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This article is about the screenwriter/novelist. For the mathematician, see William Goldman (professor).
William Goldman (born August 12, 1931) is an
United Statesn novelist, playwright and two-time
Academy Awards-winning screenwriter. He lives in New York City.
Biography
Goldman grew up in a
Jewish family in Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, and obtained a BA degree at
Oberlin College in 1952 and an MA degree at Columbia University in 1956. William Goldman had been estranged for many years from his brother, playwright James Goldman, before James's death in 1998.
William Goldman had published five novels and had three plays produced on
Broadway theatre before he began to write screenplays. Several of his novels he later used as the foundation for his screenplays. In the 1980s he wrote a series of memoirs looking at his professional life on Broadway and in Hollywood (in one of these he famously remarked that "Nobody knows anything"). He then returned to writing novels. He then adapted his novel
The Princess Bride to the screen, which marked his re-entry into screenwriting. He is often called in as an uncredited script doctor on troubled projects.
Goldman has won two
Academy Awards: an
Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and an
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for
All the President's Men (film). He has also won two
Edgar Awards, from the
Mystery Writers of America, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay: for
Harper (film) in 1967, and for
Magic (movie) (adapted from his own 1976 novel) in 1979.
He was married to Ilene Jones until their divorce in 1991. The couple had two daughters.
Autobiographical fiction
Simon Morgenstern is both a pseudonym and a narrative device invented by Goldman to add another layer to his novel
The Princess Bride. He presents his novel as being an abridged version of a work by the fictional Morgenstern, an author from the equally fictional country of Florin.
The details of Goldman's life given in the introduction and commentary for
The Princess Bride are also largely fictional. For instance, he says that his wife is a psychiatrist and that he was inspired to abridge Morgenstern's
The Princess Bride for his only child, a son. (
The Princess Bride actually originated as a bedtime story for Goldman's two daughters.) He not only treats Morgenstern and the countries of Florin and Guilder as real, but even claims that his own father was Florinese and had emigrated to America.
At one point in
The Princess Bride, Goldman's commentary indicates that he had wanted to add a passage elaborating a scene skipped over by Morgenstern. He explains that his editors would not allow him to take such liberties with the "original" text, and encourages readers to write to his publisher to request a copy of this scene. Both the original publisher and its successor have responded to such requests with letters describing their supposed legal problems with the Morgenstern estate.
Goldman also wrote
The Silent Gondoliers under the Morgenstern name.
Career
According to Goldman's memoir,
Adventures in the Screen Trade, Goldman began writing when he took a creative writing course in college. He did not originally intend to become a screenwriter. His main interests were poetry, short stories, and novels.
Miscellanea
- Has a self-described obsession with height, and always wants to find out how tall actors and other famous people really are, going so far as to go into a pool with Sylvester Stallone to see how tall he was in bare feet.
- Doesn't drive; claims he can't concentrate that long.
- Major fan of the New York Knicks.
- Wrote mostly serious, literary works until death of his first agent when he began writing thrillers starting with Marathon Man.
- Researched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for eight years and used Harry Longabaugh (a variant spelling of the Sundance Kid's real name) as his pseudonym for No Way to Treat a Lady. After deciding he didn't want to write a cowboy novel, he turned the story into his first original screenplay and sold it for a record $400,000.
- Doesn't like “bloodbath action” movies and spoofed them in Last Action Hero.
- Turned down The Graduate (“didn't get the book”), The Godfather (loved the book, but didn't want to glamorise the Mafia) and Superman (1978 film) (a big comic fan, but he didn't want to write with a major movie star in the lead, as was the original plan, so they hired Mario Puzo).
- Wrote early/unused scripts for Papillon, The Right Stuff and The Da Vinci Code.
- William Goldman was referred to in Stephen King's 1986 novel It (novel). In that book he is said to be the only good writer to ever go to Hollywood and remain good. Goldman later wrote the screenplays for King's novels Misery (novel), Hearts in Atlantis, and Dreamcatcher.
- Goldman wrote the famous line "Follow the money" for the screenplay of All the President's Men. Most journalists attribute it to Deep Throat, the informant in the Watergate scandal, but it is not in Bob Woodward’s notes nor in Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book or articles. Rich, Frank. 2005. ], The New York Times, 12 June
- Goldman is often quoted in Hollywood for his dictum about the uncertainties of show business, "Nobody knows anything."
- Gave the Oberlin College commencement address in May 1985, and said that whenever he is mistaken for William Golding, a British author and Nobel Prize for Literature winner best known for the novel Lord of the Flies, Goldman smiles and graciously accepts compliments on Golding's writing.
- A widespread rumor was that Good Will Hunting was actually written by William Goldman instead of its credited writers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. In his book Which Lie Did I Tell? Goldman dismisses this, claiming only to have advised them on their script.
