{"product_id":"which-lie-did-i-tell-isbn-9780375703195","title":"Which Lie Did I Tell?","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom the Oscar-winning screenwriter of \u003ci\u003eAll the President's Men\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe   Princess Bride\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid\u003c\/i\u003e, here is essential reading for both the aspiring screenwriter and anyone who loves going to the movies.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e If you want to   know why a no-name like Kathy Bates was cast in \u003ci\u003eMisery, \u003c\/i\u003eit's in here.  Or why Linda   Hunt's brilliant work in \u003ci\u003eMaverick\u003c\/i\u003e didn't make the final cut, William Goldman gives   you the straight truth.  Why Clint Eastwood loves working with Gene Hackman and how   MTV has changed movies for the worse,William Goldman, one of the most successful   screenwriters in Hollywood today, tells all he knows.  Devastatingly eye-opening   and endlessly entertaining, \u003ci\u003eWhich Lie Did I Tell?\u003c\/i\u003e is indispensable reading for anyone   even slightly intrigued by the process of how a movie gets made.\u003cb\u003eWilliam Goldman\u003c\/b\u003e was an Academy Award–winning author of screenplays, plays, memoirs, and novels. His first novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Temple of Gold\u003c\/i\u003e (1957), was followed by the script for the Broadway army comedy \u003ci\u003eBlood, Sweat and Stanley Poole \u003c\/i\u003e(1961). He went on to write the screenplays for many acclaimed films, including \u003ci\u003eButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid\u003c\/i\u003e (1969) and \u003ci\u003eAll the President’s Men\u003c\/i\u003e (1976), for which he won two Academy Awards. He adapted his own novels for the hit movies \u003ci\u003eMarathon Man\u003c\/i\u003e (1976) and \u003ci\u003eThe Princess Bride\u003c\/i\u003e(1987).\u003cb\u003eThe Leper\u003cbr\u003e[1980-85]\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don't think I was aware of it, but when I started work on \u003ci\u003eAdventures in the Screen Trade,\u003c\/i\u003e in 1980, I had become a leper in Hollywood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet me explain what that means: the phone stopped ringing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor five years, from 1980 till 1985, no one called with anything resembling a job offer. Sure, I had conversations with acquaintances. Yes, the people whom I knew and liked still talked to me. Nothing personal was altered in any way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut in the eight years prior to 1978, seven movies I'd written were released. In the eight years following, none.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI talked about it recently with a bunch of young Los Angeles screenwriters, and what I told them was this: If I had been living Out There, I don't think I could have survived. The idea of going into restaurants and knowing that heads were turning away, of knowing people were saying \"See him?--no, don't look yet, okay, now turn, that guy, he used to be hot, can't get arrested anymore,\" would have devastated me. In L.A., truly, there is but one occupation, the movie business. In New York, the infinite city, we're all invisible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExample: my favorite French bistro is Quatorze Bis, on East Seventy-ninth. Best fries in town, great chicken, all that good stuff. Well, I was there one night last year when another guy came in, and we had each won two Oscars for screenwriting, and we lived within a few blocks of each other--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--and we had never met. (It was Robert Benton.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eImpossible in Los Angeles. But that kind of thing was my blessing during those five years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy memory was that the leprosy didn't really bother me. I asked my wonderful ex-wife, Ilene, about it and she said: \"I don't think it did bother you, not being out of Hollywood, anyway. But one night I remember you were in the library and you were depressed and I realized it was the being alone that was getting to you. You always enjoyed the meetings, the socialness of moviemaking. You were always so grateful when you could get out of your pit.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wrote five books in those five years (couldn't do it now, way too hard) and then the phone started ringing again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is why it stopped in the first place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is a famous and \u003ci\u003eamazingly\u003c\/i\u003e racist World War I cartoon that showed two soldiers fighting in a trench. One was German, the other an American Negro who had just swiped at the German's throat with his straight razor. (When I say racist, I mean racist.) The caption went like this:\u003cbr\u003eGerman Soldier: You missed.\u003cbr\u003eAmerican Soldier: Wait'll yo' turn yo' head.\u003cbr\u003eThe point being, in terms of my screenwriting career, I never turned my head. Looking back, there was no real reason to. I was on my hot streak then. I was a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval in those years. Between '73 and '78 this is what I wrote:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree novels:\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Princess Bride   (1973)\u003cbr\u003eMarathon Man           (1974)\u003cbr\u003eMagic   (1976)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd six movies:\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Great Waldo Pepper  (1975)\u003cbr\u003eThe Stepford Wives  (1975)\u003cbr\u003eAll the President's Men  (1976)\u003cbr\u003eMarathon Man          (1976)\u003cbr\u003eA Bridge Too Far  (1977)\u003cbr\u003eMagic  (1978)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you had told me, that 1978 November day when \u003ci\u003eMagic\u003c\/i\u003e opened, that it would be nine years before my next picture appeared, I doubt I would have known what language you were speaking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt wasn't as if I'd stopped writing screenplays after \u003ci\u003eMagic\u003c\/i\u003e. But the lesson I was about to learn was this: studios do not particularly lose faith in a writer if a movie is terrible. Producers do not forget your name if a movie loses lots of money. Because most studio movies lose lots of money (they survive on their hits). If, say, they chose directors who had only hits, they would be choosing from a practically nonexistent list. All anybody wants, when they hire you, is this: \u003cb\u003ethat the movie happen.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe change came after \u003ci\u003eA Bridge Too Far.