Paul Williams (songwriter)

Paul Williams
Williams at GalaxyCon Raleigh in 2022
Background information
Birth name	Paul Hamilton Williams Jr.
Born	(1940-09-19) September 19, 1940 (age 84) Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Origin	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres	Folk pop soft rock film score
Occupations	Musician songwriter actor writer
Years active	1964–present
Labels	A&M, Reprise, Portrait
Website	paulwilliamsofficial.com

Paul Hamilton Williams Jr.^[1] (born September 19, 1940)^[1][2] is an American composer, singer, songwriter, and actor. He is known for writing and co-writing popular songs performed by a number of acts in the 1970s, including Three Dog Night's "An Old Fashioned Love Song" and "Out in the Country", Helen Reddy's "You and Me Against the World", Biff Rose's "Fill Your Heart", and the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun" and "Rainy Days and Mondays". He also wrote "Cried Like a Baby" for teen idol Bobby Sherman.

Williams is also known for writing the score and lyrics for Bugsy Malone (1976) and his musical contributions to other films, including the Oscar-nominated song "Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie, and writing the lyrics to the #1 chart-topping song "Evergreen", the love theme from the Barbra Streisand film A Star Is Born, for which he won a Grammy for Song of the Year and an Academy Award for Best Original Song. He wrote the lyrics to the opening theme for the television show The Love Boat, with music previously composed by Charles Fox, which was originally sung by Jack Jones and, later, by Dionne Warwick.^[3]

Williams has had a variety of high-profile acting roles, such as Little Enos Burdette in the action-comedy Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and the villainous Swan in Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise (1974),^[4] which Williams also co-scored, receiving an Oscar nomination in the process.^[5] Since 2009, Williams has been the president and chairman of the American songwriting society ASCAP.