In early fall, when The Brooklyn Academy of Music announced that they would be screening PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE on December 10 with Paul Williams in attendance I reached out to the PR people to see if he was interested in doing an interview. They were kind enough to simply go “Let’s find out”. After a brief exchange of emails, a phone call was set up for the Friday before the screening. I was told expect half an hour and we went almost a full one.
To say that I was and still am in shock that it came together is an understatement. I mean Paul Williams is a god. He is one of my all-time favorite creators ever. His music is the soundtrack of my life. His film and TV roles have entertained me. For the last six decades he has made me smile. That I was lucky enough to talk to him and actually meet him after the screening has blown my tiny little mind.
For those who don’t know Paul Williams, he is an actor, singer, songwriter and raconteur who has been working steadily since the early 1960’s. He was written songs for everyone (no really), worked extensively with the Muppets (he wrote Rainbow Connection), won almost every award under the sun including a recent Grammy with Daft Punk. He is also over 34 years in recovery and is willing to help those who need it.
He and his work have touched everyone in the world whether they know it or not and made us better.
He’s so HUGE that when I said I was going to interview him all my friends had questions they wanted answered. I went into the interview with a page of my questions and two pages of questions from friends and family. Some of the questions got asked and some didn’t. I was way too busy just trying to keep up with the man himself.
What follows is most of our talk. As entertaining as the removed material was, I trimmed the things that were not on his career and life, I removed talk of an egg sandwich and a few other minor things.
I want to thank Ao Lan Guo at Obscured and Jesse Trussell BAM for helping me make connections. I want to thank Nancy Munoz for arranging it with Paul.
Mostly I want to thank Paul Williams not only for talking the time to talk and meet me, but for all the music and laughter that his work has brought to my life (and everyone else’s) over the years.
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| Paul Williams at Brooklyn Academy Of Music talking about PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE |
PAUL: So, we're going to see you Tuesday, right?
STEVE: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I bought my tickets as soon as I found out they were on sale.
I had been trying to, trying to see if I could arrange an interview with you because it was that important. I mean, just the thought of you being here in New York, you know, being able to see you is just way too important.
PAUL: I really appreciate it. It's amazing. It's the 50th anniversary and to have something that was just basically ignored, when it came out, 50 years later, have the kind of love because of the fans that that really loved it and made everybody they know watch it. And that built and built.
And the great thing in my life is that because some of the fans of Phantom have nice careers in music and in film and they reached out to me. So, I got, right now I'm writing Pan's Labyrinth for the stage with Guillermo del Toro.! And writing the words for that to Gustavo Santaolalla's music. And I mean, that whole thing with Daft Punk was because they met at Phantom of the Paradise in Paris.
But it's been this little movie that just has been such a gift as the years have gone by. And I mean, this year they screened it to close the, the Cannes Film Festival. And I went over and introduced it. I'm standing on that stage looking at this massive audience on the beach. They did the closing evening on the beach with all those deck chairs, hundreds of deck chairs. It looked like full of people. And I mean, I just got emotional. It was like, wow, to finally see that kind of an audience. And I wish Bill Finley was alive to appreciate it.
STEVE: I saw it sometime after it premiered. We wore out several copies of the vinyl, and cassette and 8 track and CDs of the soundtrack. It was always something where we would play the music and people go, “what is this?” It's a, it's Phantom of the Paradise. And then we got them into the movie. And now there are people I know who I got into the film when I was a kid watching the film in the seventies who now are showing their kids and their grandkids.
One of the things that blows everybody's mind, because it's how good you are, is that, you know, the breadth of the music in the film. Everything from Beach Boys to what would be hard rock at the time. And then you say he wrote Rainbow Connection and Evergreen. And then he wrote for the Carpenters and Helen Reddy, and everybody goes, “wait, what? And it just, blows everybody away.
