After nearly a half-century, Millie Lewis Greenville owners George and Barbara Corell have retired.
The couple leave behind a legacy that encourages confidence in their former clients and a passion for the media world.
Millie Lewis is a modeling agency with a development component, offering classes and workshops for its clients but also booking local and regional talent. The agency started with former supermodel Millie Lewis in Columbia in the 1960s as a model-training school.
Lewis opened the Greenville office in the early 1970s, when Barbara came on board as a model. Barbara took over as director of the school in 1976 and George came on board later. Together, the Corells developed the agency component and by 1982 were able to start slowly buying Lewis out of the Greenville office.
“[Lewis] had a wonderful life,” Barbara said. “And she gave me an opportunity that I could never have dreamed of.”
The move to ownership and a modeling-talent agency development was a natural progression for both Corells. Barbara previously worked at an ad agency and George worked in production with WYFF. There, he was already required to produce commercials and hire talent.
“I sort of had that background in broadcasting first, so that’s always been close to my heart,” George said. “And the neat thing for us, as a small agency in the spectrum of the world, was that we were able to find talent.”
He said the two found a lot of local talent by attending community theater.
In 2020, the Corells sold the school to former client Annie Guarcello and retained the agency. Not long thereafter, they began discussing the idea of selling the agency.
The two are leaving the business in the hands of four collaborators and friends of the couple: Brian Stearns, Mike Stearns, Richard Carrizales and Marco Carrizales. The Stearns and the Carrizales are each sets of brothers and entrepreneurs in local ad agency RingoFire. Brian founded the business in 2016, Mike is chief operating officer, and Richard and Marco are both partners and senior vice presidents.
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Brian met the Corells between 2008 and 2009 while working with the marketing and public relations department of Techtronic Industries. When he went off on his own, the Corells were among his early clients. What began as a conversation about taking over the agency during a 2020 dinner at Hall’s Chophouse, eventually came to fruition.
“George and Barbara were one of my very first clients, so I was helping them with social media when they were actively running the agency,” Brian said. “It’s just a real cool, sort of full-circle moment to be here today … to take on Millie Lewis and carry on the legacy.”
