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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.

Life and career

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.

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.

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)".

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)

Other songs with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster

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

1. http://baumcrohnwebster.org/baumcrohnwebster.org/We_Remember_Folder/We_Remember_09.pdf
2. Paul Francis Webster on The Guide to Musical Theatre
3. ^ "Paul Francis Webster". Michael Feinstein's American Songbook. Michael Feinstein Great American Songbook Initiative. Retrieved 2015-01-12.
4. Paul Francis Webster at the Songwriters Hall of Fame
5. "Paul Francis Webster Papers". Syracuse University Libraries. Syracuse University. Retrieved 2015-01-12.
6. "Paul Francis Webster Song Catalog". Songwriters Hall of Fame. Songwriters Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2015-01-12.
7. "Songs Written by Paul Francis Webster". MusicVF.com. VF Entertainment. Retrieved 2015-01-12.

• Hill, Tony L. "Paul Francis Webster, 1907-1984", in Dictionary of Literary Biography 265. Detroit: Gale Research, 2002.
• Sammy Lifetime Achievement Film Music Award for Paul Francis Webster http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/sammys2016.htm

• 1907 births
• 1984 deaths
• Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
• American musical theatre lyricists
• Songwriters from New York (state)
• Cornell University alumni
• Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees
• Grammy Award winners
• Horace Mann School alumni
• United States Navy officers
• 20th-century American musicians
• Burials at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery