William Goldman (1931–2018)
Author of The Princess Bride
About the Author
William Goldman was born in Highland Park, Illinois on August 12, 1931. He received a bachelor's degree in English from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University. He began his writing career in 1957 and wrote his first screenplay Masquerade in 1965. During his lifetime, he show more wrote more than 20 screenplays and over 20 novels. He wrote the screenplays for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Misery, A Bridge Too Far, The Stepford Wives, and Chaplin. He adapted three screenplays from his own novels including The Princess Bride, Marathon Man, and Heat. His other novels included The Temple of Gold, No Way to Treat a Lady, Adventures in the Screen Trade, Hype and Glory, and Which Lie Did I Tell. He sometimes wrote under pseudonyms during his career including S. Morgenstern and Harry Langlaugh. He won three Lifetime Achievement Awards for Screenwriting, including the 1985 Laurel Award for Lifetime Achievement in Screenwriter. He won two Screenwriter of the Year Awards and two Academy Awards, one for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the other for All the President's Men. He also won an English Academy Award. He died from colon cancer and pneumonia on November 16, 2018 at the age of 87. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Series
Works by William Goldman
The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure (2013) — Author — 642 copies
Wait Till Next Year: The Story of a Season When What Should've Happened Didn't, and What Could've Gone… (1988) 34 copies
The novels of William Goldman : boys and girls together, marathon man, and the temple of gold. (2017) 5 copies
The Princess Bride Screenplay 3 copies
The Stepford Wives: The Screenplay 2 copies
True Love and High Adventure 1 copy
Associated Works
Swords and Sorcerers: Stories from the Worlds of Fantasy and Adventure (2002) — Contributor — 16 copies
The Princess Bride Booklet (Criterion Collection 948) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Goldman, William Weil
- Other names
- MORGENSTERN, Simon (pseudonym)
LONGBAUGH, Harry (pseudonym)
GOLDMAN, William W.
GOLDMAN, William - Birthdate
- 1931-08-12
- Date of death
- 2018-11-16
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Place of death
- New York, New York, USA
- Cause of death
- cancer (colon)
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
Highland Park, Illinois. USA - Education
- Oberlin College (BA|1952 - English)
Columbia University (MA|1956) - Occupations
- playwright
novelist
screenwriter - Relationships
- Goldman, James (brother)
- Organizations
- Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences
Mystery Writers of America
US Army - Awards and honors
- Academy Award for Best Screenplay (1969)
Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (1976)
Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement (1985)
Edgar Award (1967 and 1979)
Members
Discussions
Joe's Book Cafe 2016 Door 18 in 75 Books Challenge for 2016 (August 2016)
A particular paperback edition of "Princess Bride" in Name that Book (July 2015)
Princess Bride question in Children's Fiction (February 2011)
Reviews
One of my all-time favorite books. I can read this every year and not get tired of it. If you love the movie, you'll love the book more ... they had to leave stuff out of the movie.
Cute story! Love the movie; the book is long but written well.
I finally did a reread of this book. and, Its one of the few times that the movie is better than the book. It may be that the book and movie, while telling the same essential story, are so different in tone, even themes.
The book has a bitter, showbiz type feeling to it, it feels like a product of what a jaded screen writer would put together if he was feeling jaded about the Hollywood Scene and the falseness of the people around him.
As for the movie, it takes the sweetness of the narrator as child with his Grandfather - while leaving out the rest of the story, a now grown man unsatisfied with his life. This isn't to say the book is all bad, I suspect if I hadn't seen known about the movie, I'd have liked it more, but the themes are just too different, and the movie is so perfect, that reading the book is a huge let down for me.… (more)
The book has a bitter, showbiz type feeling to it, it feels like a product of what a jaded screen writer would put together if he was feeling jaded about the Hollywood Scene and the falseness of the people around him.
As for the movie, it takes the sweetness of the narrator as child with his Grandfather - while leaving out the rest of the story, a now grown man unsatisfied with his life. This isn't to say the book is all bad, I suspect if I hadn't seen known about the movie, I'd have liked it more, but the themes are just too different, and the movie is so perfect, that reading the book is a huge let down for me.… (more)
Lists
Folio Society (1)
Best Spy Fiction (1)
Best Young Adult (1)
um actually (1)
Movies/Shows (1)
Five star books (1)
Best First Lines (1)
Metafiction (1)
Favourite Books (1)
1970s Thrillers (1)
Fiction For Men (1)
Unread books (1)
Best Satire (1)
READ IN 2021 (1)
A Novel Cure (1)
1970s (1)
Backlisted (1)
Princess Tales (1)
Page Turners (1)
Wishlist (1)
Pageturners (1)
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 55
- Also by
- 17
- Members
- 34,261
- Popularity
- #554
- Rating
- 4.2
- Reviews
- 663
- ISBNs
- 339
- Languages
- 18
- Favorited
- 45
My children watched the video about 15 years ago.