Few living composers have cultivated an image as reassuringly steady as John Williams. For more than half a century, he has appeared before orchestras with the same measured gestures, courtly manner, and air of unflappable professionalism. His music may accompany shark attacks, alien encounters, and battles across the stars, but the man himself has generally remained reserved, diplomatic, and notably private.

That discretion has helped conceal just how unusual portions of his life have been. Long before Jaws, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones, Williams was an Air Force recruit who nearly became a medic, a young arranger translating gospel improvisations into orchestral scores, and a bridegroom married in secrecy after an expedited divorce in Mexico. Later, at the height of his fame, he briefly resigned from the Boston Pops over a single hostile hiss and spent evenings at Tanglewood helping Leonard Bernstein ward off ghosts with a cup of white beans.

These episodes do more than provide amusing footnotes to a famous career. Together, they reveal the accidents, relationships, compromises, and occasional confrontations behind one of the most recognizable musical voices of the modern era.

1. His First Marriage Required a Secret Trip to Chihuahua

In 1956, John Williams was still years away from becoming a household name. Having completed military service and studies at Juilliard, he returned to Los Angeles and reconnected with actress and singer Barbara Ruick, whom he had known since childhood.

Their relationship quickly became complicated. Ruick was still legally married to actor Robert Horton when she and Williams learned that she was expecting a child. Before they could marry, her existing marriage needed to be dissolved, and quietly.

According to Tim Greiving’s biography John Williams: A Composer’s Life, the couple turned to entertainment lawyer Mickey Rudin, whose clients included Frank Sinatra. Rudin arranged what was then commonly known as a “Mexican divorce.” An attorney carried the necessary paperwork across the border to a court in Chihuahua, where Ruick’s divorce and her marriage to Williams were completed on the same day.

There was no public ceremony and little fanfare. One marriage ended and another began through paperwork processed hundreds of miles from Hollywood.

Their daughter Jennifer was born later that year, followed by sons Mark and Joseph. The marriage lasted until Ruick’s sudden death in 1974. By then Williams had already won an Academy Award, though his greatest successes still lay ahead.

The episode feels surprisingly dramatic for a man whose public image would later become synonymous with stability and discretion. Yet it also illustrates a recurring theme in Williams’s life: when confronted with an obstacle, he quietly found a practical solution and moved forward.

2. Bob Hope May Have Saved Him from Becoming an Air Force Medic

Williams entered the Air Force in 1952 during the Korean War. Although he hoped to serve as a musician, his initial assignment after basic training placed him in medical service.

The prospect was alarming. Rather than playing piano and arranging music, Williams imagined himself administering injections and performing duties for which he felt entirely unsuited. He called his father, John Williams Sr., a professional drummer with extensive entertainment-industry connections.

One of those connections was comedian Jerry Colonna, Bob Hope’s longtime radio sidekick. Through years of military tours, Hope and Colonna had developed relationships throughout the armed forces.

What happened next remains somewhat unclear. Williams later recalled that a call was made to a general and believed Bob Hope may have been involved. Whatever the exact circumstances, his medical assignment disappeared. He was transferred into the Air Force band program, where he served as a pianist, brass player, arranger, and conductor.

The change proved enormously important. During postings in Arizona and Newfoundland, Williams gained valuable experience writing for ensembles and helped create music for a promotional documentary titled You Are Welcome, often cited as his earliest film score.

The history of film music may not have turned on artistic destiny alone. It may also have depended on a worried phone call and a favor from one of America’s most famous entertainers.

3. A Hiss Made Him Resign from the Boston Pops

When Williams became conductor of the Boston Pops in 1980, he inherited one of America’s most beloved musical institutions. He also inherited an orchestra culture that could be surprisingly unruly.

Many Pops musicians also played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and viewed the Pops schedule as an obligation rather than a privilege. Rehearsals under Arthur Fiedler had sometimes featured pranks, inattentiveness, and open displays of dissatisfaction. Williams, who valued order and professionalism, found the atmosphere frustrating.

The breaking point came on June 12, 1984. During a rehearsal of Williams’s own patriotic song America, the Dream Goes On, several musicians hissed when the piece ended.

Williams immediately put down his baton, left the stage, and informed general manager Thomas Morris that he was resigning.

The incident reflected deeper tensions. Some musicians disliked the repertoire and resented the demands of the Pops schedule. Williams believed poor morale and casual rehearsal habits were undermining the orchestra’s standards. The hiss became the final insult.

