William Goldman

William Goldman was born in Chicago, Illinois on August 12th, 1931. Goldman was the son of successful businessman until his father's alcoholism eventually sank his career and he sunk into a depression that lasted five years. His father later killed himself while William was in high school.

Despite this, William soon graduated and went on to receive a bachelor of arts degree from Oberlin College in 1952 after which he joined the army. Because he was familiar with typewriters, he was sent to work at the Pentagon as a clerk until September 1954. He then attended Columbia where he graduated with masters of arts degree in 1956. Throughout this time, William wrote many short stories and attempted to have them published.

After graduating with his masters, William decided that he wanted to write professionally. In June of 1956, William began writing what would later be his first novel, "The Temple of Gold." He went on to publish five more novels over his lifetime including his most famous work, "The Princess Bride" in 1973.

In the 60's, William began writing screenplays and saw much success as a screenplay writer. He wrote the screenplays for several Academy Award winning movies and eventually sold the screenplay for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" for $400,000, a record amount in the 1960's.

Many more of William Goldman's screenplays have been turned into successful movies including the screenplay for the Stephen King novel, "Misery" (1990), "The Stepford Wives" (1975) and "Marathon Man" (based on his own novel in 1976). In the 1980's, William wrote a series of memoirs about his career in Hollywood and Broadway.

William was married from 1961 to 1991 to Ilene Jones with whom he had two children named Jenny Rebecca and Susanna. Today he is considered one of the best authors of our time and currently lives in New York City.