94 Facts About John Williams

John Towner Williams was born on February 8,1932 and is an American composer and conductor.

John Williams has a distinct sound that mixes romanticism, impressionism and atonal music with complex orchestration.

John Williams is best known for his collaborations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and has received numerous accolades including 26 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards.

John Williams has collaborated with Spielberg since The Sugarland Express, composing music for all but five of his feature films.

John Williams scored Superman, the first two Home Alone films, and the first three Harry Potter films.

John Williams has composed numerous classical concertos and other works for orchestral ensembles and solo instruments.

John Williams served as the Boston Pops' principal conductor from 1980 to 1993 and is its laureate conductor.

John Williams was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1998, the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame in 2000 and the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2004.

John Williams has composed the score for nine of the top 25 highest-grossing films at the US box office.

In 2022, John Williams was appointed an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, "for services to film music".

John Towner Williams was born to Esther and Johnny Williams, a jazz drummer and percussionist who played with the Raymond Scott Quintet.

John Williams has an older sister, Joan, and two younger brothers, Jerry and Don, who play on his film scores.

In 1948, the Williams family moved to Los Angeles where John attended North Hollywood High School, graduating in 1950.

John Williams later attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and studied composition privately with the Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

John Williams attended Los Angeles City College for one semester, as the school had a Studio Jazz Band.

In 1951, John Williams joined the US Air Force, where he played the piano and bass and conducted and arranged music for the US Air Force Band as part of his assignments.

John Williams attended music courses at the University of Arizona as part of his service.

In 1955, following his Air Force service, John Williams moved to New York City and entered Juilliard, where he studied piano with Rosina Lhevinne.

John Williams was originally set on becoming a concert pianist, but after hearing contemporary pianists like John Browning and Van Cliburn perform, he switched his focus to composition.

John Williams worked with such composers as Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman, and with fellow orchestrators Conrad Salinger and Bob Franklyn.

John Williams was a studio pianist and session musician, performing on scores by such composers as Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein and Henry Mancini.

John Williams was the pianist on the scores of Billy Wilder's The Apartment Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise's West Side Story, and Blake Edwards The Great Race.

John Williams served as music arranger and bandleader for a series of popular music albums with the singers Ray Vasquez and Frankie Laine.

John Williams wrote his first film composition in 1952 while stationed at Pepperrell Air Force Base for a promotional film titled You Are Welcome, created for the Newfoundland tourist information office.

John Williams composed music for television, Bachelor Father, the Kraft Suspense Theatre, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants, the last three created by the prolific producer Irwin Allen.

John Williams worked on several episodes of M Squad and Checkmate and the pilot episode of Gilligan's Island.

John Williams called William Wyler's How to Steal a Million "the first film I ever did for a major, super-talent director".

John Williams received his first Oscar nomination for his score for Valley of the Dolls and was nominated again for Goodbye, Mr Chips.

John Williams scored Robert Altman's psychological thriller Images and his neo-noir The Long Goodbye, based on the novel of the same name by Raymond Chandler.

John Williams' music is a parody of the movies' frequent overuse of a theme, and a demonstration of how adaptable a theme can be.

When John Williams played his main theme for Jaws, based on the alteration of two notes, Spielberg initially thought it was a joke.

Shortly thereafter, Spielberg and John Williams began a two-year collaboration on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The Spielberg-John Williams collaboration resumed in 1987 with Empire of the Sun and continued with Always, Hook, Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Amistad and Saving Private Ryan.

John Williams contributed the theme music for, and scored several episodes of, Spielberg's anthology television series Amazing Stories.

Schindler's List proved to be a challenge for John Williams; after viewing the rough cut with Spielberg, he was so overcome with emotion that he was hesitant to score the film.

John Williams garnered his fourth Oscar for Best Original Score, his fifth overall.

John Williams wrote scores inspired by jazz for Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can, which allowed him to tip his hat to Henry Mancini, as well as The Terminal.

In 2011, after a three-year hiatus from film scoring, John Williams composed the scores for Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse.

John Williams won an Annie Award for his score for Tintin.

John Williams was set to write the score for Bridge of Spies that year, which would have been his 27th collaboration with Spielberg, but in March 2015, it was announced that Thomas Newman would score it instead, as Williams's schedule was interrupted by a minor health issue.

John Williams composed the scores for Spielberg's fantasy The BFG and his drama The Post.

In 2019, John Williams served as music consultant for Spielberg's West Side Story and scored his semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans.

In June 2022, John Williams announced that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, scheduled for a 2023 release, would likely be his last film score as he planned to retire from film and focus on solely composing concert music.

John Williams compared the decision to Spielberg's father Arnold, who had worked in his field until he was 100.

John Williams delivered a grand symphonic score influenced by Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets, as well as Richard Strauss, Antonin Dvorak, and Golden Age Hollywood composers Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

John Williams was asked to score all three, starting with The Phantom Menace.

John Williams scored the first three film adaptations of JK Rowling's Harry Potter series.

Williams contributed "The Adventures of Han" and several additional demos for the 2018 standalone Star Wars film Solo: A Star Wars Story, while John Powell wrote the film's original score and adapted Williams's music.

In July 2018, John Williams composed the main musical theme for Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park attraction Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge.

John Williams won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition for his Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Symphonic Suite.

John Williams contributed the Oscar and Golden Globe nominated song "If We Were in Love" to Franklin J Schaffner's Yes, Giorgio.

John Williams would follow a similar approach when scoring Brian de Palma's The Fury.

In 1985, NBC commissioned John Williams to compose a television news music package for various network news spots.

The package, which John Williams named "The Mission", consists of four movements, two of which are still used heavily by NBC today for Today, NBC Nightly News and Meet the Press.

In 1987, John Williams scored George Miller's The Witches of Eastwick.

John Williams scored the 2013 film The Book Thief, his first collaboration with a director other than Spielberg since 2005.

In 2017, John Williams scored the animated short film Dear Basketball, directed by Glen Keane and based on a poem by Kobe Bryant.

From 1980 to 1993, John Williams served as the Boston Pops Orchestra's principal conductor, succeeding Arthur Fiedler.

John Williams never met Fiedler in person but spoke to him by telephone.

John Williams initially cited mounting conflicts with his film composing schedule but later admitted a perceived lack of discipline in, and respect from, the Pops' ranks, culminating in this latest instance.

John Williams is the Pops' laureate conductor, thus maintaining his affiliation with its parent Boston Symphony Orchestra.

John Williams makes annual appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and took part as conductor and composer in the orchestra's opening gala concerts for the Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2003, which included the premiere of his piece Soundings.

For Game 1 of the 2007 World Series, John Williams conducted a brass-and-drum ensemble in a new dissonant arrangement of "The Star Spangled Banner".

John Williams composed the quartet Air and Simple Gifts for the first inauguration of Barack Obama.

John Williams chose the theme because he knew Obama admired Copland.

John Williams has guest conducted "The President's Own" United States Marine Band on several occasions, who commissioned him in 2013 to write "Fanfare for The President's Own" in honor of their 215th anniversary.

In 2023, John Williams was made an honorary US Marine at the conclusion of his fifth concert with the Marine Band at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

In 2021, John Williams conducted the world premiere of "Overture to the Oscars" at Tanglewood's 2021 "Film Night".

John Williams is currently completing a piano concerto for Emanuel Ax.

In February 2004, April 2006, and September 2007, John Williams conducted the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City.

John Williams conducted the National Symphony Orchestra, the US Army Herald Trumpets, the Joint Armed Forces Chorus, and the Choral Arts Society of Washington in his new arrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the anthem's 200th anniversary.

In 2022, in celebration of his 90th birthday, John Williams conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in March, and was honored on August 20 with a tribute at Tanglewood.

In 1956, John Williams married Barbara Ruick, an American actress and singer, and they remained married until her death in 1974.

John Williams is regarded as one of the most influential film composers.

John Williams's work has influenced other composers of film, popular, and contemporary classical music.

John Williams has been nominated for 54 Academy Awards, winning five; six Emmy Awards, winning three; 25 Golden Globe Awards, winning four; 71 Grammy Awards, winning 26; and has received seven British Academy Film Awards.

John Williams is the only person to be nominated for an Academy Award in seven different decades.

John Williams is the oldest person, at age 91, ever to be nominated for an Academy Award.

John Williams has received several academic honors, including an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music in 1980, as well as Honorary Doctor of Music degrees from Boston College in 1993, from Harvard University in 2017, and from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021.

John Williams was made an honorary brother of Kappa Kappa Psi at Boston University in 1993, upon his impending retirement from the Boston Pops.

Since 1988, John Williams has been honored with 15 Sammy Film Music Awards, the longest-running awards for film music recordings.

In 2000, John Williams received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

John Williams has been inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame and the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame.

John Williams was honored with the annual Richard Kirk award at the 1999 BMI Film and TV Awards, recognizing his contribution to film and television music.

John Williams won a Classic Brit Award in 2005 for his soundtrack work of the previous year.

In 2009, John Williams received the National Medal of Arts in the White House in Washington, DC, for his achievements in symphonic music for films, and "as a pre-eminent composer and conductor [whose] scores have defined and inspired modern movie-going for decades".

In 2012, John Williams received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.

In 2013, John Williams was presented with the Ken Burns Lifetime Achievement Award.

That same year, John Williams received the Grammy Trustees Award, a Special Merit Award presented to individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions other than performance to the field of recording.

John Williams additionally received a President's Medal award from The Juilliard School and announced during the ceremony that he intended to bequeath his entire library of concert and film music scores, as well as his sketchbooks, to the college.

In 2020, John Williams won the Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Composition" for composing Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Symphonic Suite, and he received his 52nd Oscar nomination for "Best Original Score" at the 92nd Academy Awards for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

In 2020, John Williams received the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society as well as the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts.

In 2022, John Williams was appointed an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, "for services to film music", one of the final two honorary knighthoods awarded during the Queen's seventy-year reign.

In 2024, John Williams was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the Disney Legends award at the Honda Center in August of the same year.