Happy Birthday John Williams! Legendary Star Wars Composer Turns 86 Today
Happy birthday to one of the all-time greats – the legendary composer John Williams turns 86 years old today!
Not only has Williams composed some of the most well-known movie scores of all time, he also made Oscar history last month when he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score for The Last Jedi. Williams, who has scored all eight of the main Star Wars movies, received his 51st Oscar nomination for The Last Jedi. This latest accolade means Williams has received more nominations than anyone else alive today. (The late Walt Disney, with 59 nominations, is the only other person who has received more Academy Award nominations.)
Williams has received five Academy Award nominations for his Star Wars’ scores (Star Wars: A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, and The Last Jedi), and he won the Best Score Academy Award for the original Star Wars. He also won Academy Awards for Jaws, Fiddler on the Roof, E.T., and Schindler’s List, and his other world-famous scores include Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, and Jurassic Park. Williams is currently writing a theme for Solo: A Star Wars Story and has agreed to score Star Wars Episode IX.
Williams’ stellar work on the Star Wars franchise is a big part of what gave the franchise its identity and has come to influence dozens of composers in the years that have followed. Here’s to Williams continuing to break new ground for musical composition and for his future endeavors to help define the Star Wars landscape for years to come!
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