PAUL: Well, you know, what's interesting when you, when you look at what I had out and what I was known for, what had been hit when, when Brian DePalma came over at the A&M Records looking for somebody to do, write the songs, I was probably the worst idea you could have. I mean there was nothing that I had success with that was anything like what it seemed like was what he was going to need, you know? So it's amazing that I got the job. But what's interesting in my life is I sit down to write and a lot at that time of my life, that's just what was coming out of my chest. That's what I was writing.
I was writing also with Roger Nichols, who was writing that kind of music. And I wrote lyrics to it. But the music that I loved was like the original Delaney & Bonnie & Friends.
And, you know, I was a huge, huge fan of, do you know who they are? Delaney & Bonnie & Friends?
STEVE: Yes.
PAUL: I mean the Stone Ponies and. Poco and all the, all the guys over in Laurel Canyon that I wish I was a part of, you know, with, with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and, and it was just, what I sat down and wrote was not like what I loved until I got the chance to do it with Phantom..
STEVE: But that's one of the things I was going to ask you was Brian De Palma came to you, did he a type of song he wanted? Did he say write this type of song and this type? How involved were you in shaping all these genres that show up in the film?
PAUL: Well, in the original script, which was Phantom of the Filmore, it changed a lot while we were working on it. It became more and more about my favorite line in the picture, which is when Philbin, before the wedding and the assassination that's all set up, says to me, “why would you want to do that on television? You know, with cameras on”. I say, “an assassination live on coast-to-coast television, that's entertainment.”
I think that what was going on, and I've talked about this before, is, you know, we're at a place where we we're watching the Vietnam War footage over our TV dinners every night. And I think we're getting to a place with the kids where it's basically entertainment and for adults watching the news, entertainment and news begin to come the same. , The separation between the two and the line between the two begins to, begins to disappear.
Originally Beef was supposed to die in the shower, and out of our conversation with Brian, it all of a sudden it emerged that what if the kids see the murder and they, and they think it's part of the show? Because they've been seeing so much theatrical violence, you know?
STEVE: Right.
PAUL: And so, the script changed. In the very, very first script there was a thing where Annette [ed. a character mentioned in Philbin’s first monolog but not seen in this version of the film] gets her tongue cut out, and what I decided to do is, have just at the moment of that, have her scream, go, AH!, and then turn it into Little Darling, you know? I think that, that Brian had actually mentioned Little Darling for that moment. And then he wanted Sha Na Na, and I thought, you know what, I want my own band, my own road band that knows me so well. So, when I turn to them and say, okay, we're talking, Beach Boys, they immediately start playing it, you know? I mean, we have such great communication. So with, with no disrespect meant intended for the, for Sha Na Na who I thought were terrific, that was not what I wanted.
I wanted a band that, that I could take the stolen music and shape it into these different forms. It says that at the very opening, that he was responsible for the invasion from England, and the music of the spheres. I knew that I wanted to go to a kind of a Beach Boys thing at one point. I was really proud of was that Somebody Super Like You, Life at Last, are really good hard rock, you know?
And, God bless my band, because, you know, because they just, they were right there. I lay out the chords for them, and I start singing lines to them, I mean, right down to opening, with the guitar, you know, Bow, bow, dow, dow, dow. So, so I'm singing that shit, and then the, you know, Art Munson is playing guitar, just, you know, hits his, his peddle, and just bow, bow, dow, dow, dow. And, and the drummer, Gary Mallaber, was so killer. So we got stuff that, that, that was, sounded. And then you go, wait a minute, now I'm going to do the, the music of the spheres, what does that sound like, you know?
And it's, it's kind of pretty glam rock.
STEVE: I know you were then what Ozzy Osbourne, and everybody was doing ten years later You were just, you were ten years ahead of everybody.
PAUL: Well, it was interesting, because I was such a, you know, middle-of-the-road writer. I wrote easy listening. But I love it, you know. I approached all of it as an actor. I was an actor first. So, you know, so to me, it's like let's look at this character. What is this character writing?
