John Goodman

Did You Know?

• Goodman was the first guest on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and received the series' 'First Guest Medal'.
• He has made seven cameo appearances on Saturday Night Live as Linda Tripp during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Early life and education

John Stephen Goodman was born on June 20, 1952, in Affton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. His father, Leslie Francis Goodman, a postal worker, died of a heart attack when Goodman was two. His mother, Virginia Roos, worked as a waitress, retail store worker, and took in laundry to support the family. He has an older brother, Leslie, and a younger sister, Elisabeth.

Goodman is of English, German, and Welsh ancestry and was raised Southern Baptist. He described his childhood as alone and withdrawn after his father's death; he was bullied at school for being overweight. Until ninth grade, he was in the Boy Scouts, which provided structure and camaraderie. His brother later returned home to help raise him.

Goodman attended Affton High School, where he played football and dabbled in theater. After graduating in 1970, he took a gap year. He earned a football scholarship to Missouri State University but tore his ACL before playing. He then focused on the school's theater program, studied with Kathleen Turner and Tess Harper, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1975. In 2013, the university awarded him an honorary doctorate in humane letters.

Career

After graduating, Goodman moved to New York City, living in Hell's Kitchen and working as a bartender and waiter before finding success in voice-overs, commercials, and plays. He appeared in a television ad for Skin Bracer by Mennen, slapping himself and uttering the tagline "Thanks... I needed that!" He made his film debut in 1982 with a small role in Eddie Macon's Run.

On stage, he starred as Pap Finn in Big River from 1985 to 1987, earning a Drama Desk nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. He gained significant attention with a comedic role in True Stories (1986). Goodman rose to fame playing Dan Conner on the ABC sitcom Roseanne from 1988 to 1997, returning for the revived 10th season in 2018 and continuing on the spin-off The Conners. He has hosted Saturday Night Live 13 times and made multiple cameo appearances, including as Linda Tripp and Rex Tillerson.

He auditioned for the show's 1980–1981 season but was rejected. Goodman has acted in six Coen brothers films, including Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and Inside Llewyn Davis. He has also voiced roles in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove, The Princess and the Frog, and Pixar's Monsters, Inc. franchise.

Personal life

John Goodman has been married to Annabeth Hartzog since 1989. The two met at a Halloween party at Tipitina's in New Orleans while he was filming Everybody's All-American. Their daughter, Molly Evangeline, was born in 1990 and has worked as a production assistant. The family has long lived in New Orleans' Garden District, in a house Goodman bought from musician Trent Reznor.

Their second home in Los Angeles' Pacific Palisades was lost in the Palisades Fire in January 2025. A devoted St. Louis Cardinals fan, Goodman narrated a 2020 MLB Network documentary on the team's 1980s squads. Goodman has been sober since 2007 and tries to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting each morning. He has openly discussed his alcoholism, recalling that he used to drink straight from the bottle and would need a drink to get through stage performances because of the shakes. By 2026, he said he no longer grills, as he had come to link the activity with drinking.