You may not have heard of the legendary john goodman, but you know who he is. When he died in 2006, he was just a few months shy of seventy years young. He was a veteran of the war, and was known to return home to New York City to visit his extended family, but he always returned right back to the world of show business, and, of course, that included a life on the silver screen.
John Goodman died at the age of seventy-six, but his story has been told before, and the way he lived his life is one that is almost impossible to forget. He was an actor, and a famous one at that. He was famous for his role as a young gangster in The Thin Man, and he also played a gangster in the classic movie The Big Sleep.
I grew up knowing John Goodman. He was in my family’s church, and we also had a church in our hometown. He was the kind of person that you loved, and had a great sense of humor, and was always willing to share his knowledge and his wisdom. I loved him.
Goodman was a big man. He was 6’1, and he weighed around 145 pounds. In our hometown the kids called him “Big John,” and he was just a huge guy, so he was always around.
In the classic Thin Man movie, he is the last of the gangster dead that are trying to escape a prison in a time loop. He has been the leader of the gang since the start of the movie, and his last two attempts at escape were both unsuccessful. He was also the only gangster whose last name I recognized as being Goodman.
Goodman was a tough guy, but I never knew him well enough to really believe he was a tough guy. He was just a big guy, and he died, but it’s hard to believe this in a world where we are constantly told that we are tough, badass, and dangerous.
Goodman was a lot like the bad guys in The Wolf of Wall Street, John Gotti, and the Punisher, all guys who died in horrific circumstances, but all of whom were somehow connected to the criminal underworld.
That connection to the criminal underworld probably comes from the fact that the man who killed him was the owner of a bank. I suppose you could say John was a bank robber, but that doesn’t seem to fit well with the character at all.
I’m not exactly sure how old John was when he died, but I believe it was, I think, somewhere in the late-80s. I don’t know if he had the same thing going on in his head as the rest of us, but I can say that he always seemed to be having some sort of issue with his personal sanity.
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