Her quivery, high-pitched, Southern-cracked tones were once described
as sounding like "a Tweetie Pie cartoon bird strangling on peanut
butter." Just the absurdity of that description fits comedienne Dody
Goodman to a tee. One did not know what to make of her, but she could
certainly induce laughter with a mere perplexed look, a spaced-out
pause, or by opening her mouth and spouting out a silly malaprop. Her
flakiness seemed so real that one wondered if that was the REAL Dody
Goodman or just some savvy comedienne who knew exactly how to package
herself. Maybe a little of both.
An endearing scenestealer, Dody put her own indelible patent on the
feather-brained relative, inept teacher and neighborhood chatterbox,
playing them all to the hilt in an over six-decade career. Her
characters alway seemed lost in their own little world...whatever world
that was, it must have been a sweet and happy little place for she
always displayed a pleasant demeanor and had a fixed smile plastered on
that rather blank face of hers. TV was Dody's choice of medium later in
life and her ditsy foils became a popular addiction on prime-time and
late-nite TV shows during the 1960s and 1970s.
She was born Dolores Goodman, the daughter of Dexter, a cigar factory
owner, and Leona Goodman, in Columbus, Ohio on October 28, 1914. Dody's
beginnings were in dance and ballet and, after traipsing off to New
York in the hopes of becoming a ballerina, fell into the ballet company
at Radio City Music Hall. She eventually went the Broadway route and
made her debut as a ballet dancer in the short-lived musical "Viva
O'Brien" in 1941. From that she continued to gain experience in the
dancing ensembles of "Something for the Boys," "One Touch of Venus,"
Laffing Room Only," "High Button Shoes," "Miss Liberty," "Call Me
Madam" and "My Darlin' Aida." A featured role in the 1953 musical
"Wonderful Town" starring Tony-winner
Rosalind Russell was a huge turning
point, and another standout part in 1955's "Shoestring Revue" had her
introducing the show-stopping novelty song "Someone Is Sending Me
Flowers".
It was comedienne Imogene Coca and
"Wonderful Town" director George Abbott
who saw Dody's true potential as a funny girl and helped steer her
towards comedy. Soon Dody was performing on 50s TV in comedy skits.
With a pixie-like eccentricity that reminded one of the late great
Gracie Allen, Dody's big break happened in
mid-career when, at age 43, she made a chatty 1957 guest appearance on
the second episode of Jack Paar's
"Tonight Show" and was hired as a regular. An enormous hit with
audiences, she earned an Emmy nomination in the process, but Paar
dropped her from the show the following year because she had a
disconcerting habit of upstaging him. She later became a well-oiled
guest on game shows and on
Johnny Carson,
Mike Douglas and
Merv Griffin's chatfests.
On stage, Dody played the Carol Burnett
role in a tour of "Once Upon a Mattress" and added "Fiorello!" and the
"New Cole Porter Review" to her musical comedy resume in the early
1960s. She did not return to Broadway until over a decade later with a
supporting role in "Lorelei" starring
Carol Channing in 1974. Two decades later
she would reappear in a Broadway revival of "Grease". On the legit
comedy stage, she added to the wackiness of such plays as "A Thurber
Carnival," "Don't Drink the Water, "The Front Page" and "George
Washington Slept Here".
An ideal showcase for her loopy talents was as
Louise Lasser's mother, Martha Shumway, on
the cutting edge TV satire,
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976).
An off-the-wall sendup of soap operas, Goodman was in her element as
the title character's mother who engaged in conversation with her
plants. When Lasser left the show, the cast maintained for another six
months and the title was changed to
Forever Fernwood (1977).
An older Dody appeared as a regular for a season on sitcom
Noch Fragen Arnold? (1978)
and in such teen-oriented movies as
Grease (1978) and
Grease 2 (1982), as well as
Splash: Jungfrau am Haken (1984) and
Die Superaufreißer (1985). She also
provided a regular cartoon voiceover for "Alvin & the Chipmunks" for
years. On stage she earned a Drama Desk nomination for her 1984
appearance in the O'Neill play "Ah, Wilderness!" and later spent
several seasons touring in the musical farce "Nunsense" -- starting out
as Sister Mary Amnesia and graduating to the role of Mother Superior.
At age 85 she was still kicking up her heels in one of the show's many
spin-offs, "Nuncrackers," and was glimpsed occasionally as her old
flaky self as a guest on "The David Letterman Show".
Appearing at special events past the age of 90, she died peacefully on
June 22, 2008, at the Englewood, New Jersey Hospital and Medical
Center. Declining health had forced her to move into assisted living
(Lillian Booth Actors' Fund Home) in Englewood back in October of 2007.
The unmarried Dody was survived by several nieces and nephews.
