by contributor Rebecca Fernandez
Paul Williams STILL ALIVE!
On September 10th, the first screening of “PAUL WILLIAMS: STILL ALIVE” took place at the Burke Theater in the US Navy Memorial. (Chris Brown, Meredith Fineman and Rebecca Fernandez shown above)
The movie is a documentary that takes us to the peak of Paul William’s career to the time he was lost because of his addiction.
Hollywood on the Potomac had a chance to chat with him at the event where he gave us personal responses to even delicate questions.
He is very proud of the movie, especially because it gives the great message of “Hope for the hopeless.”
“I was kind of hesitant to make the movie because the last thing I wanted was to be a little old guy saying – please sir can you give me another cup of fame.”
The movie was an amazing way of portraying the amazing life and career that Mr. Williams had and the one that is continuing to this day.
Paul Williams is an Academy Award-winning American composer, musician, songwriter, and actor. He started his career playing kids roles in movies. He was always shorter than everyone else, graduating from high school as 4 foot 9 inches. “I always looked like a kid, so I always got casted as one. Even when I was 24. They would put me with other kids, and then I just looked like a kid with a hangover.” He was 27 when his acting career died off.
He took all his heartache and loss into writing music. Little did he know, this was where his career would really take off. He is responsible for most of the popular, top hit songs from the 1970s.
Several of his hits are “An Old Fashioned Love Song”, “The Family of Man”, “Out in the Country”, “You and Me Against the World”, “Rainy Days and Mondays,” “I Won’t Last a Day Without You,” and “We’ve Only Just Begun”, originally a song for a Crocker National Bank television commercial featuring newlyweds, which has since become a traditional song for weddings throughout North America.
After asking Mr. Williams out of all the music he has written, which is his favorite one he said, “The best job ever was writing songs for The Muppets. So probably “Rainbow Connection”. To sit down and write for Jim Henson, and write a song for Kermit the frog was as good as it gets. And writing a little song that is still being played today by Jason Mraz and many others, is all a gift at this point. “
Photo credit: SplitSider
Williams has written music for a number of films, including writing and singing on Phantom of the Paradise. He starred and earned an Oscar nomination for the music in this film.
He contributed lyrics to the Cinderella Liberty song “You’re So Nice to Be Around” with music by John Williams, and it earned them an Oscar nomination. Mr. Williams was nominated 6 times for an Oscar and finally won with the bittersweet love ballad, “Evergreen”. This is one of many of the awards Paul Williams received from his outstanding writing career.
Paul and Barbra Streisend from Tracey Jackson Online
“Getting inducted into Songwriter Hall of Fame was amazing. But the greatest honor I was ever given was in 2009. I was elected president and chairman of the board of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers). We have over 100 years of music. From Berlin to Beyonce to Justin Berber, you name it. To be able to help all these guys make a living through their music is very important to me and a great honor.”
What is Paul Williams doing now?
To this day, he is still writing songs. He is writing with a group called “Daft Punk”. There are several songs on the group’s new CD that were written by him. He is also writing a book that has yet to be released. The book is on recovery. Mr. Williams has been 22 years sober. Because of his past addiction, is why many people thought he had “disappeared” since he was no longer around in the spot light.
Paul Williams in his own words.
Photo credits for archivals are from The Paul Williams Collection, The Muffets and public domain.
The Trailer:
