Pianist Roger Williams, who played for nine presidents starting with Harry Truman, died Saturday at his Encino home of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 87.
Known for his 1958 hit "Autumn Leaves," the song was the only instrumental to ever reach No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts. In 1966, he had another hit with "Born Free"' the soundtrack to the movie of same name.
Born Louis Wertz in Omaha, Neb., Williams started playing piano at age 3. He eventually studied jazz at the Julliard School of Music in New York City before embarking on a concert career.
By 9, he was said to have been able to play any piece upon one listening.
"I had a piano teacher growing up who would never play a song for me," he once said. "She would make me play it from sheet music so I could learn to read music."
While playing a show for a Des Moines, Iowa, radio station, he met Ronald "Dutch" Reagan, the sports announcer, and the two developed a friendship that lasted 60 years.
Williams was discovered by David Kapp of Kapp Records who had him change his name Roger Williams, after the founder of Rhode Island.
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Williams served in the Navy during World War II, returning to earn a mechanical engineering degree from Idaho State University. But he always returned to music.
His first album with Kapp in 1954, "The Boy Next Door" was a solo effort and went nowhere. Kapp, struggling to find a road for success for the young pianist, asked him record "Autumn Leaves."
Williams' second album contained the hit "Autumn Leaves" and sold more than 2 million copies. It remains the best selling piano record of all time.
Other hits included "The Impossible Dream," "Yellow Bird" and "The theme from Somewhere in Time."
Eventually, he would record 18 gold or platinum albums. Williams was also the first pianist to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He also received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Steinway & Sons pianos.
As "pianist to the presidents," he played most recently at the White House in 2008 for a luncheon hosted by then-first lady Laura Bush.
During a concert swing in the Midwest, Williams was invited to play for Truman at his office in Independence, Mo. A White House invitatin followed, and Williams performed for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
On his 75th birthday, he played a 12-hour marathon at Steinway Hall in New York City, a stunt he repeated several time in the following years.
Funeral plans are pending.
Williams is survived by his daughters, Laura Fisher and Alice Jung, and five grandchildren. His son Jim died in 2004. He and his first wife, Joy, divorced in the mid 1970s. He and second wife Louise DeCarlo divorced in 1985.
