Remembering a dance legend. After reaching success as a ballroom dancer, Len Goodman discovered fame as a TV choose on Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing With the Stars.
Goodman — who died in April 2023 at age 78, simply three days shy of his 79th birthday — started his profession on the dance ground at age 19, when a foot damage (and a go-getter girlfriend) helped pave the best way for his lifelong love.
“I bought into dancing as a result of I had harm my foot and it simply wouldn’t get higher. I had an outdated Scottish physician who informed me to go ballroom dancing. He stated it was superb on your ft since you’re going up and down rather a lot,” the U.Okay. native defined to The Guardian in 2006. “My girlfriend organized for all of it to occur. I actually didn’t need to go, I kicked up a proper fuss. However as soon as I’d been for a few weeks, I actually liked it. I noticed I had a little bit of a expertise for it.”
Although the late TV character “solely danced for about eight years,” he defined on the time, his win on the British Championships impressed him to open a dance faculty. “I believed, ‘Effectively, I gained’t win this once more,’ so I believed I’d retire a winner,” Goodman shared.
After turning his focus to coaching college students — “I’ve taught each customary from world champion to freshmen and my favourite are individuals off the road, and kids, and I do these courses if I can,” he informed The Guardian in 2006 — the dance champion scored the function of head choose on BBC’s new dance competitors sequence, Strictly Come Dancing, in 2004. One 12 months later, Goodman took his abilities to Dancing With the Stars, the American model of Strictly. He was head choose of every program for over a decade, ending his run on Strictly Come Dancing in 2017, 13 years after the present’s premiere. On DWTS, he was a mainstay and fan favourite till he introduced his retirement in November 2022 on the finish of season 31. He died six months later of bone most cancers.
In December 2022, one month after saying his departure from DWTS, Goodman mirrored on his life and profession.
“My dad had the suitable thought. He liked gardening and he had a stroke whereas he was out within the backyard. He was 79,” the Disney+ alum — who was married twice and a father of 1 — informed the Every day Mail on the time. “So if I am going the best way of my dad, that’ll be subsequent 12 months.”
Surmising much more on his obituary, Goodman added: “Simply write: ‘He was a dance instructor from Dartford who bought fortunate.’”
Join Us Weekly’s free, day by day e-newsletter and by no means miss breaking information or unique tales about your favourite celebrities, TV reveals and extra!
Hold scrolling to see Goodman’s life in images:
