John Williams

One of the pillars of film scoring and the most popular film composer of his era, John Williams has created music for some of the most successful motion pictures in Hollywood history -- Star Wars, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and Harry Potter are just a handful of selections from an extensive catalog that has included over 50 Academy Awards nominations. After getting his start in television in the late '50s, Williams worked more steadily on feature films by the early '70s, impressing with his stirring orchestral scores for blockbuster disaster films like The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974), and The Towering Inferno (1974), as well as through his work with such emerging directors as Robert Altman (1973's The Long Goodbye) and Steven Spielberg (1974's The Sugarland Express).