Happy Birthday John Williams!

Happy Birthday John Williams!  He has provided some iconic scores!  Williams first film composition was for Daddy-O (1958) about a hapless driver caught up in crime and music. Williams started in television with the Western, Wagon Train (1958-1964).  Next, Time Tunnel and Lost in Space (1965-1968), then Time Tunnel (1966-1967), and Land of the Giants (1968-1970), created by Irwin Allen.  He received his first Academy Award nomination for the Valley of the Dolls based on the Jacqueline Susann novel.  Williams scored the musical, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969).  Williams won his first Academy Award for the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1971).  He worked again with Irwin Allen on the films, The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974).  

Williams began his collaboration with Steven Spielberg with The Sugarland Express (1974) and then an iconic, relentless score with the blockbuster Jaws (1975) winning him the Academy Award. He of course is known as the composer of Star Wars starting with the first film in 1977 and yet another Academy Award.  Then, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) with Steven Spielberg.  One of the best superhero scores was with director Richard Donner and Superman The Movie (1978).  Williams worked on the next Star Wars film with The Empire Strikes Back (1980).  Then, he brought the pulp adventure to Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).  John Williams composed the score for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) which gave him another Academy Award and then the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi (1983).  He followed up with the second Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).  Williams scored two episodes of Spielberg’s Amazing Stories.  

                                                                Maestro of the Movies - John Williams concert, Hollywood Bowl, 2021, photo by the author. 

John Williams wrote the dramatic score for Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun (1987).  He wrapped up the Indy trilogy with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).  There was some fun with his score to Home Alone (1990).  Then, there was nostalgia and magic with his Hook (1991) score.  One of his most impressive years was 1993 with the iconic score for Jurassic Park and then the heartbreaking drama of Schindler’s List.  He won the Academy Award for the later film.  Williams brought an epic scope to the WWII battlefields of Saving Private Ryan (1998) before returning with the prequel, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999).  Another battlefield was the Revolutionary War of The Patriot (2000).  Then, Williams wrote another iconic score with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).  He scored the second prequel, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), and then returned to Hogwarts with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004).  Williams finished the prequels with Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).  He worked on the Star Wars sequel trilogy in 2015, 2017, and 2019. In 2019, Williams composed the "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Symphonic Suite" for the park expansion that opened that year.  Happy Birthday John Williams!   

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