ms. Gillis had gallantly battled A.L.S. (Lou Gehrig disease) for over ten years before succumbing to the illness.
Ms. Gillis was at the Carthage Chapel of Sanderson Funeral Home and was cremated at the Cumberland Family Services in Algood. Her husband will return her cremains to her native Canada for services and burial.
Born Anne Marie Gillis in Nova Scotia in Inverness County, Canada on July 6, 1954, she was one of twelve children of the late Donald Bernard Gillis and Mary Margaret MacClellan Gillis.
She was a 1972 graduate of Riverview High School.
She was preceded in death by two sisters, Pauline Gillis and Mary Beth Gillis.
Following school she worked for the Armed Forces Radio in Kenitra, Morocco and moved to Washington, D.C. where she was mentored by then First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, while working for the LBJ Holding Company.
She then returned to Halifax, Canada working for ATV and CBC before relocating to Hollywood, California where she financed movies including “Flowers In The Attic”.
Ms. Gillis then moved to Nashville in 2001 and on June 29, 2001 she was united in marriage to film director, Marvin Baker. The ceremony was performed in Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
There they began BG-TV Direct, a television syndication company and Advertising Agency.
In 2008, Ms. Gills and Mr. Baker partnered with Jody Van-Alin to launch Café Nashville, a syndicated radio show.
Ms. Gillis and Mr. Baker had a studio in the former Hire and Long Furniture Store building in Carthage until 2015 when they relocated to Nashville.
Surviving in addition to her husband Marvin of almost twenty years are nine of her siblings, Sandy Gillis and wife Kathy, Eileen MacLean and husband John, Allan Gillis and wife Josie, Daniel Gillis, Jim Gillis and wife Karen, Carmella Gillis and husband Daryl Gorman, Colleen Davis and husband John, Martina Caldwell and husband Todd, Michele Gillis and husband Mark Stiles.
The Gillis family requests memorials to TeamGleason.org.