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJoseph E. Levine, the producer of that film, thought of me as a kind of good luck talisman. His career was not exactly rocketing the years before \u003ci\u003eBridge\u003c\/i\u003e, and when that movie brought him back close to the fire, he attributed a lot of it to me. And he wanted to go into business with me. He bought my novel \u003ci\u003eMagic\u003c\/i\u003e, made that movie, and then proposed a three-picture deal: I would write three original screenplays for him, pretty much of my own choosing. I had never signed a multiple deal before, never thought I would. But I jumped at it. The work experiences with him had been so decent, unlike a lot of the standard Hollywood shit we all put up with.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne thing that made Mr. Levine unique was that \u003ci\u003ehe was the bank\u003c\/i\u003e. He made his movies with \u003ci\u003ehis own money,\u003c\/i\u003e took no studio deals until late in the game, when he had something to show. He was gambling that he would find movie studios who would want to buy, and he had gotten rich that way. \u003ci\u003eBridge\u003c\/i\u003e had cost him $22 million. An insane gamble in today's world, nuttier back then. But the day it opened it was $4 million in profit. Mr. Levine sold the movie everywhere, Europe, Asia, country by country, territory by territory; he had collected $26 million by opening day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTypical of his bravery was one day when he was in a hospital in New York after surgery. I was visiting him, and the director, Richard Attenborough, called from Holland. They were shooting the crucial parachute drop, and the weather had been dreadful. The parachutists were willing to work the next day, a Saturday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAttenborough requested that extra day. It would cost Levine seventy-five thousand of his own dollars. Levine \u003ci\u003escreamed\u003c\/i\u003e at Attenborough for even suggesting such a thing. Attenborough repeated his request. Levine asked if he had sufficient footage for the sequence as it was. Attenborough said he had more than enough but it was all drab-looking. Levine screamed at him again. It was a ridiculous request. Attenborough held tough, saying the extra day might make all the difference. Levine then asked what was the weather report for Saturday. Attenborough admitted it was for more of the same: dreary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow Levine really let fly. You limey bastard, on and on, and he finally hung up on Attenborough. But not before he agreed to the extra day. The weather turned glorious and almost the entire wonderful drop sequence comes from that extra day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTry getting a studio to do that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo the fact that Mr. Levine did not need studio backing, that he cared not at all for studio money or thinking, was a huge factor in my agreeing to the three-picture deal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt turned out to be a huge contributor to my downfall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Sea Kings\u003c\/i\u003e was the first of the three-picture deal. A pirate flick. Came from a \u003ci\u003egreat\u003c\/i\u003e snippet of material. In the early 1700s, the most famous, and most lethal, pirate was Blackbeard. At the same time, living on the island of Barbados, was a fabulously wealthy planter, Stede Bonnet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBonnet had been a soldier but had never seen action. He had a monstrous wife. Had almost died the previous winter. And, in a feat of great lunacy unmatched just about anywhere on earth, Bonnet decided to become a pirate. He commissioned a ship--the only such one in history, by the way. Pirate ships were always stolen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo off he sailed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd met, for a blink, Blackbeard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey did not sail together for very long, but the idea of these two strange and remarkable men knocked me out. So I wrote \u003ci\u003eThe Sea Kings\u003c\/i\u003e about them. (Butch and Sundance on the high seas, if you will.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe decision that I made was this: Bonnet, rich beyond counting and miserably unhappy, a student of piracy, wanted one thing more than any other: an adventure-filled life (and if that included death, so be it). Blackbeard was sick up to here with his adventure-filled life. Piracy was getting tougher and tougher, and he was broke, as all pirates (save Bonnet) were. What he wanted was a long, comfortable life and a sweet death in bed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I wrote a movie about two men who were each other's dream.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was filled with action and blood and double crosses and I hoped a decent amount of laughter. When I was done, I gave it to Mr. Levine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho just loved it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Year of the Comet\u003c\/i\u003e was my second original, a romantic thriller, about a chase for the world's greatest bottle of wine, and you can read all about it in the chapter with its name on it. I will add only this here--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--Mr. Levine loved it too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wrote the part of Blackbeard for Sean Connery, and Mr. Levine got the idea of casting the two James Bonds, having Roger Moore play the more elegant Bonnet. Another casting notion was the two Moores: Dudley (\u003ci\u003e10\u003c\/i\u003e had happened) as Bonnet, Roger shifting over to Blackbeard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the wine movie, he wanted Robert Redford in the Cary Grant part.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eObviously, you did not see these movies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat happened?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Mr. Levine had come to me for \u003ci\u003eA Bridge Too Far\u003c\/i\u003e, he was pushing seventy, and he hated being out of the loop, was willing to take almost any gamble. Now that \u003ci\u003eBridge\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMagic\u003c\/i\u003e had helped restore him, his needs were lessened.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was also older now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut most critical: the price of movies had begun to skyrocket. So the fact that he was his own bank, so wonderful earlier, was now a huge problem--he was rich, but not \u003ci\u003ethat\u003c\/i\u003e rich. Some research was done on the cost of constructing that everyday little item, the pirate ship.