Star Wars: Mark Hamill Honors John Williams on His 88th Birthday

Happy Birthday, John Williams! The iconic composer known for film scores such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Superman, Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and many more turns 88 today. Many people have taken to social media to honor the legendary music man, including Mark Hamill, the actor best known for playing Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise. In addition to a Twitter post about Williams, Hamill also shared a link to a Variety interview from 2018 in which he praised the composer’s work.

“SHOUT OUT to #JohnWilliams on his birthday, not only for being one of the greatest composers of all time but because he once autographed my copy of the #StarWars soundtrack. See more of why I love him here: https://bit.ly/2um9GhL,” Hamill wrote.

You can check out the post below:

“Aside from George Lucas, nobody deserves more credit for the success of ‘Star Wars’ than John Williams,” Hamill said in the Variety interview.

Recently, Williams won his 25th Grammy due to his work with the Star Wars franchise, but this one didn’t actually come by way of the feature films. Williams won the award for Best Instrumental Composition, which is an award for an original composition that can only be released as a single or track, so full albums aren’t eligible. The award was given to the famed musician for “Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Symphonic Suite”, a track he created for the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge attractions in Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Williams beat out the likes of Fred Hersch, Brian Lynch, Vince Mendoza, and Christian McBride for the award.

Williams is also nominated for Best Original Score at the Oscars this year for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. He’ll be going up against Alexandre Desplat (Little Women), Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker), Randy Newman (Marriage Story), and Thomas Newman (1917). Over the years, Williams has been nominated for more than 50 Academy Awards, winning five of them.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is still playing in select theatres, and the 92nd Academy Awards air on February 9th on ABC.