Portal:1980s/Selected biography/29
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning over six decades, Williams has composed some of the most popular and recognizable film scores in cinematic history, including Jaws, the Star Wars series, Superman, the Indiana Jones series, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and the first three Harry Potter films. He has been associated with director Steven Spielberg since 1974, composing music for all but three of Spielberg's feature films.
Other notable works by Williams include theme music for Olympic Games, NBC Sunday Night Football, the 2011 film The Adventures of Tintin, the television series Lost in Space and Land of the Giants, and the original, not-as-well-known, calypso-based theme song to Gilligan's Island. He has composed numerous classical concerti and other works for orchestral ensembles and solo instruments, and he served as the Boston Pops' principal conductor (1980–93), and is now the orchestra's laureate conductor.
Williams has won five Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and 22 Grammy Awards. With 50 Academy Award nominations, Williams is the second most-nominated individual, after Walt Disney. In 2005, the American Film Institute selected Williams' score to 1977's Star Wars as the greatest American film score of all time. He was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame in 2000, and was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. He will receive the 2016 AFI Life Achievement Award. Williams composed the soundtrack for eight movies in the Top 20 highest grossing films at the US Box Office (adjusted for inflation). (Full article...)