Dody Goodman

Dody Goodman, born Dolores Goodman on October 28, 1914, in Columbus, Ohio, was an American character actress whose career spanned Broadway, television, film, and voice work across more than five decades. The daughter of Leona and Dexter Goodman, she grew up alongside a sister, Rose, and a brother, Dexter Jr., and attended North High School in Columbus, where she was later inducted into the school's Hall of Fame. She went on to study dramatics at Northwestern University and trained in dance at both the School of American Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School.

Goodman's Broadway debut came in 1941, and she built her early stage reputation through dancing solos in productions including High Button Shoes in 1947 and Wonderful Town in 1953. In 1955, she drew attention Off-Broadway in Shoestring Revue with a novelty number titled "Someone's Been Sending Me Flowers." She headlined another Off-Broadway production in 1960, appearing alongside Charles Nelson Reilly in the Jerry Herman musical revue Parade. The following year she took on the role of Princess Winifred the Woebegone in a revival of Once Upon a Mattress, and in 1962 she played Dora in a revival of Fiorello. Her Broadway work also included The Front Page, My Daughter, Your Son, and a 1974 appearance in Lorelei with Carol Channing. A 1984 revival of Ah, Wilderness earned her a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play, and her Broadway activity continued through 1994, with Grease among her later credits.

Television brought Goodman considerable national recognition beginning in the 1950s, when talk show host Jack Paar invited her to become a semi-regular presence on The Tonight Show after becoming taken with her comedic persona and seemingly spontaneous wordplay. Her habit of topping Paar's jokes led to her departure from the program in 1958, the same year she received an Emmy nomination for Best Continuing Performance by a Comedienne in a Series. Through the following decade she appeared on various talk programs and game shows before landing the role of Martha Shumway, the mother of the title character, in the television series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Her distinctive high-pitched voice was featured at the opening of each episode as she announced the show's title. In 1979 she joined the cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Hour on CBS, and from 1981 to 1982 she held the recurring role of Aunt Sophia on Diff'rent Strokes. Additional television credits included Search for Tomorrow, Punky Brewster, in which she played a teacher named Mrs. Morton, and a 1982 appearance as Aunt Mavis on Texas.

Goodman's film work included the 1978 release Grease, in which she played Blanche Hodel, the secretary in the principal's office, a role she reprised in Grease 2 in 1982. She also appeared in Splash. In addition to her on-screen work, she provided the voice of Miss Miller, guardian of the Chipettes, in the animated television series Alvin and the Chipmunks and in the theatrical film The Chipmunk Adventure.

Outside of performance, Goodman posed for photographs by Cris Alexander in the Patrick Dennis mock-biography First Lady, appearing as Martha Dinwiddie's sister Clytie, and contributed to a second book of Alexander's photography titled Women, Women, Women. She never married and had no children. From October 2007 she resided at the Lillian Booth Actors Home, and she died of natural causes on June 22, 2008, at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in Englewood, New Jersey, at the age of 93. She was survived by seven nieces and nephews, eleven great-nieces and nephews, and fifteen great-great-nieces and nephews.