I look at Winslow, and I just related to his vulnerability and, little broken soul. And then there's Bill Finley, I mean, you, you look at him looking like, as if he is a deer that's been separated from his mommy, and then he turns around and, and throws Philbin against the wall, and you know, the anger that emerges. He's so, so fucking good.
So, I write for that.
I wrote almost all the songs for Ishtar, and I approach that as, like, these are these two guys, Chuck and Lyle, that are mismatched writers, and I cast myself as both of those characters, and so I write a line as Chuck, and then I write a line as Lyle, and, and so you wind up with… I don't know if you're an Ishtar fan or not.
STEVE: I'm mixed on it. I've never, I've never, I have friends who, like, absolutely love it.
PAUL: You know what, check out the music in it again, if nothing else, check out the music. It's intentionally bad songs that are believably bad, like somebody's trying to write something decent, and he just fucks it up, somewhere along the line.
“Telling the truth can be dangerous business. Honest and popular, popular, don't go hand in hand,” That’s a pretty good opening.
“If you admit that you can play the accordion, and no one will hire you in a rock and roll band”
It's like, oh, you screwed it up, guys, man.
You know it was just more fun, and I worked a year and a half on that. I wrote probably 50 songs, beginning to end, for the two or three lines they were using, it was all they needed, but she would have me write the whole song and teach it to them.
STEVE: Do you end up with a lot of cut songs?
PAUL: Well, when they're, especially when they're intentionally bad, you don't exactly drag them out and use, and you use them for something else. But you know I’ve never done much with a song that doesn't have a life.
I've never pulled something out of one show and tried to stick it in another. I think that's kind of cheating, you know. I think that I was inspired by Brian's vision. I was inspired by the script as it evolved, and it's a collaborative art form, you know. So, I try to really stay in the now, and it was just a rare opportunity to, especially to do both things, you know, to, to write the songs, and yet play the songs was so cool.
STEVE: Were there any songs that were cut out of Phantom?
PAUL: Not really, not, well the one that was, you know, the Hell of It was written for a graveyard scene. It was written for a scene where after Beef dies, you're out in a kind of a frozen, wintry scene graveyard. There's an open grave with a casket over it, and a circle of fans around it, and a lot of, and a lot of microphones and cameras, and, and you follow the, again, follow the, the wires back to a hearse, and inside the hearse is Swan, who's recording live on the Death label.
And I guess we just never really found the right funeral the right cemetery, but in that moment, when they're lowering the whole thing with the people around it, I wanted to do this kind of a Nino Rota thing. Nino Rota wrote the music for the Fellini films, so I wanted to do this kind of very, very Nino Rota, because it's very kind of Fellini-esque scene, and in the, in the script, it says that a little girl runs out and jumps on the casket as it's being lowered, starts auditioning, starts tap dancing, so that's why you hear, you hear the tap dancing. And, and it was so cool that, that the editor, Paul Hurst took, took that and used it for the end credits, which is so cool, so it didn't get lost.
STEVE: That’s awesome, I love that story, thank you.
PAUL: You're welcome, you're welcome, I appreciate you being an advocate and, and, and having the interest in the picture, it's very cool.
STEVE: No, it's an absolute joy. Whenever, Phantom's on, oh, we gotta watch it.
PAUL: I love it, I love that, thank you.
STEVE: You're welcome. Question for you, Bugsy Malone became a show, I know, in London, and I know Emmett Otter's turned into a, was turned into a stage play. Why hasn't Phantom ever been really turned into a stage play?
PAUL: Well, it's funny you should ask, because we're actually very, very close to having that happen. There'll probably be an announcement, I would guess, in as much as a month.
STEVE: Oh, awesome.
PAUL: It's, it's finally gonna happen.
STEVE: Oh, I love that.
PAUL: Yeah, I've written some additional stuff, and we'll write a little more, but we've finally found a combination and the right people. And it's funny because these things, like with Guillermo and Ken's Pans Labyrinth, Guillermo keeps going off to to work on movies, so we're like, we'd be working on it, then we'd kind of wait, and then we'd get work on it again, and all that. It got to the point where I was just like, okay, I surrender. I'm gonna just give up on it.
I'm gonna take it out of my bio. I mean, I'm just gonna do whatever. Then tthe next day I get an email from, from Guillermo's office that J.J. Abrams has come on board as our producer, and that makes it absolutely real. I mean, when you get somebody like J.J. Abrams, who's now producing Broadway shows, and he says we're gonna open in 2025 in England, then bring it over to New York, it's real, you know. So I've got a lot more patience than I used to have. and I don't really, if something doesn't do, I mean if something doesn't happen, to me, my first thought is that no is the gift. If it doesn't happen, there's something better that's supposed to happen. I've got a very Jiminy Cricket approach to life, you know, and it's all related to my sobriety. You know, it's 34 years of life lessons that have been just, that have just made me nothing but grateful.
I talk about the fact that my choo-choo runs on the twin rails of gratitude and trust, and that wound up being a book that I wrote with my friend Tracy Jackson. It hit the New York Times bestseller list briefly, and it's about recovery for people that are not addicts but have some bad habits they want to get over, gratitude and trust, you know.
STEVE: There was something my brother had wanted me to ask you, which was, you've written all these great songs, you've won all these awards and you've also done so much with recovery, you've written books, you've done advocacy, you've done all of these things. Is the advocacy what you're most proud of, or is it something else?
PAUL: Yeah, well, I'm proud of it, but beyond that, it's almost the other way around. I just see it as a total gift. I mean, I called a doctor in a blackout. I had a blackout. One of the last things I wanted to do was quit drinking. The career I thought I had had been gone for 10 years. You know you're an alcoholic when you misplace a decade. I mean, I was bad, a big cocaine addict and whatever. I had a terrible reputation by the time I got sober.
But in a blackout, I called a doctor, and when he called me back, he said, well, I found a place for you.
And I went, what are you talking about? Well, you called me yesterday and said you were sick of lying, that you didn't want to drive with your kids in the car anymore, bloated, like your dad did with you. And boy, there was something about hearing that that I said, yeah, I want to go to treatment.
So, I got sober. But 10 years later, that's why I was just in Oklahoma doing a fundraiser for a clubhouse there.
But what happened is I found out that I had gone, like five days before I had called a doctor in a blackout, I'd been in Oklahoma City doing a concert, and I had a full tilt psychotic episode. I mean, I went nuts. I'd been up probably two to three days and nights without sleeping. It was crazy. I was beaten up by an invisible hospital. And they postponed the gig for a day, and the promoter was just freaked out. But I ran into it. So anyway, when I did the gig, the next day I said I had a reaction to my meds, which was kind of the truth, because that was my medication in those days.
But I got on a plane to go home, and I drank on the plane, and I got drugs when I hit LAX and all. But then in that blackout, I called a doctor. I found out ten years later that what had happened is that the promoter, who was at the time seven years sober, and I didn't know it, called his sponsor, and they put together a prayer circle, and they prayed for me. They prayed that he'd enter out of the rooms that I would find from my addiction and my disease. And five days later in a blackout, I called a doctor. That's, to me, that's inseparable fact, and I think it's solidly connected.
And I have a spiritual life that believes that what they prayed, their prayers were answered, that what they asked for, what they visualized actually happened. And that's kind of basically the basis of my spiritual life, is that what we dwell on, what we create. You think you're not going to get that job.
Oh, I'm not going to have a career. It's not going to happen. And so, I heard like a prayer, and it doesn't happen.
But if you go, you know what? Something great is coming, and I can feel it. I can honestly feel it. It shows up the next day. It's amazing. And the way you describe it all in any of my work is the line, you give a little love, and it all comes back to you.
STEVE: For the most part, has your career been fun?
PAUL:Oh, my God, yeah.
