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They say the apple doesn\u2019t fall far from the tree, and in the case of the five-time Oscar-winning composer John Williams<\/a> the fruit is abundant. Williams is the subject of an intimate documentary portrait<\/a> directed by Laurent Bouzereau and produced by long-time collaborators Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard.<\/p> While we know the music, very few really know the man; except for close friends and family, of course. That family, you might be surprised to learn, includes career musicians, composers and notable singer-songwriters.<\/p> But it didn\u2019t start with John Williams, or I should say it\u00a0did<\/em>\u00a0start with John Williams\u2026 Senior, that is. Williams\u2019s father was in the music business, too, and is without question a huge part of why and how John Williams, Jr. became a jazz musician and then a film composer.\u00a0<\/p> We can actually climb another branch, because William\u2019s grandfather, Thomas Nagle, was also musician. Nagle was a drummer and apparently managed an orchestra in Maine; he\u2019s one of a line of drummers in the family\u2026\u00a0<\/p> And it\u2019s not just musicians; Williams\u2019s mother Joan Towner was a dancer, and he was married to the late actress Barbara Ruick, herself the daughter of actress Lurene Tuttle.<\/p> But who\u2019s who in the Williams musical family tree?<\/p> Williams Sr was born a Nagle, but eventually took his stepfather\u2019s surname \u2013 so without that event, we could have been saying \u2018Oscar-winning composer John Nagle\u2019. Going by the name of Johnny Williams (as his son would early in his own career), he made a name for himself as a Jazz drummer. He was a go-to player for some of New York\u2019s most iconic artists, such as Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, and worked regularly with Raymond Scott. He was also a regular performer on\u00a0Your Hit Parade<\/em>, a popular radio show which moved to Los Angeles in the late 1940s. Williams Sr. moved with it, taking his family with him, and found further work playing as a session musician in Hollywood studio orchestras. Williams, Sr. died in 1985.<\/p> This Williams followed in his father\u2019s footsteps to become a percussionist, in fact Donald Williams is an in-demand orchestral session player and has appeared in dozens of Hollywood film scores (even a few for his brother). A talented composer and arranger in his own right, Donald Williams studied at the Curtis Institute and has performed across a variety of genres and with a host of stars \u2013 including Tom Jones. Away from the film scores, he has performed with the Pennsylvania Ballet Company, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and Philadelphia Lyric Opera. In his younger days, he played with his brothers in jazz ensembles, and regularly made music at home with both them and their sister, Joan.<\/p>
John \u2018Johnny\u2019 Williams, Sr.<\/strong>\u00a0\/ FATHER<\/h3>
John ‘Johnny’ Williams, Sr. (Getty Images)<\/h6>
Donald J. Williams<\/strong>\u00a0\/ BROTHER<\/h3>