American screenwriter and novelist
First husband of Teresa Brewer.
Father, with Teresa Brewer , of daughters Kathleen Monahan (born in 1950), Susan Monahan and Megan Coleen Monahan (born in November 1954) and Michelle Monahan (born in 1958).
Was paid a mid-six figure sum for his original epic Tripoli in the fall of 2000. That script landed him the deal to write the original screenplay Kingdom of Heaven . Both were set up for Ridley Scott to direct. Monahan wrote three other screenplays for Scott.
Won Pushcart Prize for literary short fiction, 1996. He also sold the novel "Light House: A Trifle" to the Penguin Putnam imprint Riverhead Books. Light House was optioned by Warner Brothers and Monahan wrote the script and became a WGA screenwriter when he was 35 years old.
Former Spy magazine editor
While on the filming Kingdom of Heaven in Seville, Spain, Monahan bought back the rights to his novel "Light House: A Trifle" from Penguin- Putnam, and took the book off the market before the publisher knew he had written Kingdom of Heaven and The Departed. "They said they would wait for the Light House movie to promote Light House as book," he said. "I thought if they were so keyed into film to do their job I might as well cut out books." Light House is now on the classics imprint Odyssey Editions.
In the book "A Mind for Murder: Harvard and the Unabomber", by Alston Chase, William Monahan is identified as being the only person to solve the bombers lexically-based targeting methodology before the Unabombers capture.
One of 115 invitees to join AMPAS in 2007.
Learned about the stories of The Essex and Tripoli when he was twelve years old and wrote the movies out and illustrated them without having seen a screenplay until he found Dylan Thomas "The Doctor and the Devils".