STEVE: I ask because when I see you on TV you always seemed to be full of joy. For example, when I was re-equating myself with the details of your career the one thing that kept appearing was when you did the Planet of the Apes on the Tonight Show.
PAUL: It was a classic case where I did 48 tonight shows and. I remember six vividly. But I was booked to do the show, and we're out in Malibu shooting, and I've got all the orangutan makeup on, and I said to my makeup man, I said, you know what? I mean, if, you know, we take this off and try to get to NBC in time, I'm not going to get there in time to do the show, so can you come with me, and I'll just go on like this. So, I called Doc Severinsen. I said, I just saw him on a two-top, a table with a little check tablecloth, a candle, a cigarette burning in the ashtray. I said, okay, I'll bring my cigarette holder because you can't get it in your mouth. You know, you couldn't smoke a cigarette without a cigarette holder. And I'll sing, Here's Our Rainy Day in any key.
And, I mean, I just, I always had fun with Johnny. He was the best. We never talked before we were on camera. So there wasn't any, like, it was never fake. It was never, like, hey, how you been and everything. And we had, like, a 20-minute conversation back in makeup.
We stayed away from each other. We stayed away from everybody until they were right in front of him. And we just, you know, I mean, I made him laugh. And he was just the best, the best interviewer of any of them ever. And I was great friends with Pat McCormick, who wrote most of his monologues, the craziest stuff in his monologues. And I was drinking buddies with him and with Ed McMahon, you know.
I mean, Ed McMahon and I, anybody really interesting that I was really impressed with, I'd go have dinner after the show with Ed McMahon. I had dinner with, you know, James Mason. I had dinner with Orson Welles. I'm this, you know, the run of the litter from the Midwest to construction brat who just had all these Hollywood dreams. And the next thing you know, I'm sitting there having dinner with Orson Welles. So, it's like, and the fact is, see, that neither one of us has to, because we both do this for a living, neither one of us has to give up their fan card.
I mean, I am as much of, I mean, God bless Quincy Jones. I've seen Quincy, and I've known, I mean, I wrote songs, you know, wrote stuff for Quincy and was his friend and knew him for 50, 60 years probably, or more. But anytime I ever saw Quincy, there was something in my chest that kind of went, wow, there's Quincy Jones. Hey, Quincy, that's cute. And I mean, I just got a big kick out of it.
When I love someone, I'm writing with this group called Portugal the Man, and I love them. I mean, I love Portugal the Man.
STEVE: It's a great group.
PAUL: Yeah, great group. And John Gorley and I are writing a bunch together and all. And I mean, I literally go, I'll sit there and watch him work or perform with the band, and I go, shit, man. I mean, I'm writing with John Gorley. And he's told me like that about, my God, I'm writing with Paul Williams. Well, it's so cool.
It's very cool.
STEVE: I'm feeling that right now. I mean, it's just like, you know, that I'm talking to you is like, the five years, I want to say, the little kid in me is like jumping up and down. Because I've loved your music for my whole life.
PAUL: Yeah, I love that. And you know what? I appreciate it.
But the fact is, what you're talking about feeling is what I'm talking about feeling. I've never lost that. I've never lost that.
And I think that's what maybe you see, you know. I think that at this point in my life, it's an amazing gratitude. I mean, Christmas Carol was the first movie that I wrote the songs for, words and music, after I got sober.
You know nobody was calling me. The phone wasn't ringing. I'm not the hot property in town. And the career, as I said, that I thought I had had been gone about 10 years. And the phone rings in his hand, and it's Brian Henson. And he says, I want you to do the, you know, the songs for Christmas Carol.
Which is, think about how perfect that is. I'm having a spiritual awakening. For the first time in my life, I've come out of medical detox with no cravings. And I go, oh my God, what was I doing? This is amazing. The way that it felt, you know, just to be normal. And nothing but grateful. So, I'm this guy having a spiritual experience for the first time, writing about a guy who's having a spiritual experience for the first time.
