William Goldman
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- This article is about the novelist. For the mathematician, see William Goldman (professor).
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 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 remarked that in Hollywood "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.
Simon Morgenstern is both a pseudonym and a narrative device invented by him to add another layer to The Princess Bride. Goldman claims S. Morgenstern is the original Florinese author of The Princess Bride and credits himself merely as an abridger who is bringing the classic to an American audience. Goldman also wrote The Silent Gondoliers under Morgenstern's name.
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.
He was married to Ilene Jones until their divorce in 1991. Contrary to his fictionalized biography in The Princess Bride, he has two daughters and no sons.
Credits
Broadway
- Blood, Sweat, and Stanley Poole (with James Goldman)
- A Family Affair - 1962 (lyrics; book was by James Goldman, music by John Kander)
- The Princess Bride (with Adam Guettel) currently writing.
Screenplays
- Masquerade (with Michael Relph) - 1965
- Harper - 1966
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - 1969: Academy Award
- The Hot Rock - 1972
- The Stepford Wives - 1975
- The Great Waldo Pepper - 1975
- Marathon Man - 1976
- All the President's Men - 1976: Academy Award
- A Bridge Too Far - 1977
- Magic - 1978
- Heat - 1987
- The Princess Bride - 1987
- Twins - 1988 (uncredited)
- Misery - 1990
- Memoirs of an Invisible Man - 1992
- Year of the Comet - 1992
- Chaplin - 1992
- Last Action Hero - 1993 (uncredited)
- Maverick - 1994
- The Chamber - 1996
- The Ghost and the Darkness - 1996
- Fierce Creatures - 1997 (uncredited)
- Absolute Power - 1997
- The General's Daughter - 1999
- Hearts in Atlantis - 2001
- Dreamcatcher - 2003
Television
- Mr. Horn - 1979
Novels
- The Temple of Gold - 1957
- Your Turn to Curtsy, My Turn to Bow - 1958
- Soldier in the Rain - 1960
- Boys and Girls Together - 1964
- No Way to Treat a Lady - 1964
- The Thing of It Is... - 1967
- Father's Day - 1971
- The Princess Bride - 1973
- Marathon Man - 1974
- - 1976
- - 1979
- Control - 1982
- The Silent Gondoliers - 1983
- The Color of Light - 1984
- Heat - 1985
- Brothers - 1986
Non-fiction and memoirs
- - 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
- Wigger (1974)
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)
- * Introduction by Goldman
- Goldman speaks candidly about his writing process in American Film Foundation's series Screenwriters: Words into Motion.
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