(12 August 1931 - 16 November 2018)
The Hollywood screenwriter, novelist and playwright William Goldman, who has died from colon cancer and pneumonia at the age of 87, began his working life in advertising but quickly took up writing novels and plays before graduating to scripting films. His first film, Soldier in the Rain (1963) with Steve McQueen, was based on his own novel but not scripted by him. His first screenplay was adapted from Victor Canning’s novel Masquerade, with Cliff Robertson. He then wrote The Moving Target (aka Harper) for Paul Newman, based on the Ross Macdonald thriller. Goldman adapted his own novel for No Way to Treat a Lady, with Rod Steiger, and in 1969 his original screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with Newman and Robert Redford, was an enormous hit, winning him his first Oscar. His adaptation of The Hot Rock (aka How to Steal a Diamond in Four Uneasy Lessons), again with Redford, followed. He contributed to Papillon with McQueen, then wrote The Stepford Wives, The Great Waldo Pepper, All the President’s Men (second Academy Award), Marathon Man, A Bridge Too Far, Magic, Heat, with Burt Reynolds, The Princess Bride, Misery and Absolute Power among many other screenplays, including Chaplin and Maverick. William Goldman was also noted for writing two very critically scathing but highly entertaining books about Hollywood, Adventures in the Screen Trade and its sequel, Which Lie Did I Tell? He was married to Ilene Jones for thirty years from 1961 and they have two daughters, Jenny and Susanna.
MICHAEL DARVELL
