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William Goldman has died. You may not have heard of him, but you certainly know him. Goldman was the author of The Princess Bride, as well as the screenwriter responsible for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, Misery, and A Bridge Too Far, among others.
Born in Chicago in 1931, Goldman took some creative writing courses as a student in Oberlin College. It didn’t go well.
“There were a dozen of us,” he wrote in Adventures in the Screen Trade, “and the eleven others all took it for one reason: It was a gut course. I was the only one who wanted to write. All the others got grades of B or better. I got the only C.”
William Goldman was huge part Of creating some of the seminal movies of the 70’s and beyond. His book on screenwriting was a touchstone for me and I always felt star struck and intimidated seeing him at Knicks games. #RESPECT https://t.co/ED9HUJc50R
— Ben Stiller (@RedHourBen) November 16, 2018
Future writing produced novels, then plays, then film scripts.
Though a two-time Academy Award winner, Goldman will perhaps be best remembered for his 1973 novel “The Princess Bride,” later made into the wonderful 1987 movie, with its characters of Buttercup, Westley, Fezzik, and fencing master Inigo Montoya, whose line “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means” is carved in pop culture stone.
Losing Bill Goldman made me cry. My favorite book of all time is The Princess Bride. I was honored he allowed me to make it into a movie. I visited with him last Saturday. He was very weak but his mind still had the Goldman edge. I told him I loved him. He smiled & said fuck you.
— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) November 16, 2018
The novel is based on stories the author told his daughters when they were young and wanted tales of princesses and brides. Of course, Princess Buttercup was a far cry from the sappy damsels usually offered up in tales of romance: “Enough about my beauty. Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I’ve got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.”
“I’ve gotten more responses on The Princess Bride than on everything else I’ve done put together,” Goldman once said. “All kinds of strange outpouring letters. Something in The Princess Bride affects people.”
Although at ease writing fantasy and romance, Goldman didn’t pull any emotional punches. There was a darkness to the man that made the bright parts shine.
RIP #WilliamGoldman. One of the greatest most successful screenwriters ever. I was lucky as hell to count Bill as a mentor and a friend. Check his credits & see a William Goldman movie or read a Goldman book over the holiday & give thanks that we had his voice in our world. https://t.co/RWRdCoO1Cm
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) November 16, 2018
“I think I have a way with pain,” he wrote in Which Lie Did I Tell?, after admitting a penchant for killing off his most sympathetic characters. “When I come to that kind of sequence I have a certain confidence that I can make it play. Because I come from such a dark corner.”
Goldman, 87, died from pneumonia, a complication of colon cancer.
“When I was your age,” he once wrote, “television was called books.”
