Paul Francis Webster stands as one of the finest movie lyricists in the history of the genre. Although not as well-known as some of his contemporaries, mostly because of his reserved nature, Webster wrote some classic movie songs. His "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" (1955) is one of the most popular songs to emerge from the decade of the 1950s, and "The Shadow of Your Smile" (1965) is one of the five most popular songs from the 1960s, exceeded only by the likes of Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini's "Moon River" (1961) and the Beatles' "Yesterday" (1965). "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" and "The Shadow of Your Smile" came late in the career of a man who wrote lyrics successfully from the 1930s into the 1970s.

Paul Francis Webster was born 20 December 1907 in Long Island, New York, the younger of the two sons of Michael and Blanche Webster. The Websters were an...