{"id":189961,"date":"2018-11-16T22:09:14","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T03:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=189961"},"modified":"2018-11-16T22:09:14","modified_gmt":"2018-11-17T03:09:14","slug":"william-goldman-oscar-winner-for-butch-cassidy-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/11\/16\/william-goldman-oscar-winner-for-butch-cassidy-has-died\/","title":{"rendered":"William Goldman, Oscar winner for ‘Butch Cassidy,’ has died"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Goldman, who also converted his novels \u201cMarathon Man,\u201d \u201cMagic\u201d and \u201cThe Princess Bride\u201d into screenplays, clearly knew more than most about what the audience wanted, despite his famous and oft-repeated proclamation. (File Photo By thedemonhog – Screenwriting Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center hosted by Creative Screenwriting magazine, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2014 William Goldman, the screenwriter and Hollywood wise man who won Academy Awards for \u201cButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid\u201d and \u201cAll the President’s Men\u201d and summed up the mystery of making a box office hit by declaring \u201cNobody knows anything,\u201d has died. He was 87.<\/p>\n

Goldman’s daughter, Jenny, said her father died early Friday in New York due to complications from colon cancer and pneumonia. \u201cSo much of what’s he’s written can express who he was and what he was about,\u201d she said, adding that the last few weeks, while Goldman was ailing, revealed just how many people considered him family.<\/p>\n

Goldman, who also converted his novels \u201cMarathon Man,\u201d \u201cMagic\u201d and \u201cThe Princess Bride\u201d into screenplays, clearly knew more than most about what the audience wanted, despite his famous and oft-repeated proclamation. He penned a litany of box-office hits, was an in-demand script doctor and carved some of the most indelible phrases in cinema history into the American consciousness.<\/p>\n

Goldman made political history by coining the phrase \u201cfollow the money\u201d in his script for \u201cAll the President’s Men,\u201d adapted from the book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the Watergate political scandal. The film starred Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. Standing in the shadows, Hal Holbrook was the mystery man code-named Deep Throat who helped the reporters pursue the evidence. His advice, \u201cFollow the money,\u201d became so widely quoted that few people realized it was never said during the actual scandal.<\/p>\n

A confirmed New Yorker, Goldman declined to work in Hollywood. Instead, he would fly to Los Angeles for two-day conferences with directors and producers, then return home to fashion a script, which he did with amazing speed. In his 1985 book, \u201cAdventures in the Screen Trade,\u201d he expressed disdain for an industry that elaborately produced and tested a movie, only to see it dismissed by the public during its first weekend in theatres.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody knows anything,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

In the book, Goldman also summed up to the screenwriter’s low stature in Hollywood. \u201cIn terms of authority, screenwriters rank somewhere between the man who guards the studio gate and the man who runs the studio (this week),\u201d wrote Goldman.<\/p>\n

But for a generation of screenwriters, including Aaron Sorkin, Goldman was a mentor.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the dean of American screenwriters and generations of filmmakers will continue to walk in the footprints he laid,\u201d Sorkin said in a statement. \u201cHe wrote so many unforgettable movies, so many thunderous novels and works of non-fiction, and while I’ll always wish he’d written one more, I’ll always be grateful for what he’s left us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldman launched his writing career after receiving a master’s degree in English from Columbia University in 1956. Weary of academia, he declined the chance to earn a Ph.D., choosing instead to write the novel \u201cThe Temple of Gold\u201d in 10 days. Knopf agreed to publish it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the book had not been taken,\u201d he told an interviewer, \u201cI would have gone into advertising … or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, he wrote other novels, including \u201cSoldier in the Rain,\u201d which became a movie starring Steve McQueen. Goldman also co-authored a play and a musical with his older brother, James, but both failed on Broadway. (James Goldman would later write the historical play \u201cThe Lion in Winter,\u201d which he converted to film, winning the 1968 Oscar for best adapted screenplay.)<\/p>\n

William Goldman had come to screenwriting by accident after actor Cliff Robertson read one of his books, \u201cNo Way to Treat a Lady,\u201d and thought it was a film treatment. After he hired the young writer to fashion a script from a short story, Goldman rushed out to buy a book on screen writing. Robertson rejected the script but found Goldman a job working on a screenplay for a British thriller. After that he adapted his novel \u201cHarper\u201d for a 1966 film starring Paul Newman as a private eye.<\/p>\n

He broke through in 1969 with the blockbuster \u201cButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,\u201d starring Newman and Redford. Based on the exploits of the real-life \u201cHole in the Wall\u201d gang of bank robbers, the movie began a long association with Redford, who also appeared in \u201cThe Hot Rock,\u201d \u201cThe Great Waldo Pepper\u201d and \u201cIndecent Proposal.\u201d Goldman’s script set a then-record $400,000 (or about $2.9 million today).<\/p>\n

Though the sum made Goldman a target in an industry that had long devalued screenwriters, the price proved worth it. \u201cButch Cassidy\u201d was the year’s biggest box office hit, grossing $102 million (or close to $700 million today).<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the President’s Men\u201d (1976) further enhanced Goldman’s reputation as a master screenwriter, though he initially had a low opinion of the project (\u201cPolitics were anathema at the box office, the material was talky, there was no action,\u201d he later wrote) and was even regretful afterward because of the production’s headaches, including the use of multiple writers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a long earlier history and I’m sorry to hear of his passing,\u201d Redford said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Other notable Goldman films included \u201cThe Stepford Wives,\u201d \u201cA Bridge Too Far\u201d and \u201cMisery.\u201d The latter, adapted from a Stephen King suspense novel, won the 1990 Oscar for Kathy Bates as lead actress.<\/p>\n

In 1961 Goldman married Ilene Jones, a photographer, and they had two daughters, Jenny and Susanna. The couple divorced in 1991. Goldman passed away Friday in the Manhattan home of his partner, Susan Burden.<\/p>\n

Born in Chicago on Aug. 12, 1931, Goldman grew up in the suburb of Highland Park. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1952 and served two years in the Army.<\/p>\n

Goldman wrote more than 20 novels, some of them under pen names. \u201cThe Princess Bride,\u201d published in 1973, was presented as Goldman’s abridgment of an older version by \u201cS. Morgenstern.\u201d The scheme, he said, was liberating.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never had a writing experience like it. I went back and wrote the chapter about Bill Goldman being at the Beverly Hills Hotel and it all just came out. I never felt as strongly connected emotionally to any writing of mine in my life,\u201d Goldman once said. \u201cIt was totally new and satisfying and it came as such a contrast to the world I had been doing in the films that I wanted to be a novelist again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film, directed by Rob Reiner, grew into a cult classic, adding more phrases of Goldman’s to the lexicon: \u201cAs you wish,\u201d \u201cInconceivable!\u201d and \u201cHello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!\u201d<\/p>\n

Reiner on Friday said he had seen Goldman just days earlier. He called \u201cThe Princess Bride\u201d his favourite book. \u201cI was honoured he allowed me to make it into a movie,\u201d Reiner said on Twitter.<\/p>\n

Despite all his success as a screenwriter, Goldman always considered himself a novelist. He didn’t rate his scripts as great artistic achievements.<\/p>\n

\u201cA screenplay is a piece of carpentry,\u201d he once said. \u201cAnd except in the case of Ingmar Bergman, it’s not an art, it’s a craft.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

The late AP Entertainment Writer Bob Thomas contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 William Goldman, the screenwriter and Hollywood wise man who won Academy Awards for \u201cButch Cassidy and the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":189963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","mauthors-jake-coyle","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}