The dispute quickly became known as “Popsgate.” Musicians apologized, but Williams initially refused to reconsider. Only after weeks of discussions, scheduling changes, and assurances of improved cooperation did he agree to stay.

The decision proved significant. Williams remained for another nine years, expanding the orchestra’s profile through recordings, tours, television appearances, and new repertoire.

The episode reveals a side of Williams that is often overlooked. He was famously courteous, but he was not endlessly accommodating. When he felt professional standards had been compromised, he was willing to walk away.

4. He and Leonard Bernstein Fought Ghosts with White Beans

Williams’s years with the Boston Symphony Orchestra brought him into close contact with Leonard Bernstein. The two men differed dramatically in temperament. Williams was reserved and methodical; Bernstein was exuberant, theatrical, and fascinated by nearly everything, including ghosts.

Their friendship often continued after concerts at Tanglewood, the orchestra’s summer home in the Berkshires. According to local legend, Highwood, a mansion on the grounds, was haunted by the spirit of a farmhand killed by a falling tree.

Bernstein apparently took the story seriously. Williams later recalled Bernstein announcing one evening that the house was haunted. According to Greiving’s biography, the two composers developed a ritual before settling in for postconcert conversation: they placed a cup of white beans in the room to ward off troublesome spirits.

Whether Williams believed in the ghosts or simply humored his friend is impossible to know. Either way, the image is unforgettable: two of America’s greatest musicians relying on dried beans for supernatural protection.

The story remained with Williams for decades. In 2018, during celebrations marking Bernstein’s centennial, he composed Highwood’s Ghost for cello, harp, and orchestra. Williams described the spirit as a “seemingly very pleasant” presence, and the music treats the legend with affection and humor.

What began as a private superstition eventually became part of the concert repertoire.

5. He Arranged Gospel Albums for Mahalia Jackson

Before becoming Hollywood’s most celebrated composer, Williams spent years doing whatever musical work he could find. He played piano in studios, orchestrated for other composers, wrote television music, and arranged recordings under the name “Johnny Williams.”

Among his most notable collaborators was gospel legend Mahalia Jackson. Williams arranged and conducted several of her Columbia albums, including I Believe, Everytime I Feel the Spirit, Great Songs of Love and Faith, and Silent Night: Songs for Christmas.

The work required unusual sensitivity. Jackson’s performances depended heavily on the playing of her longtime pianist, Mildred Falls. Rather than imposing his own style, Williams had to listen carefully, transcribe Falls’s improvisations, and build orchestral arrangements around them.

As Williams later explained, Jackson believed Falls played exactly as God intended. The arranger’s task was therefore not to replace the gospel sound with something more polished but to preserve its character while expanding its scale.

Falls was a formidable musician. Williams remembered that her piano could overpower an entire orchestra. Jackson, meanwhile, rarely performed a song exactly the same way twice. The arrangements had to be structured enough for orchestral players yet flexible enough to accommodate spontaneity.

The pace was astonishing. Williams recalled that an entire twelve-song album could be arranged, recorded, and edited in roughly a week. Two of the resulting recordings, Everytime I Feel the Spirit and Great Songs of Love and Faith, won Grammy Awards for Jackson.

The experience taught Williams a lesson that would serve him throughout his career: great arranging begins with listening. Long before he scored sharks, Jedi knights, or dinosaurs, he learned how to support another artist’s voice without overwhelming it.

The Life Behind the Music

None of these stories resembles the tidy career that can be constructed from awards, premieres, and famous film scores. They involve luck, secrecy, personal connections, wounded pride, superstition, and hard-earned professional experience.

Williams’s success can seem inevitable in retrospect. Yet the young musician might have spent his military service in a medical unit. His family began with an improvised legal maneuver in Chihuahua. His tenure with the Boston Pops nearly ended after four years. Some of his most valuable musical training came not from a conservatory classroom but from adapting orchestral arrangements to the instincts of a gospel pianist.

The familiar image of John Williams is not inaccurate. He truly is disciplined, private, courteous, and remarkably consistent. But behind that image lies a far more surprising life, and, on at least a few evenings at Tanglewood, a protective cup of white beans.

---

Much of the biographical information in this article is drawn from Tim Greiving’s John Williams: A Composer’s Life, an essential and richly detailed account of Williams’s personal history, musical development, and professional career.