John Towner Williams was born February 8, 1932 in Long Island, New York. He was the oldest child of Johnny and Esther Williams. He had two brothers, Jerry and Don, and a sister, Joan. His Father, Johnny, was a drummer in The Raymond Scott Quintet, and later worked as a percussionist for both CBS and NBC. Music played an important part in the early lives of John and his siblings, and at the age of seven, he had learned to play the piano, trumpet, trombone, and clarinet.
In 1948, when John was sixteen years old, his family moved to Los Angeles, California, where his father worked with orchestras of several film companies. John graduated from North Hollywood High School in 1950, where he had played, arranged, and composed music for the school band. He later attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he studied with pianist Bobby Van Eps. At the age of nineteen, John composed his first serious pieces of music, a piano sonata and a wind quintet.
John was drafted into the Air Force in 1952, and served as a conductor and arranger for The Air Force Band. After his discharge in 1954, John attended Juilliard School, and studied with Rosina Lhevinne. During this time, he worked as a jazz pianist for the many clubs and studios in New York, gaining valuable experience that he would later use in his film scoring. After he left Juilliard, he worked for the Columbia Picture staff, of which his father was a member. His orchestration talents were soon discovered, and he was encouraged by the staff of Columbia Pictures to continue writing. Here is where he truly decided that he would write music for films.
In 1956, John married actress Barbara Ruick, and they had three children. Their son, Joseph Williams, was the lead singer for the band Toto. Their other children also went on to have musical careers.
In the late 1950's, John began his career composing scores for television series, eventually leading to his work on “Lost in Space” and “The Time Tunnel”. He also had some roles in television shows, including a jazz pianist on the detective show “Johnny Staccato”. In 1960, Williams composed his first score for a film, I Passed for White. Some of his other early works are Because They're Young, the Secret Ways, Bachelor Flat, Diamond Head, Gidget Goes to Rome, and None But the Brave, which was directed by, and starred, Frank Sinatra. In 1964, he scored Ronald Reagan's last film, The Killers. In 1967, Williams received his first of forty Oscar nominations with Valley of the Dolls. In the 1970's, Williams seemed to be drawn towards disaster movies, such as The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, The Poseidon Adventure, Black Sunday, The Fury, and Jaws, for which he won his second Oscar in 1975. His first was in 1971 for the musical, Fiddler on the Roof.
Williams has scored some of the most commercially successful movies in the history of cinema, including Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of the Jedi, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. During this period he scored E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial- which for several years was the highest grossing film of all time. Williams received Oscar nominations for all of the movies in the Home Alone series, as well as Steven Spielberg's Hook. In 1993, he returned to Spielberg to score Jurassic Park, which was the only movie that he ever asked to score, and the multi Oscar winning Schindler's List. In 1999, he scored the most eagerly anticipated movie in cinematic history, Star Wars- The Phantom Menace. He continued to score the remaining Star Wars movies, neither of which was as successful musically as the first four. He has scored all of the largely successful Harry Potter movies, all of which were nominated for the Academy Awards. He also did the scoring for the Revolutionary War movie, The Patriot, which received an Oscar nomination. His most recent works, Munich and Memoirs of a Geisha were both nominated for several Oscars.
He has also been largely successful with modern-classical compositions including “Essay for String and Symphony”, “Sinfonietta”, “Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion”, “Violin Concerto”, “Tuba Concerto”, “Celebration Fanfare for Orchestra”, “The Five Sacred Trees”, and “Cello Concerto”.
In 1980, Williams was chosen conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, after the late Arthur Fiedler, who had held the position for almost fifty years, died. He said that no one could replace Fiedler, but if anyone could, that's exactly what Williams did. He diversified the music played by Boston Pops Orchestra by playing music that he had composed for the movies. He stepped down from his position in 1993. He currently works as the Laureate Conductor of the Pops, thus maintaining his affiliation with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (the parent of Boston Pops Orchestra). He annually directs the Boston Pops Orchestra several times a year, especially during their Holiday Pops season, and usually for a week of concerts in May. He also frequently uses the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, which is the official chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to provide vocal accompaniment to films (such as Saving Private Ryan).
