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Paul Hamilton Williams, Jr. (born September 19, 1940) is an American musician, composer, songwriter and actor. Williams is responsible for a number of enduring pop hits from the 1970s, including a number of hits for Three Dog Night (including An Old Fashioned Love Song, "The Family of Man", and "Out in the Country"), Helen Reddy ("You and Me Against the World"), and The Carpenters, most notably "Rainy Days and Mondays," "I Won`t Last a Day Without You," and "We`ve Only Just Begun", which has since become a cover-band standard and de rigueur for weddings throughout North America. An early collaboration with Roger Nichols, "Someday Man", was covered by The Monkees (a group for which he auditioned but was not cast) on a 1969 single, and was the first Monkees` release not published by Screen Gems. Although predominantly known for his music, Paul Williams is also an actor, appearing in films and many television guest appearances, notably as the Faustian record producer Swan in the cult film Phantom of the Paradise (for which he also wrote the songs), a rock and roll remake of Phantom of the Opera, and as Virgil, the genius orangutan in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. His most recognizable role is "Little Enos Burdette" in Smokey and the Bandit. He also played Miguelito Loveless Jr. in The Wild Wild West Revisited, a reunion movie of the original Wild Wild West, and played himself, singing a song to Felix Unger`s daughter Edna, in "The Odd Couple." After appearing on The Muppet Show, Williams worked closely with Jim Henson`s Henson Productions on The Muppet Movie, most specifically on the soundtrack, and even had a cameo in the movie as the piano player in the nightclub where Kermit the Frog meets Fozzie Bear.
Williams was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Bertha Mae (née Burnside), a homemaker, and Paul Hamilton Williams, an architectural engineer. He is married to writer Mariana Williams, and has two children, Sarah and Cole. His brothers are the late John Williams, a NASA rocket scientist, and Mentor Williams (fiancé of country legend Lynn Anderson), a successful songwriter in his own right who penned Dobie Gray`s 1972 hit, "Drift Away." Williams has been active in the field of recovery from addictions.
Biography Credit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Williams_(songwriter)
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