Rise to Fame
An ABC talent scout watching him in Antony and Cleopatra in 1987 pulled him out of theater and into sitcom history. He was the only person to audition for Dan Conner on Roseanne, which means the show's working-class dad wasn't a casting triumph but a default. Roseanne ran 1988-1997, topped U.S. ratings in 1989-1990, and earned him a Golden Globe in 1993. While that was happening, he was doing Raising Arizona and Barton Fink for the Coen Brothers, building a film career that didn't depend on the sitcom at all.
In the Spotlight
The Conners wrapped in 2025 after 112 episodes, and Goodman has more ahead than most 70-year-olds in Hollywood. He's cast in Alejandro Inarritu's next film alongside Tom Cruise. His Pacific Palisades home burned in the January 2025 wildfires. Getting sober in 2007 after 30 years of heavy drinking and losing roughly 200 pounds over the following decade probably saved both his health and his career. The guy who was reportedly drinking on set during Roseanne is now the most reliably employed character actor in his age bracket.
Side Notes
He bought his New Orleans house from Trent Reznor for $1.8 million, which is a deeply specific thing to have in common with someone. He's hosted SNL 13 times, one of the most frequent in the show's history, even though nobody ever thinks of him in that context. He describes his old relationship with food as 'eating alcoholically,' which is one of the more precise self-diagnoses anyone has offered about a decade of bad habits. He studied drama at Southwest Missouri State alongside Kathleen Turner, before either of them was anyone.