Posted on 11/16/2018 7:09:37 AM PST by Borges
I have been informed by friends of the family that William Goldman died last night. He was 87. Goldman, who twice won screenwriting Oscars for All The Presidents Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, passed away last night in his Manhattan home, surrounded by family and friends. His health had been failing for some time, and over the summer his condition deteriorated.
We will be following this and building out the story today, but I wanted to let Deadline readers know straight away. From his scripting work to his books like Adventures in the Screen Trade, Goldman is one of the greats, a true legend.
Goldman began as a novelist and transitioned to writing scripts with Masquerade in 1965. While his greatest hits were the indelible pairing of Robert Redford with Paul Newman in the George Roy Hill-directed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Redford and Dustin Hoffman in the Alan Pakula-directed toppling of President Richard Nixon drama All The Presidents Men, he wrote the scripts for many other great movies. The list includes the Hoffman-starrer Marathon Man, as well as The Princess Bride, Flowers For Algernon, The Stepford Wives, The Great Waldo Pepper, A Bridge Too Far, Chaplin and Misery. He also did a lot of behind the scenes script doctoring without taking a screen credit, as on films that included A Few Good Men and Indecent Proposal.
(Excerpt) Read more at deadline.com ...
Not to be confused with William Golding (”Lord of the Flies”).
RIP. He wrote some great screenplays.
Impressive resume.
He was a very smart guy who came from nothing. Go read his wiki-pedia.
“Soldier in the Rain” Jackie Gleason and Steve McQueen.
Not just a fine screen-writer but also a fine novelist. I enjoyed “The Marathon Man” back when I was a kid.
I will stick with “The Good Parts Version”, too much baggage in the novel.
Death must be in the air. Famous and local people are dropping like flies.
Baby Boomers are/were a big population number so I guess it only makes sense they would start dying in large numbers as well. At 87 was he a boomer or a “greatest gen”? I guess it applies either way.
In between the two. The Korean War generation. He was in the military at the time but did not go to Korea.
Just a super book. Until that time, Eustice
“Is it safe?”
For some reason we were assigned an early novel if his called The a Temple of Gold in high school English. I remember certain parts if the book. It wasn’t bad but somewhat empty and melodramatic. Marathon Man also was assigned or an option to read also.
He was prolific and talented. Too smart for today’s Hollywood.
I’d recommend his autobiography/memoir called Adventures in the Screen Trade.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_in_the_Screen_Trade
As for this scene, I'd say/guess that those are stunt doubles with body armor but that is still a very dangerous stunt (1969) even though you can see the planned safety 'hole' where they are standing. Today, I'd bet that would only be done through CGI.
As for the passing of Mr Goldman, I remember reading "The Princess Bride" (1973) years before the movie (1987) and wondering why there was no movie yet. The movie, when it did come out, was, to me, the BEST adaptation I know of and a wonderful score as well. This is the single instance that I know of where I doff my hat to 'Meathead', Rob Reiner, who directed and coproduced. Perfect casting and Goldman wrote the screenplay as well.
“At 87 was he a boomer or a greatest gen? I guess it applies either way.”
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There IS an entire generation between those two that you mentioned.
.
RIP.
Hell, the fall will probably kill ya.
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Best movie ever.
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