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, 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 won his first Academy Award for the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1971).  He 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.  Williams 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 Spielberg.  One of the best superhero scores was with director Richard Donner with Superman (1978).  He worked on the next Star Wars film with The Empire Strikes Back (1980).  Then, 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).  Before wrapping up the trilogy with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).  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 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 scored the theme song for the Disney park expansion, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.  Happy Birthday John Williams!   

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