Paul Williams

Paul Hamilton Williams Jr born September 19 1940 is an American composer singer songwriter and actor He is known for writing and cowriting popular songs performed by a number of acts in the 1970s including Three Dog Nights An Old Fashioned Love Song and Out in the Country Helen Reddys You and Me Against the World Biff Roses Fill Your Heart and the Carpenters Weve Only Just Begun and Rainy Days and Mondays Williams is also known for writing the score and lyrics for Bugsy Malone 1976 and his musical contributions to other films including the Oscarnominated song Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie and writing the lyrics to the 1 charttopping 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 Williams had a variety of highprofile acting roles such as Little Enos Burdette in the actioncomedy Smokey and the Bandit 1977 and the villainous Swan in Brian De Palmas Phantom of the Paradise 1974 which Williams also coscored receiving an Oscar nomination in the process6 Since 2009 Williams has been the president and chairman of the American songwriting society ASCAP From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia