The Brief Conversation That Launched John Williams' Long Star Wars Career
For almost 50 years, John Williams' music has been virtually synonymous with the films of Steven Spielberg (and vice versa), and for nearly as long, Williams' compositions have formed the emotional backbone of the Skywalker Saga from "Star Wars." However, 20 years before the cinematic musical maestro become known for either of those things, Williams was merely a whipper-snapper fresh out of Julliard and eager to leave his mark on the worlds of concert and film music.
Williams' pre-Spielberg run would have made for an incredible career all by itself. It was an era that saw the composer collaborating with numerous giants among the old guard of Hollywood directors, including Robert Altman, Don Siegel, William Wyler, Irwin Allen, Frank Sinatra, and Norman Jewison. In 1974, Williams worked with Spielberg for the first time on the filmmaker's theatrical feature debut, "The Sugarland Express." (His first film as a director, "Duel," was made for TV.) Appearing with Williams at the American Cinematheque event "50 Years of Music and Movies" in February 2023 (via Deadline), Spielberg recalled:
"Before that, I was writing a lot of screenplays, and I kept listening to this soundtrack album to help inspire me with the story and the album was from a film called 'The Reivers' that John had scored for Mark Rydell. And that was the first time I actually laid ears on John Williams, that was it! That was how it all started."
Having been dazzled by Williams' score for "Sugarland Express," Spielberg reunited with him right after for a little film called "Jaws." It was during the development of their classic horror-adventure that Spielberg mentioned that Williams fella to his friend and fellow "Movie Brat" George Lucas, who quickly realized the musician's classical, neo-romantic compositions were perfect for the space opera he was putting together.
'Steven said, 'I worked with this guy and he's great!''
J.W. Rinzler's indespensible "The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film" reveals how Lucas prevented studio executives at 20th Century Fox from meddling with his vision for the original "Star Wars." As the film's head of marketing and merchandising, Charles Lippincott, explained, Lucas worked out of an office at Universal "because he believed politically, and he was right, that you don't want to be on the same lot as the studio, because they can invade your space and give you a hard time." That wouldn't fly in the modern world of virtual office spaces, but in 1975, Lucas's approach succeeded like gangbusters and gave him the space he needed to realize a galaxy far, far away as he saw fit.
That wasn't the only benefit, either. Spielberg, who had been pals with Lucas and entranced by his work since seeing his 1967 student film "Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB" (the basis for Lucas' 1971 dystopian feature directorial debut, "THX 1138"), was also neck-high into post-production on "Jaws" on the Universal lot at that point. Naturally, the two would talk about what they were up to.
With music having been instrumental (no pun intended) to Lucas' second feature, 1973's "American Graffiti," he was already giving serious thought to the sound of "Star Wars." But where the former had pioneered the art of the zeitgeist jukebox soundtrack, Lucas wanted something more timeless and romantic for the latter, as befitting a tale set "a long time ago." Having worked with Williams twice by then, Spielberg knew just the chap for the job. "Steven said, 'I worked with this guy and he's great!'" Lucas recalled.
That was all it took. Shortly after, Spielberg arranged for Lucas and Williams to meet, and history handled the rest.