And I remember walking into the recording session, and Michael Caine was there. I would be in the studio with him, kind of singing with him, and almost conducting him, you know, like making a big expression when I wanted him to get big, you know. And he just, liked that. I would sing, kind of like sing along with him, and then we'd do just him singing.
But it's like, I walked in there the first time, and I said Michael, it's great to meet you. You know, it's like, a huge fan. It's wonderful to meet you.
And he said, [Paul does a spot on Michael Caine impression] are you out of your fucking mind? He said, you know, we spent an entire weekend together at the White Elephant. We gambled, we drank, we drank, we gambled, and then we drank, and then we gambled.
It was so funny. I said, oh my God, I had totally, that was evidently a largely blackout weekend for me, you know.
Whenever I meet somebody, and I've been around in those days, I always check with them. Do I owe you an amends? I mean, did I behave? Or an actress or something, and say, you know, did I behave? Oh, you were charming. You were sweet. You were kidding. No, you were fine. And then there were the cases where I know that I was nuts.
I mean, by the last couple years before I got sober, it had to be awful to work with me. I mean, because I just, you never knew what you were getting. If I was going to show up as a responsible, you know, guy that was taking care of business, or was I going to show up as somebody just crazy, you know?
STEVE: How do you, being as fan of certain people, feel when you hear your songs done by them? And how do you feel when something that you've written a while ago is being redone now?
PAUL: Well, that's how I started, is I started, as a contract writer at A&M Records, and I write, you know, every week I'd be in there for a few hours every day, writing with Roger, or writing by myself, or writing with other guys, you know. My bass player, Jack Conrad, and I wrote Family of Man for Three Dog Nights. I wrote Old Fashioned Love Song alone. I wrote Out in the Country with Roger, you know, so I'm writing, I'm not writing for myself. I started recording eventually, and my albums, I mean, they, I wound up getting them because I promoted it on television, so I became known, and I got a performing career and all. But the fact is that my albums were really like demos.
I mean, I recorded songs, and other people heard them and decided to record them. So, I recorded You and Me Against the World, but no one really had the hit with it. And, you know, most of the songs that Roger and I were writing, the first person to hear them was gonna be Karen and Richard Carpenter. I mean, I remember I went, ran over and played Old Fashioned Love Song for Richard, and he didn't even listen to it through the second verse. And so my publisher sent it to Three Dog Nights, and they cut it. But what's really a treat is when there's somebody that I really wanted to record one of my songs, and they never had. And then when that happens, the classic example, I love Tony Bennett, and we were friends. The head of membership at ASCAP was John Tito, was very good friends with Tony. And I remember when Tony recorded Close Enough for Love, a song I wrote with Johnny Mandela, a title song for the movie Agatha. And it was, I mean, I was like a kid in a candy store. Oh my God, I got a Tony Bennett recording. You know, and I look up with a list of people that recorded my songs. I mean, I had, Bing Crosby recorded, We've Only Just Begun. I mean, that's how far back I go. I had songs recorded by Sinatra and Elvis and Ella Fitzgerald, and just, you know, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and just amazing to, you know, to look at that, and it's, again, nothing but gratitude.
I just, and it's a thrill, you know? And then, you know, the first song I ever had recorded was recorded by Tiny Tim. I was like, you know, Tiny was a sweetheart, but I was not, I was not bowled over with joy for a Tiny Tim cut, you know? And yet, look what happened. It's like, oh, well, that's where it wound up, okay. And it was a huge record. It was the B-side of it, and they played that as well. But then the next thing you know, you know, it's recorded by David Bowie, and it's like, oh my God, I got a David Bowie cut. And so, you know, at this point, I figured songs have a life of their own.
The longer I live, the more I feel like, you know, it's just, it's got my name on it because I sat down and wrote it, you know? But I sometimes feel like I have unseen collaborators, you know? I sit down to write a song, and then all of a sudden, it's just pouring out of me, and I wonder, oh my God, it's almost as if I'm not thinking it.
