Free | Video Detective
Posted: 6/1/2012
He won Grammys and an Academy Award; wrote many #1 songs from Barbara Streisand's 'Evergreen' to the Carpenter's 'We've Only Just Begun' as well as Kermit the Frog's biggest hit, 'The Rainbow Connection'; starred in a Brian DePalma movie; put out his own hit records and albums; was a guest on The Tonight Show fifty times; and is the president of ASCAP... and you might not have heard of him. In the 1970's, Paul Williams was the singer / actor / songwriter that emotional, alienated teenage boys all over the world wanted to be, a sex symbol before MTV, when sex symbols could be 5'2 and sing songs about loneliness with the Muppets. One of those boys was Steve Kessler, a chubby kid from Queens. Thirty years later, Kessler discovered something amazing: Paul Williams didn't die. And no one had ever tried to make a documentary about him. A wistful musical journey that will re-introduce a new generation to Williams' soulful classics, Paul Williams: Still Alive is the charmingly self-narrated story of Stephen Kessler's lifelong obsession with the former superstar-and what happens when the nostalgic filmmaker finally catches up with him.