- In the DVD commentary for Fight Club (film), actor Edward Norton refers to William Goldman as one "ranting and raving about their own obsolescence" in reference to Goldman's criticism of the quality of modern films, particularly those of 1999 in film, the year Fight Club was released.
Credits
Broadway
Screenplays (Produced)
Screenplays (Unproduced)
Television
Novels
Non-fiction and memoirs
- The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway - 1969
- The Story of 'A Bridge Too Far' - 1977
- Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting - 1983
- Wait Till Next Year (with Mike Lupica) -1988
- Hype and Glory - 1990
- Four Screenplays (1995)
- Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, and Misery, with an essay on each
- Five Screenplays (1997)
- All the President's Men, Magic, Harper, Maverick, and The Great Waldo Pepper, with an essay on each
- Which Lie Did I Tell? (More Adventures in the Screen Trade) - 2000
- The Big Picture: Who Killed Hollywood? and Other Essays (2001)
Children's books
Other
- New World Writing Number 17 (1960)
- A collection of stories, poems and articles by several authors, with an 11-page story entitled "Da Vinci" by Goldman
- The Craft of the Screenwriter by John Brady (1981)
- Includes a profile on Goldman and a lengthy interview about his craft
- The Movie Business Book by James E. Squire (Editor) (1992)
- Includes an As Told By William Goldman piece
- Writers on Directors by Susan Gray (1999)
- Goldman has a piece on Rob Reiner in this book, and another on Norman Jewison
- The First Time I Got Paid For It: Writers' Tales From the Hollywood Trenches (2000)
- Goldman speaks candidly about his writing process in American Film Foundation's series Screenwriters: Words into Motion.
+
References
This article is about the screenwriter/novelist. For the mathematician, see William Goldman (professor).
William Goldman (born August 12, 1931) is an United Statesn novelist,
playwright and two-time
Academy Awards-winning
screenwriter. He lives in New York City.
Biography
Goldman grew up in a
Jewish family in
Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, and obtained a BA degree at Oberlin College in 1952 and an MA degree at
Columbia University in 1956. William Goldman had been estranged for many years from his brother, playwright James Goldman, before James's death in 1998.
William Goldman had published five novels and had three plays produced on Broadway theatre before he began to write screenplays. Several of his novels he later used as the foundation for his screenplays. In the 1980s he wrote a series of memoirs looking at his professional life on Broadway and in Hollywood (in one of these he famously remarked that "Nobody knows anything"). He then returned to writing novels. He then adapted his novel
The Princess Bride to the screen, which marked his re-entry into screenwriting. He is often called in as an uncredited
script doctor on troubled projects.
Goldman has won two
Academy Awards: an
Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and an
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for
All the President's Men (film). He has also won two
Edgar Awards, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay: for
Harper (film) in 1967, and for
Magic (movie) (adapted from his own 1976 novel) in 1979.
He was married to Ilene Jones until their divorce in 1991. The couple had two daughters.
Autobiographical fiction
Simon Morgenstern is both a pseudonym and a narrative device invented by Goldman to add another layer to his novel
The Princess Bride. He presents his novel as being an abridged version of a work by the fictional Morgenstern, an author from the equally fictional country of Florin.
The details of Goldman's life given in the introduction and commentary for
The Princess Bride are also largely fictional. For instance, he says that his wife is a psychiatrist and that he was inspired to abridge Morgenstern's
The Princess Bride for his only child, a son. (
The Princess Bride actually originated as a bedtime story for Goldman's two daughters.) He not only treats Morgenstern and the countries of Florin and Guilder as real, but even claims that his own father was Florinese and had emigrated to America.
At one point in
The Princess Bride, Goldman's commentary indicates that he had wanted to add a passage elaborating a scene skipped over by Morgenstern. He explains that his editors would not allow him to take such liberties with the "original" text, and encourages readers to write to his publisher to request a copy of this scene. Both the original publisher and its successor have responded to such requests with letters describing their supposed legal problems with the Morgenstern estate.
Goldman also wrote
The Silent Gondoliers under the Morgenstern name.
Career
According to Goldman's memoir,
Adventures in the Screen Trade, Goldman began writing when he took a creative writing course in college. He did not originally intend to become a screenwriter. His main interests were poetry, short stories, and novels.
Miscellanea
- Has a self-described obsession with height, and always wants to find out how tall actors and other famous people really are, going so far as to go into a pool with Sylvester Stallone to see how tall he was in bare feet.
- Doesn't drive; claims he can't concentrate that long.
- Wrote mostly serious, literary works until death of his first agent when he began writing thrillers starting with Marathon Man.
- Researched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for eight years and used Harry Longabaugh (a variant spelling of the Sundance Kid's real name) as his pseudonym for No Way to Treat a Lady. After deciding he didn't want to write a cowboy novel, he turned the story into his first original screenplay and sold it for a record $400,000.