It just comes out. Is that, Harry Nelson, is that you up there? You know, is that J.D. Souther, my buddy J.D.? Are we writing this one together? Is it my brother Minter, who wrote Driftaway? Give me the beat, boys. Rewind.
You know? So I'm honestly humble about the life that the songs have and nothing but grateful.
STEVE: I think about all you've done and all you've written, and I can't imagine how your life would have been different if you had actually become one of the Monkees.
PAUL: That's why No is a gift. That's why, because if I'd become one of the Monkees, I probably wouldn't have, I wouldn't have had the life as a writer that I have. I mean, No is a gift.
You know who else would audition for them? Steven Stills.
STEVE: That would have been just weird. Can I ask you two quick questions?
PAUL: Of course.
STEVE: Do you still skydive?
PAUL: Oh no, I quit at 100 jumps. I actually quit because I wanted to start racing. I bought a 308 GTB Ferrari and they sent me to anti-terrorism, anti-kidnapping school at Sears Point Raceway. And I had no intention of ever racing. But I got in that car and I got a little instruction and I went, oh my God. So I did five Long Beach Grand Prix's, I did the Watkins Glen Grand Prix I think five times as well.
I raced Laguna Seca, Sears Point, Riverside. I mean, it just, I loved it.
Skydiving was such a… I'd rent a motorhome and drive it down to the drop zone, which is the most dangerous part of the weekend. And then we'd get a couple jumps in and it was kind of a crazy time. But I love free fall. You know, I made my first 33 jumps back when I was 20 years old.
It was just the beginnings of the sport. I mean, Rob Pack was the first guy to ever pass a baton to another guy in free fall where they left in planes separately. You know, two guys in free fall separate, flew to each other, passed a baton, opened their parachutes and landed.
So relative work, which was almost nonexistent when I made my first 33 jumps. When I was asked to come back and jump when they found that they were looking for a celebrity that had skydiving experience, they saw my name in the Parachute Club of America's logbook. And they went, is that you? That's not you, is it? I went, yes, it is. And the answer is yes.
I wound up shooting, making a bunch of jumps with the Golden Knights, the U.S. Army Golden Knights, and got my certification. I became a star recipient for being a seven-man diamond. We shot that and I kept jumping until I got to 100 jumps and I was done.
But it was a great experience and it's funny because things slow down. When you're in free fall, there's no real sensation of speed. It's like when your hand's out the window of your car and you're playing with the wind.
That's what your whole body feels like. It's kind of a secure feeling. With the Golden Knights, we were cleared to jump all the way up to 12,500 feet. So we get 80 seconds of free fall. It was like amazing.
STEVE: Oh, I'm so jealous.
PAUL:Get out and do it.
STEVE: I will, I will. One last question. The song that you did for The Odd Couple? Is that available anywhere?
PAUL: I don't think so. I never record it. You know, it's like I wrote it that morning and we shot it.
Because they kept changing the script so the whole thing was that Tony gave me a note for his daughter and I used the note to write the song. But they didn't write the note for Tony until the day that we actually shot it. So that morning, from that morning to the time when we shot it that night, was that later that afternoon with an audience in there and all, is when I wrote the song.
And I don't play piano, so I'm sitting there trying to remember where the hell the chords are and whatever. But it's funny, a lot of people talk to me about that. It's a sweet little song and that was long before I had any kids.
But I have to tell you that now with a daughter who's just turned 40 and the son is 44, I know how all those feelings felt. You know, I wasn't much there when they were growing up because I was a mess. But I got sober in 1990, I had my last drink in 1989 and my son was eight and my daughter was five.
And so from then on they've never seen me loaded. But I was not there for those early years and all. As my daughter said to me recently, Dad, you may have been before, you're now a full-tailed papa bear and that's as good a compliment or review as I've ever gotten in my life.
STEVE: That's the best one. That's absolutely the best one.
PAUL :Yeah.
(A report on Paul Williams post screening Q&A will be appearing soon)
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