USA Film Fest - Tribute to Paul Williams

Actor-Singer-Composer-Songwriter. No American who has ever seen a movie or owned a TV or radio can be unfamiliar with the work of Paul Williams, one of his generation’s most prolific and successful songwriters and a popular star of the big and small screen. His achievements as a tunesmith are enough to ensure his immortality — he’s an Oscar-, Grammy- and Golden Globe-winning composer for creating such hits as "We’ve Only Just Begun," "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "An Old-Fashioned Love Song," as well as the song scores for Phantom of the Paradise, The Muppet Movie, Ishtar (whatever can be said of the film, the songs are hilarious) and Bugsy Malone. (He also gave the world — and the 1976 version of A Star is Born — the beloved standard "Evergreen.") Add to that Williams’ near-ubiquity during the golden age of TV variety shows and his performances in films like The Rules of Attraction, The Loved One, Battle for the Planet of the Apes and the Smokey and the Bandit series, and you have one of pop culture’s great Renaissance men. (And did we mention he wrote the lyrics to the theme from "The Love Boat"?) The Festival is honored to pay tribute to the unpredictable and ongoing career of the inimitable Paul Williams with a 35th anniversary screening of Phantom of the Paradise, which features not only Williams’ great songs (which operate simultaneously as pop confections and genre parodies) but also his villainous turn as evil music mogul Swan.

Information provided by the festival