Age: 94
male
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer and conductor. In a career that has spanned seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scoresin cinema history. He has a distinct sound that mixes romanticism, impressionism and atonal music with complex orchestration. He 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. With 54 Academy Award nominations, he is the second-most nominated person, after Walt Disney, and is the oldest Oscar nominee in any category, at 91 years old. Williams's early work as a film composer includes Valley of the Dolls (1967), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Images and The Cowboys (both 1972), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He has collaborated with Spielberg since The Sugarland Express (1974), composing music for all but five of his feature films. He received five Academy Awards for Best Score for Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Schindler's List (1993). Other memorable collaborations with Spielberg include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), the Indiana Jones franchise (1981–2023), Hook (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), and The Fabelmans (2022). He also scored Superman (1978), the first two Home Alone films (1990–1992), and the first three Harry Potter films (2001–2004). Williams has also composed numerous classical concertos and other works for orchestral ensembles and solo instruments. He served as the Boston Pops' principal conductor from 1980 to 1993 and is its laureate conductor. Other works by Williams include theme music for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games; NBC Sunday Night Football; "The Mission" theme (used by NBC News and Seven News in Australia); and the television series Lost in Space, Land of the Giants and Amazing Stories. Among other accolades, he has received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2004, the National Medal of the Arts in 2009 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2016. He 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. He has composed the score for nine of the top 25 highest-grossing films at the U.S. box office. In 2022, Williams was appointed an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II, "for services to film music". In 2005, the American Film Institute placed Williams's score to Star Wars first on its list AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores; his scores for Jaws and E.T. also made the list. The Library of Congress entered the Star Wars soundtrack into the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Description above from the Wikipedia article John Williams, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
John Williams
Composer
for Composer in DISNEY'S THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
Suggested by kingultron2
This live action remake of the Disney adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel takes place in Paris at the time of brutal Anti-Romani movements. The city's corrupt judge, Claude Frollo, tracks down and kills a few gypsies and sees that one of their "stolen goods" is a baby... with a physical deformity. Assuming it as a demon, Frollo attempts to drop the baby into a well until the archdeacon from Notre Dame stops him and tells him that to redeem his immortal soul, he must raise and care for the child. Frollo reluctantly accepts, and decides to let him stay in the bell tower. He also assumes the boy may be useful to him someday, so Frollo names him "Quasimodo" and spends the next 20 years rasing and educating him. Quasimodo currently works as the church's bell ringer. Frollo tells Quasi that the outside world is a dark, cruel place unfit for "ugly" people. But despite that, with encouragement from his talking gargoyle friends, Quasi decides to explore. Upon attending the Feast of Fools, he meets a beautiful and kind-hearted gypsy named Esmeralda. He also meets the charming captain of the royal guard, Phoebus. Although, just like Frollo warned him, a few people laugh and throw ripe fruit at Quasi. He believes his master was right and returns to the tower. But soon after, Frollo chases after Esmeralda, who then claims sanctuary at Notre Dame. Rated "PG-13" for "Dark thematic material involving atrocities, violence, some rude humor, brief sexual content, and some language."
