Date of Birth
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8 February 1932, Flushing, Queens, New York City, New York, USA
|
|
Birth Name
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John Towner Williams
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Height
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5' 11½" (1.82 m)
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Mini Bio
As one of
the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history,
John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip
Sousa, Aaron Copland
or Leonard
Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer"
time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 41 Oscar
nominations (five wins), twenty-odd Gold and Platinum Records, and a slew of
Emmy (two wins), Golden Globe (three wins), Grammy (18 wins), National Board of
Review (including a Career Achievement Award), Saturn (six wins), and BAFTA
(seven wins) citations, along with honorary doctorate degrees numbering in the
teens, Williams is undoubtedly one of the most respected composers for Cinema.
He's led countless national and international orchestras, most notably as the
nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980-1993, helming three
Pops tours of the US and Japan during his tenure. He currently serves as the
Pop's Conductor Laureate. Also to his credit is a parallel career as an author
of serious, and some not-so-serious, concert works - performed by the likes of Mstislav
Rostropovich, André Previn,
Itzhak
Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma,
Gil Shaham,
Leonard
Slatkin, James Ingram,
Dale Clevenger, and Joshua Bell.
Of particular interests are his Essay for Strings, a jazzy Prelude & Fugue,
the multimedia presentation American Journey (aka The Unfinished Journey
(1999)), a Sinfonietta for Winds, a song cycle featuring poems by Rita Dove,
concerti for flute, violin, clarinet, trumpet, tuba, cello, bassoon and horn,
fanfares for the 1984, 1988 and 1996 Summer Olympics, the 2002 Winter Olympics,
and a song co-written with Alan Bergman
and Marilyn
Bergman for the Special Olympics! But such a list probably warrants
a more detailed background...
Born
in Long Island, New York on February 8, 1932, John Towner Williams discovered
music almost immediately, due in no small measure to being the son of a
percussionist for CBS Radio and the Raymond Scott Quintet. After moving to Los
Angeles in 1948, the young pianist and leader of his own jazz band started
experimenting with arranging tunes; at age 15, he determined he was going to
become a concert pianist; at 19, he premiered his first original composition, a
piano sonata.
He
attended both UCLA and the Los Angeles City College, studying orchestration
under MGM musical associate Robert Van
Eps and being privately tutored by composer Mario
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, until conducting for the first time during
three years with the U.S. Air Force. His return to the states brought him to
Julliard, where renowned piano pedagogue Madame Rosina Lhevinne helped Williams
hone his performance skills. He played in jazz clubs to pay his way; still, she
encouraged him to focus on composing. So it was back to L.A., with the future
maestro ready to break into the Hollywood scene.
Williams
found work with the Hollywood studios as a piano player, eventually
accompanying such fare such as the TV series Peter Gunn
(1958), South Pacific
(1958), Some Like It
Hot (1959), The Apartment
(1960), and To Kill a
Mockingbird (1962), as well as forming a surprising friendship with Bernard
Herrmann. At age 24, "Johnny Williams" became a staff
arranger at Columbia and then at 20th Century-Fox, orchestrating for Alfred Newman
and Lionel Newman,
Dimitri
Tiomkin, Franz Waxman,
and other Golden Age notables. In the field of popular music, he performed and
arranged for the likes of Vic Damone,
Doris Day,
and Mahalia
Jackson... all while courting actress/singer Barbara Ruick,
who became his wife until her death in 1974. John & Barbara had three
children; their daughter is now a doctor, and their two sons, Joseph
Williams and Mark Towner Williams, are rock musicians.
The
orchestrating gigs led to serious composing jobs for television, notably Alcoa
Premiere (1961), Checkmate
(1960), Gilligan's
Island (1964), Lost in Space
(1965), Land of the
Giants (1968), and his Emmy-winning scores for Heidi
(1968) and Jane Eyre
(1970). Daddy-O
(1958) and Because
They're Young (1960) brought his original music to the big theatres,
but he was soon typecast doing comedies. His efforts in the genre helped
guarantee his work on William Wyler's
How to Steal
a Million (1966), however, a major picture that immediately led to
larger projects. Of course, his arrangements continued to garner attention, and
he won his first Oscar for adapting Fiddler on
the Roof (1971).
During
the '70s, he was King of Disaster Scores with The Poseidon
Adventure (1972), Earthquake
(1974) and The Towering
Inferno (1974). His psychological score for Images
(1972) remains one of the most innovative works in soundtrack history. But his
Americana - particularly The Reivers
(1969) - is what caught the ear of director Steven
Spielberg, then preparing for his first feature, The Sugarland
Express (1974). When Spielberg reunited with Williams on Jaws
(1975), they established themselves as a blockbuster team, the composer gained
his first Academy Award for Original Score, and Spielberg promptly recommended
Williams to a friend, George Lucas.
In 1977, John Williams re-popularized the epic cinema sound of Erich
Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman
and other composers from the Hollywood Golden Age: Star Wars:
Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) became the best selling score-only
soundtrack of all time, and spawned countless musical imitators. For the next
five years, though the music in Hollywood changed, John Williams wrote big,
brassy scores for big, brassy films - The Fury
(1978), Superman
(1978), 1941
(1979), Raiders of
the Lost Ark (1981) ... An experiment during this period, Heartbeeps
(1981), flopped. There was a long-term change of pace, nonetheless, as Williams
fell in love with an interior designer and married once more.
E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial (1982) brought about his third Oscar, and The River
(1984), Empire of the
Sun (1987), The
Accidental Tourist (1988) and Born on the
Fourth of July (1989) added variety to the 1980s, as he returned to
television with work on Amazing Stories
(1985) and themes for NBC, including NBC Nightly
News with Brian Williams (1970). The '80s also brought the only
exceptions to the composer's collaboration with Steven
Spielberg - others scored both Spielberg's segment of Twilight
Zone: The Movie (1983) and The Color
Purple (1985).
Intending to retire, the composer's output became sporadic during the 1990s,
particularly after the exciting Jurassic Park
(1993) and the masterful, Oscar-winning Schindler's
List (1993). This lighter workload, coupled with a number of
hilarious references on The Simpsons
(1989) actually seemed to renew interest in his music. Two Home Alone films
(1990, 1992), JFK
(1991), Nixon
(1995), Sleepers
(1996), Seven Years
in Tibet (1997), Saving
Private Ryan (1998), Angela's
Ashes (1999), and a return to familiar territory with Star Wars:
Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) recalled his creative
diversity of the '70s.
In
this millennium, the artist shows no interest in slowing down. His
relationships with Spielberg and Lucas continue in A.I.
Artificial Intelligence (2001), the remaining Star Wars prequels
(2002, 2005), Minority
Report (2002), Catch Me If
You Can (2002), and a promised fourth Indiana Jones film. There is a
more focused effort on concert works, as well, including a theme for the new Walt Disney
Concert Hall and a rumored light opera. But one certain highlight is his
musical magic for the world of Harry Potter (2001, 2002, 2004, etc.), which he
also arranged into a concert suite geared toward teaching children about the
symphony orchestra. His music remains on the whistling lips of people around
the globe, in the concert halls, on the promenades, in album collections,
sports arenas, and parades, and, this writer hopes, touching some place in
ourselves. So keep those ears ready wherever you go, 'cause you will likely
hear a bit of John Williams on your way.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jeffrey Wheeler (webmaster@jeffreywheeler.cjb.net)
