“Forgotten Hollywood”- Pianist Roger Williams has Died…
Manny P. here… 
Famed pianist Roger Williams died on Saturday. He’s arguably the most successful artist in his craft over the last sixty years. His hits included Autumn Leaves (the only piano instrumental to ever reach #1), Born Free, The Impossible Dream, Somewhere in Time, and Lara’s Theme from Dr. Zhivago.
In his teens, he met Ronald Reagan at a radio station in Iowa and they became lifelong pals. Other notables who called him their friend were former President Jimmy Carter and Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. Eventually, Roger Williams performed at the White House for every chief executive from Harry Truman to George W. Bush.
Two early television pioneers who guided Roger Williams into a successful career would be Arthur Godfrey on his Talent Scouts program; and Dennis James, who hosted Chance of a Lifetime.
According to his official website:
The first pianist to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Roger Williams has twenty-one Gold and Platinum albums to his credit. He is a Steinway Artist, and he is the first and (so far) only artist to receive the Steinway Lifetime Achievement Award. Williams was featured at Carnegie Hall for Steinway’s 150th Anniversary.
In 2010, Roger Williams was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. At the time of his passing, he was 87 (having celebrated his birthday just last week).
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 2:33 am and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
You must be logged in to post a comment.