American actor, born in 1952 in St. Louis, Missouri. A big, burly guy, his first roles were in fairly low-class movies like "C.H.U.D" and "Revenge of the Nerds", but before long, he moved up into much better movies, both dramas and comedies, including "True Stories", "The Big Easy", "Raising Arizona", and "Everybody's All-American". Soon, he hit it big on TV as Dan Connor on "Rosanne".

Throughout the various ups and downs of TV work, Goodman continued to find work in film, sometimes as the star ("King Ralph", "The Babe", "The Flintstones", and a TV movie called "Kingfisher: A Story of Huey P. Long"), usually in supporting character roles ("Punchline", "Sea of Love", "Always", "Arachnophobia", "Barton Fink", "Matinee", "Born Yesterday", "Fallen", "Blues Brothers 2000", "The Big Lebowski", "Bringing Out the Dead", "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", "Coyote Ugly"), occasional bit parts ("The Hudsucker Proxy"--under the name of his character in "Barton Fink"--and "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle"), and more recently, voice work in cartoons ("The Emperor's New Groove", "Monsters, Inc.", "The Jungle Book II"--and if you know a guy better suited to being the new voice of Baloo the Bear, I don't wanna hear it). He took another stab at television in 2000 with a short-lived series called "Normal, Ohio" in which he starred as a gay man.

Goodman is still best known for his comedies, but he also has a lot of talent for dramatic roles. He can play morons, geniuses, lunatics, slobs, criminals, cops, and downright evil motherfucking bastards--but he may be best at playing Everymen who the audience can identify with.

Personal favorite roles: optimistic and lovelorn Louis Fyne in David Byrne's "True Stories" (the first movie I ever saw John Goodman in--and I could immediately tell he was a damn good actor), loony escaped convict Gale Snopes in "Raising Arizona", flamboyant movie producer and showman Lawrence Woolsey in "Matinee", and Charlie Meadows in "Barton Fink" (you'll forget he was ever Dan Connor by the time the movie ends).

Addendum: LaggedyAnne sez: "He lived in Affton, Mo. most his life. That's my hometown, a suburb of St. Louis. His mom was my lunch lady in high school, and he's donated $20,000 to the drama department there. Also I SQUAREDANCED WITH HIM... hehehe... He smells funny and he likes to booze but he's really nice." Didn't ever know any of that, but I gotta say I'm not at all surprised. He's always struck me as a really nice fella.

Much research from the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)