- Turned down The Graduate (“didn't get the book”), The Godfather (loved the book, but didn't want to glamorise the Mafia) and Superman (1978 film) (a big comic fan, but he didn't want to write with a major movie star in the lead, as was the original plan, so they hired Mario Puzo).
- Wrote early/unused scripts for Papillon, The Right Stuff and The Da Vinci Code.
- William Goldman was referred to in Stephen King's 1986 novel It (novel). In that book he is said to be the only good writer to ever go to Hollywood and remain good. Goldman later wrote the screenplays for King's novels Misery (novel), Hearts in Atlantis, and Dreamcatcher.
- Goldman wrote the famous line "Follow the money" for the screenplay of All the President's Men. Most journalists attribute it to Deep Throat, the informant in the Watergate scandal, but it is not in Bob Woodward’s notes nor in Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book or articles. Rich, Frank. 2005. ], The New York Times, 12 June
- Goldman is often quoted in Hollywood for his dictum about the uncertainties of show business, "Nobody knows anything."
- A widespread rumor was that Good Will Hunting was actually written by William Goldman instead of its credited writers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. In his book Which Lie Did I Tell? Goldman dismisses this, claiming only to have advised them on their script.
- In the DVD commentary for Fight Club (film), actor Edward Norton refers to William Goldman as one "ranting and raving about their own obsolescence" in reference to Goldman's criticism of the quality of modern films, particularly those of 1999 in film, the year Fight Club was released.
Credits
Broadway
- Blood, Sweat, and Stanley Poole (with James Goldman)
- A Family Affair - 1962 (lyrics; book was by James Goldman, music by John Kander)
Screenplays (Produced)
Screenplays (Unproduced)
- Mission: Impossible 2
- SHAZAM (Film)
- Low Fives
- The Sea Kings
- The Thing Of It Is
Television
Novels
Non-fiction and memoirs
- The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway - 1969
- The Story of 'A Bridge Too Far' - 1977
- Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting - 1983
- Wait Till Next Year (with Mike Lupica) -1988
- Hype and Glory - 1990
- Four Screenplays (1995)
- Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, and Misery, with an essay on each
- Five Screenplays (1997)
- All the President's Men, Magic, Harper, Maverick, and The Great Waldo Pepper, with an essay on each
- Which Lie Did I Tell? (More Adventures in the Screen Trade) - 2000
- The Big Picture: Who Killed Hollywood? and Other Essays (2001)
Children's books
Other
- New World Writing Number 17 (1960)
- A collection of stories, poems and articles by several authors, with an 11-page story entitled "Da Vinci" by Goldman
- The Craft of the Screenwriter by John Brady (1981)
- Includes a profile on Goldman and a lengthy interview about his craft
- The Movie Business Book by James E. Squire (Editor) (1992)
- Includes an As Told By William Goldman piece
- Writers on Directors by Susan Gray (1999)
- Goldman has a piece on Rob Reiner in this book, and another on Norman Jewison
- The First Time I Got Paid For It: Writers' Tales From the Hollywood Trenches (2000)
- Goldman speaks candidly about his writing process in American Film Foundation's series Screenwriters: Words into Motion.
+
References
William Goldman
Writer: The Princess Bride. Screenwriter, novelist, playwright, non-fiction author. Born in Highland Park... Visit IMDb for Photos, Filmography, Discussions, Bio, News, Awards ...
William Goldman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Goldman (born August 12, 1931) is an American novelist, playwright and two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter. He lives in New York City.
William Goldman
A bibliography of William Goldman's books, with the latest releases, covers, descriptions and availability.
Amazon.co.uk: The Princess Bride: William Goldman: Books
Amazon.co.uk: The Princess Bride: William Goldman: Books ... RRP: £7.99 : Price: £5.99 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £15 with Super Saver Delivery. See details ...
Amazon.co.uk: Adventures in the Screen Trade: William Goldman: Books
Amazon.co.uk: Adventures in the Screen Trade: William Goldman: Books ... RRP: £9.99 : Price: £7.14 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £15 with Super Saver Delivery ...
William Goldman - Channel 4 Film
The UK's most comprehensive film site with over 10,000 film reviews, 100,000 filmographies, 1000 DVD reviews movie news and listings ... avg. user rating: 4 (1 votes)
Calculo + William Goldman
William Goldman "I'll do my best to stay awake..." Stats: Born August 12, 1931, in Highland Park, Illinois. Bio: I had written this perfectly charming little bio of William ...
William Goldman | Profiles | tobyyoung.co.uk
William Goldman You do not, except in rare, rare exceptions, get critical recognition, wrote William Goldman in Adventures In The Screen Trade.
Bloomsbury.com - Bookshop
The memoirs of William Goldman, sharing behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the sets of such movies as The Princess ...
William E. Goldman
William E. Goldman. Professor Phone, office: (314)-362-2742 Phone, lab: (314)-362-2741 FAX: (314)-362-4879 email: goldman@borcim.wustl.edu. 10240 McDonnell Pediatric Research ...
