I was greatly saddened to discover this New Year’s Eve, during one of those Hollywood remembrance clips that gets played every year, that screenwriter and author William Goldman passed away this last November. Online obituaries have extolled his virtues, of course – Oscar winning author of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, an amazing talent with the pen.

Great films, to be sure, and probably the works he will be most judged upon by posterity. But to me they are secondary, and likely for you, too. For if you are reading this article, there is a good chance that you are a fencer. And there is also a good chance that William Goldman was one of the forces that brought you to fencing.

This is because of the less critically acclaimed, but nevertheless brilliant novel and screenplay, The Princess Bride. No one saw this film in the theaters (my family saw it together in the theater 3 times), but it became a cult classic on video. Many of us can quote it verbatim. I lost count of the number of times I have seen this film over twenty years ago, and though I haven’t seen it probably since my twenties, I can still damn-near recite it line for line.

For me, and many others like me, this is the movie that made them want to learn fencing.

Now, is the fight choreography in The Princess Bride amazing? No, by no means. It is passable, but that is the work of the late Bob Anderson, not William Goldman. The choreography is not what makes the film or the fencing great. And I would argue that the fencing scenes are among the greatest in film despite the choreography. This is because William Goldman gave us fencing scenes that developed character like no other in film or literature. While he did not really know that much about the history of fencing or historical fencing, he presented us – with a few carefully placed lines, a few hints – with a glimpse at a wealth of history and theory to be studied. In both the novel and the film.

And that fact of study is not to be overlooked. Vizzini tells Westley that to best Inigo at the sword, he must have studied, and in studying learned that man is mortal. There is the back and forth about masters and techniques between Westley and Inigo – Agrippa, Capo Ferro, Bonetti, names that get dropped almost casually. Names for the inner circle, the enlightened ones, that made me want to be part of that inner circle. All this frames up a deep past that required not just practical learning, but book learning. Fencing is an art, a science, a skill of the mind as much as of the physical body. To be theorized on and thought about, not just performed. Very few other popular films and books present it this way, but Goldman truly seemed to appreciate it. And by framing the fencing with such tremendous characters, he made it cool in a way I think it had not been in film for a long time. And has not been since.

As a kid, this movie hooked me. It would not be until I was a teenager that my mom was able to find a fencing school and set me up there, and it was not until I was grown that I found the traditional fencing that The Princess Bride had made me long for, but the bug was there. And I would wager that, like me, if you were growing up during the 80’s or beyond, this movie contributed to your fencing bug, too.

So thank you, William Goldman, for that. For all the people you inspired to take up the foil and sword, you are one of the most important figures in the history of fencing to have never picked up a blade.