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Paul Francis Webster

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Birth name
  
Paul Francis Webster

Occupation(s)
  

Name
  
Paul Webster

Role
  
Lyricist

Paul Francis Webster Paul Francis Webster Discography at Discogs


Born
  
December 20, 1907 (
1907-12-20
)

Died
  
Movies
  
Rubin and Ed, Nora Prentiss

Awards
  
Academy Award for Best Original Song, Grammy Award for Song of the Year

Similar People
  

Sammy fain music paul francis webster lyrics secret love anacani vocals 1970 s


Paul Francis Webster (December 20, 1907 – March 18, 1984) was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Song and was nominated sixteen times for the award.

Contents

Paul Francis Webster Paul Francis Webster Songwriters Hall of Fame

Black coffee by paul francis webster and sonny burke played by benjamin mcquigg


Life and career

Paul Francis Webster Learning Curve on the Ecliptic Music Monday Paul Francis Webster

Webster was born in New York City, the son of Myron Lawrence Webster and Blanche Pauline Stonehill Webster. His family was Jewish. His father was born in Augustów, Poland. He attended the Horace Mann School (Riverdale, Bronx, New York), graduating in 1926, and then went to Cornell University from 1927 to 1928 and New York University from 1928 to 1930, leaving without receiving a degree. He worked on ships throughout Asia and then became a dance instructor at an Arthur Murray studio in New York City.

Paul Francis Webster Tredwellsmusiccom The Shadow of Your Smile Paul Francis Webster

By 1931, however, he turned his career direction to writing song lyrics. His first professional lyric was Masquerade (music by John Jacob Loeb) which became a hit in 1932, performed by Paul Whiteman.

Paul Francis Webster Paul Francis Webster The Alamo Solist Antal Falvai Conducted

In 1935 Twentieth Century Fox signed him to a contract to write lyrics for Shirley Temple's films, but shortly afterward he went back to freelance writing. His first hit was a collaboration in 1941 with Duke Ellington on the song "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)".

Paul Francis Webster Paul Francis Webster 1907 1984 Find A Grave Memorial

After 1950, Webster worked mostly for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He won two Academy Awards in collaboration with Sammy Fain, in 1953 and 1955, and another with Johnny Mandel in 1965. Altogether, sixteen of his songs received Academy Award nominations; among lyricists, he is third after Sammy Cahn with twenty-six and Johnny Mercer, who was nominated eighteen times, in number of nominations. In addition, a large number of his songs became major hits on the popular music charts.

Webster is the most successful songwriter of the 1950s on the U.K. charts. In 1967 he was asked to write the famed lyrics for the Spider-Man (theme song) of the television cartoon. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972. His papers are collected at Syracuse University Libraries.

Webster continued writing through 1983. He died in 1984 in Beverly Hills, California and is buried at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.

List of songs

Here is a partial list of songs for which he wrote the lyrics:

Songs by Paul Francis Webster that won the Academy Award for Best Original Song

  • "Secret Love" (1953)
  • "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" (1955)
  • "The Shadow of Your Smile" (1965)
  • Nominated for the award

  • "Remember Me to Carolina" (1944)
  • "Friendly Persuasion (Thee I Love)" (1956)
  • "April Love" (1957)
  • "A Certain Smile" (1958)
  • "A Very Precious Love" (1958)
  • "The Green Leaves of Summer" (1960)
  • "Love Theme from El Cid (The Falcon and the Dove)" (1961)
  • "Tender Is the Night" (1962)
  • "Love Song From Mutiny on the Bounty (Follow Me)" (1962)
  • "So Little Time" (1963)
  • "A Time for Love" (1966)
  • "Strange Are The Ways of Love" from the film The Stepmother (1972)
  • "A World that Never Was" from the film Half a House (1976)
  • Songs winning Grammy Awards for best song of the year

  • "The Shadow of Your Smile" (love theme from The Sandpiper, 1966)
  • Song compilation

  • The Songs of Paul Francis Webster (ISBN 0-7935-0665-4)
  • Award-Winning Songs By Paul Francis Webster, Robbins Music Corporation, 1964
  • References

    Paul Francis Webster Wikipedia