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou don't want to know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStars' salaries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou don't want to know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had chances to lay the scripts off to studios but he couldn't do that, y'see, because then he'd be just like everybody else, taking shit from the executives. When he was the bank, he \u003ci\u003egave\u003c\/i\u003e shit. I heard him blow studio heads out of the water. I saw him sit at his desk, smiling at me, while he hurled the most amazing insults at these Hollywood powers--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--and they had to take it--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--because he had movies they wanted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was the fucking staff of life for the old man. His ego would not allow him to be just like everybody else. \u003ci\u003eHe didn't need it.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo both scripts just lay there. (They very well may have been unusable scripts--always a very real possibility when I go to work--but that was not the governing principle here.) I never wrote the third original--Mr. Levine and I parted company.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was O for two.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Ski Bum\u003c\/i\u003e began as an article in \u003ci\u003eEsquire\u003c\/i\u003e by Jean Vallely. Briefly, it concerned a ski instructor in Aspen who led a very glamorous life. Wealthy and famous clients, the kind of romantic existence most of us only moon about.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat's by day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy night he was aging, broke, scraping along in a trailer with a wife and little kid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI thought it would make a terrific movie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe producer had bought the underlying rights. I signed on, went to Aspen, noodled around, did my research, went to work on the screenplay. Got it to the producer and the studio, Universal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe producer loved it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlas, Universal's studio head \u003ci\u003ehated\u003c\/i\u003e it. When the producer left for another studio, he asked to buy it back, take it with him. Universal said, \u003ci\u003eno conceivable way. We hate this piece of shit and we are going to keep it forever, thank you very much.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI always thought that was strange. If you hate something so much and you're offered a fair price to unload it, why keep it around? I did know, of course, the most usual reason--fear of humiliation. What if a studio gives up a piece of material that turns into \u003ci\u003eHome Alone\u003c\/i\u003e (happened) or\u003ci\u003e E.T.\u003c\/i\u003e (happened)?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut this was all company stuff, taking place far far above my head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDissolve, as they say (they really do), Out There.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's a couple of years later and another executive has come to power at Universal. The guy who hated it so much is still above him, but this secondary power likes the screenplay and wants to see the movie made. We met and his first words to me were these: \u003ci\u003e\"You don't have the least idea what happened, do you?\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn't then.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI do now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe producer had been, at the time, relatively new in the picture business. But he was a gigantic figure in the music business: Name a superstar singer, he handled him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, Universal owned an amphitheater and needed talent to fill it. So the very great Lew Wasserman made a deal personally with the producer to handle the amphitheater and also have a movie-producing deal. \u003ci\u003eAnything\u003c\/i\u003e he wanted to make was an automatic \"go.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith one teensy proviso: it had to cost less than an agreed-upon amount. Anything that cost more, Ned Tanen, the head of Universal Pictures, would have to agree to.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Ski Bum,\u003c\/i\u003e which needed stars and snow and all kinds of other expensive stuff, obviously needed Tanen's okay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis presented kind of a problem for the picture because, decades ago, Tanen and my guy had been together in the mailroom at William Morris, where so many great careers were launched.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd they had hated each other with a growing passion since then.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot only that, Tanen was pissed that the producer had gotten a movie deal at his company by going over his head to Wasserman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo there it was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTanen, of course, rejected it. And, of course, rejected any attempt to buy the screenplay back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe new executive and I tried an end run. Tanen never budged.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eO for three.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Right Stuff\u003c\/i\u003e came next. A ghastly and depressing saga (recounted in magnificent detail in \u003ci\u003eAdventures in the Screen Trade\u003c\/i\u003e, so I won't repeat it here). I left the project angry and frustrated. These were bad times in America--the hostages had just been taken in Iran--so I had wanted to write a movie that might have a patriotic feel. The director wanted something else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eO for four.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eOn Wings of Eagles\u003c\/i\u003e was not called that when I got involved. The famous Ken Follett book and the miniseries were still in the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Ross Perot, who controlled the material, was interested in mak-ing a movie about the wonderful time when he masterminded breaking his employees out of an Iranian prison. I still had my patriotic need. I signed on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe problem with this material was always very simple: it was an expensive action film but the star, the main guy, Perot's hero, \"Bull\" Simons, was not a young man. And Perot would never have betrayed the basic reality by allowing a younger man to do it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was only Eastwood. Had to be Eastwood. No one else but Eastwood. Dead in the water without Eastwood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe took another military adventure movie, \u003ci\u003eFirefox.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was the one dead in the water now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUntil late in 1986, when the telephone rang . . .Author of Adventures in the Screen Trade","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304916570341,"sku":"NP9780375703195","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375703195.jpg?v=1767744095","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/which-lie-did-i-tell-isbn-9780375703195","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}