ComingSoon.net is sad to report that legendary screenwriter William Goldman has passed away in his Manhattan home last night at the age of 87, per a report from Deadline. Goldman had been in failing health for some time, and was surrounded by family and friends.
Goldman started his career off as a novelist before transitioning into screenplays in 1965 by writing the comedy/thriller Masquerade. Since then he had written some of the most memorable movies of the latter 20th century, including the spy epic Marathon Man, the subversive fairytale The Princess Bride (based on his own novel), the sci-fi black comedy The Stepford Wives, the WWII epic A Bridge Too Far, the biopic Chaplin and the Steven King adaptation Misery.
Goldman will perhaps best be remembered for his two Oscar-winning screenplays, the beloved 1969 buddy western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which paired Robert Redford with Paul Newman, and the 1976 Nixon-era political thriller All the President’s Men, this time pairing Redford with Dustin Hoffman.
Outside of his considerable contributions as a screenplay writer, he was a renowned script doctor doing uncredited re-writes on films like the military courtroom drama A Few Good Men and the sex-and-morality tale Indecent Proposal.
In 1989 he wrote Adventures In The Screen Trade, which is considered the go-to manual not just for aspiring screenwriters, but for the journalists who write about them as well. In that book, Goldman chronicles the chaos and futility of the entertainment business summed up with one memorable line: “Nobody knows anything.”
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
