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Remember the "Kevin Bacon Game," that saloon amusement from the 1990s, wherein players were asked to connect the perpetually employed actor to any other actor in as few leaps as possible? Well, now that we're all so celebrity literate, it's time for an upgrade to the game, something with a bit more history and less obvious marquee value. I propose the Paul Williams Game.

Paul Williams is, of course, the iconic composer/character actor who was everywhere, all the time, in the seventies, eighties and early nineties (and is not exactly out of circulation in this century either). The Oscar-winner wrote the songs for The Muppet Movie, Bugsy Malone and A Star Is Born (Streisand version), plus innumerable pop hits, including the Carpenters classic We've Only Just Begun, all while appearing in everything from Battle for the Planet of the Apes to Oliver Stone's The Doors. He's the Tara Reid of non-sexual celebrity matchups.

So, let's try the game. How about Drew Barrymore to Paul Williams? Paul Williams starred in Georgia Rule, which was directed by Garry Marshall, who directed Runaway Bride, which starred Joan Cusack, who was a cast member for one season of Saturday Night Live, which Drew Barrymore famously hosted way back in 1982, when she was still a preteen.

Michael Cera to Paul Williams? Cera became a star on Arrested Development, which co-starred Henry Winkler, who played The Fonz on Happy Days (created by Garry Marshall — see how easy this is once you start digging?), the classic fifties-set sitcom that has been turned into a live musical, with music and lyrics written by … Paul Williams.

Speaking with Williams days before Happy Days: The Musical opened in Toronto, I found him to be just as enthusiastic about his latest venture as he is proud of his previous achievements.

To be a Hollywood survivor of his ilk and not be bitter and jaded? Happy days, indeed.

I don't understand the ongoing nostalgia for the fifties. Wasn't it a time of dour conservativism and Red Scare paranoia?

Well, it was that, exactly. But I think there was also a fifties that was insulated from what was going on in the world. The world that Happy Days deals with is a high-school world, with its own social structures, first loves — so I think in a lot of ways Happy Days is not totally reflective of what was going on with the world at large, as much as it's about the coming of age.

Could it have been set in any other period?

Sure. And I'm also not somebody who had the greatest high-school experience. I was the kid that was always getting dunked or snapped with a wet towel. In a way, I'm getting to have a more idyllic high-school experience by writing the musical.

Well, we don't expect musicals to reflect reality. But why would anyone want to be reminded of that time, or high school in general?

I don't know if it's so much wanting to go back to that time as it is wanting to go back to those characters. The interesting thing about watching the show with an audience is you almost get the feeling the audience is watching family on stage. And I think that's part of the show's success, is that it puts characters in front of us who are somebody's dad, somebody's brother.

We all knew a Fonzie, and perhaps wanted to be him. The show is really about evolving out of those "happy days," about realizing that the world is growing up around you. Fonzie has a song in the show called Aimless, where he has to recognize that the world is moving on and he has to grow up.

It's a pretty simple little story, and a sweet story. But the real power of the show is the way people relate to the characters — Ibsen we are not. And I've never pretended to be that.

When this musical was being created, why did they choose to have new music composed instead of going the Mamma Mia! route and using fifties hits?

Well, because I think they wanted a real musical, where the songs advance the story. I mean, Mamma Mia! did that too, but I'm quite glad that they asked me!

But there were a couple of things I dealt with — one was that I didn't want to rewrite Grease. I didn't try to sit down and write a collection of fifties rock 'n' roll songs.

I tried to write songs that dealt with what was going on in the story, with what was going on in the centre of the characters' chests, their evolutions.

The end result, for me, is that I really fell in love with that process.

Writing songs for people to record can be a very private, isolated way to work. But with this process, with writing a musical, you have to put things on the stage and see what works. It's a collaborative process on a level that I hadn't experienced before.

This was a six-year process. And I fell in love with the process again, and that's the last thing I expected at this point in my life, when a lot of guys are more interested in improving their golf game.

I'm falling in love with writing again.

Have you ever listened to a recording of one of your songs and thought, Oh, God, that singer is wrecking my song!

You know, yes. There are times when you go, they don't get it. But the other side is you hear things you absolutely never expected!

I co-wrote a song called Fill Your Heart that Tiny Tim recorded, and next thing I knew, it was on David Bowie's Hunky Dory album.

Never in my wildest dreams, being the kind of songwriter I am … that was an amazing, wondrous accident!

The whole deal has been an amazing gift.

Particulars:

Born: Sept. 19, 1940, Bennington, Neb. — so he's the perfect age to write a musical about the fifties.

Highs and lows: Despite starring as the Faust-like Swan and writing the fantastic music for the 1974 rock opera Phantom of the Paradise, Williams the composer is also forever linked to the mother of all cinematic bombs, 1987's Ishtar, and its small-screen equivalent, The McLean Stevenson Show.

Not that John Williams: His late brother, John, was a NASA rocket scientist, not the composer of every other film score in the history of Hollywood.

What's next? Paul Williams stars in the soon-to-be-released The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, a musical comedy about singing and dancing teenagers from outer space. Instant classic!

Massimo Commanducci