Jules Eckert Goodman

Jules Eckert Goodman
Jules Eckert Goodman circa 1916
Born	(1876-11-02)November 2, 1876 Gervais, Oregon
Died	July 10, 1962(1962-07-10) (aged 85) Peekskill, New York
Occupation	Playwright and author

Jules Eckert Goodman (November 2, 1876 – July 10, 1962) was an American playwright and author. He was best known for his plays The Man Who Came Back (1916), The Silent Voice (1914), Chains (1923), and a series of plays featuring Potash and Permutter written with Montague Glass.

Goodman was born in Gervais, Oregon in 1876. He received an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1899 and master's degree from Columbia University in 1901. He was managing editor for four years of Current Literature and also wrote for Outing and the Dramatic Mirror. He had his first success on Broadway with 1910's Mother.

The successful The Silent Voice (1914) (derived from a short story by Gouverneur Morris) was adapted to film four times; first in 1915, then again in 1922 under the title The Man Who Played God (the title of the original Morris story). A talking-movie version also called The Man Who Played God appeared in 1932, starring George Arliss (who was also in the 1922 silent film) and Bette Davis, a role she credited as her big "break" in Hollywood. Lastly, and least appealingly, it appeared as a campy 1955 star vehicle for Liberace called Sincerely Yours.

Among other film adaptions of Goodman's work, The Man Who Came Back appeared in 1931. Goodman's reported last play Many Mansions (1937) was written with his son Eckert Goodman.

Goodman died of pneumonia in Peekskill, New York, where he had resided for forty years, on July 10, 1962. His wife died in 1959, and he was survived by one son (Jules Eckert Goodman, Jr.), and two daughters, Helen Goodman and Anna Freedgood.