Contributor: Kristien Gijbels

John Williams turned 90 this week. For the last 70 years, Mr. Williams has been the foremost composer in Hollywood, writing music for films, television, and the concert stage.

His accomplishments span decades and are part of popular culture the world over. Even if you didn’t know him by name, you’ve listened to John Williams’ work. His credits include Jaws, E.T., Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, Schindler’s List. He also wrote music for several Olympic Games and classic television shows such as Gilligan’s Island, Lost in Space, CBS Playhouse.

A prolific composer of the 1970s and 1980s, his preeminence as a symphonist rose in lockstep with filmmakers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, who immortalized William’s music in the very fabric of blockbusters. “John Williams has been the single most significant contributor to my success as a filmmaker,” Spielberg said in 2012 in an interview with NPR. The pair collaborated for nearly 50 years on 28 movies. The partnership keeps going strong. Williams is currently finishing the score for The Fabelmans. The movie is inspired by Spielberg’s own childhood in Arizona. It will be released in November in the United States.

Spielberg and Williams have become very close friends. In a conversation with the HFPA, Williams points out “I’m quite a bit older than Steven. It’s been, for whatever reason, a wonderful relationship always. Steven’s father, Arnold, was well into his 90s and was always working every day. Every man thinks that, if your father was working at 90, then that’s also what you will do. Steven fully expects to be directing 25 years from now. And fully expects me to be with him. I will be 100 years old. So, I will do my best.”  

Williams’ success extends past movie scores. His contributions have encompassed many other areas of our current culture. He has written musical signatures for the Olympics (1984, 1988, 1996, and 2002), the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009, the Nightly News on NBC, and NBC’s Sunday Night Football. His music is marked by great energy, which has transitioned into his life. The composer and pianist still conducts a string of live orchestras. Oh, and he is about to score a fifth Indiana Jones movie.

Born and raised in New York City, Williams moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1946. The composer joined the Air Force after studying composition. He would move back to New York to attend Julliard, where he studied piano. To make ends meet, he worked as a jazz pianist in nightclubs and on recording sessions.

In an interview with the HFPA in 2005, Williams talked about how his father played a big role in discovering his talent for composing: “My father was a very good professional musician. He was in the CBS Orchestra in New York City when I was growing up. All of his friends and colleagues were musicians. As a kid, I would look up at all these adults. What do you do when you grow up? You do that. He told me that I have to play the piano and that I have to study. So, I dutifully did that as a kid. I always had really good teachers. I had some of the best people of his generation to listen to. I kind of grew up in the whole milieu of that, without really ever having a choice. I don’t know what else I would have done. It just happened to me. Family.”

Once he returned to Los Angeles, he began working as an orchestrator at film studios and writing music for television. Daddy-O, where he is credited as “Johnny Williams,” marked his film score debut in 1958. That’s right, Mr. Williams is now in the seventh decade of his very illustrious Hollywood career.

He holds 25 Golden Globe Award nominations and four wins. He also has 52 Academy Award nominations, five of them victorious. In fact, he is the most Oscar-nominated person alive. The list of honors is solid gold: 72 Grammy Awards nominations, with 25 wins. A grand total of 16 BAFTA nominations, resulting in seven wins. The Emmys gave him six nominations and three wins.

Williams holds honorary degrees from 21 American universities, including Juilliard, Boston College, and Boston University. He is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States.

“John Williams is the most successful and influential film composer of all time. In fact, I don’t know any other composer whose music has reached so many people across all ages in every corner of the world,” says The Mandalorian composer Ludwig Göransson. “It’s pure magic how his music becomes so instantly relatable and, therefore, also finds life outside the films and cinemas.”