Biography

Wrote a script for Mission: Impossible II (2000).

Author of two of the best books ever written about show business, "Adventures in the Screen Trade" and "Hype and Glory." Author of the famous quote about Hollywood, "Nobody Knows Anything."

His first editions prices vary with condition, but a first edition of Marathon Man (1976) can fetch above $100, while The Princess Bride (1987) may sell for well over $500.

He leaves his Manhattan apartment in the morning and writes in a nearby office. At around 5:00 p.m., he's more than happy to stop writing, leave the office, and enjoy the rest of the day. "The sooner I'm done, the sooner I can go to the movies," he admits.

He was an uncredited screenwriter on the 1993 Arnold Schwarzenegger film Last Action Hero (1993).

Rumored to be the true author of the Academy Award-winning screenplay of Good Will Hunting (1997). Goldman denied authorship at a Writers Guild of America meeting. In other comments, Goldman has said that he merely met with co-authors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for one day to offer encouragement and a little advice, specifically to eliminate a subplot dealing with the FBI, as the screenplay already was in fine form.

Goldman believed that Rocky (1976) beat All the President's Men (1976) for the 1976 Best Picture Academy Award due its spectacular box office run and the fact that Hollywood loved the real-life, Lana Turner-esque story of Sylvester Stallone's emergence into super-stardom from obscurity. Goldman believes that if the Hollywood community knew about Stallone's hubris, it would not have voted his film the Oscar.

Turned down the opportunity to write The Godfather (1972) and Superman (1978).

In the book "Hollywood Animal", fellow screenwriter Joe Eszterhas calls Goldman various expletives for "writing for the director's vision" and not for his own original ideas.

A notorious Anglophobe, although he has described London as his favorite city.

[on the significance of the movie All the President's Men (1976)] "No less acute [an] observer of American politics than Governor Ronald Reagan of California said that he thought the movie eventually cost Gerald Ford the presidency against Jimmy Carter, because the film's release in April 1976 and its long run flushed to the surface again all the realities of Watergate that the Republicans had tried so hard to bury. We are talking then about a movie that may be one of the few that just might have changed the entire course of American history."

[on Alan J. Pakula] Alan is a gentleman. We had mutual acquaintances in the business and they said nothing but good things about him as a human being. Neither can I. He is well-educated and serious about his work.

[on Woody Allen] Most stars like to be thought of as being private people, being shy. We even grant those attributes to Woody Allen, this in spite of the fact that he must be the most visible celebrity in New York.

[on the persistent rumor that he, and not Ben Affleck & Matt Damon, is the actual author of the screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997)] I would love to say that I wrote it. Here is the truth. In my obit, it will say that I wrote it. People don't want to think those two cute guys wrote it. What happened was, they had the script. It was their script. They gave it to Rob Reiner to read, and there was a great deal of stuff in the script dealing with the F.B.I. trying to use Matt Damon for spy work because he was so brilliant in math. Rob said, "Get rid of it". They then sent them in to see me for a day - I met with them in New York - and all I said to them was, "Rob's right. Get rid of the F.B.I. stuff. Go with the family, go with Boston, go with all that wonderful stuff". And they did. I think people refuse to admit it because their careers have been so far from writing, and I think it's too bad. I'll tell you who wrote a marvelous script once, Sylvester Stallone. Rocky (1976)'s a marvelous script. God, read it, it's wonderful. It's just got marvelous stuff. And then he stopped suddenly because it's easier being a movie star and making all that money than going in your pit and writing a script. But I did not write [Good Will Hunting], alas. I would not have written the "It's not your fault" scene. I'm going to assume that 148 percent of the people in this room have seen a therapist. I certainly have, for a long time. Hollywood always has this idea that it's this shrink with only one patient. I mean, that scene with Robin Williams gushing and Matt Damon and they're hugging, "It's not your fault, it's not your fault". I thought, Oh God, Freud is so agonized over this scene. But Hollywood tends to do that with therapists.

Directors lose it around age 60, they're either too rich or they can't get work anymore. And it's physically debilitating work. That's why Gran Torino (2008) amazes me. Clint Eastwood is nearly 80, and he can still make a movie like that. He is having the most amazing career.

I make a point of never reading anything I've written in rewrites.

Understand this: all the sleaze you've heard about Hollywood? All the illiterate scumbags who scuttle down the corridors of power? They are there, all right, and worse than you can imagine.

Some screenplays are like Jacob Marley: dead to begin with. Many more, however, are recommended or passed on within the first 15 to 20 pages. By then, a typical story analyst (script-reader) or studio exec will be either hooked or bored. If he's hooked, Hallelujah. If he's bored, then Houston, we have a very serious problem.