32 Facts About Goodman Ace

Goodman Ace, born Goodman Aiskowitz, was an American humorist, radio writer and comedian, television writer, and magazine columnist.

Goodman Ace wrote a weekly column called "The Dyspeptic" for the school's newspaper.

Jane wanted to attend the sold-out performance of Al Jolson in Kansas City; her boyfriends were unable to get tickets, but Goodman Ace had access to the concert via his press pass.

In 1930, Ace took on a second job reading the Sunday comics on radio station KMBC and hosting a Friday night film review and gossip program called Ace Goes to the Movies.

Goodman Ace suggested a second radio show, this one dealing with films, thus collecting an additional $10 per week.

In 1945, Goodman Ace signed on as one of the writers of The Danny Kaye Show.

Goodman Ace was sued in 1940 because of the name he selected for a character.

Goodman Ace used the first name of one of his staff coupled with the last name of another.

Unknown to Goodman Ace, this resulted in the name of a real person who was publicly embarrassed by the use of his name on the show.

Goodman Ace then began the practice of having those on the program use their own names for their characters.

In 1948, Goodman Ace created a new, half-hour version of the show, mr.

Goodman Ace branched out by writing commercials, featuring himself and Jane.

Jane Ace retired almost completely; Goodman retired as a performer, becoming for the most part a writer from 1949 onward.

Goodman Ace did have a serious side, too, and he melded it to his sense of the absurd to create a radio show with the twist of taking listeners to re-created historical events described by actual CBS News reporters.

Goodman Ace would be nominated for Emmy Awards twice during his term as Como's head writer, in 1956 and 1959.

Goodman Ace had known Jack Benny since his Kansas City years.

Radio historian Arthur Frank Wertheim recorded that, as a young newspaper reporter and columnist, Goodman Ace had written a witty gossip column that moved Benny himself to ask the young writer for some jokes for his stage act.

Goodman Ace ended up supplying Benny with gags "on the house" for years, Wertheim noted.

When Benny finally did get to the Stork, he was told Goodman Ace didn't want to wait and left.

Soon Billingsley's notes began to arrive in Goodman Ace's mailbox, inviting him to come to the club for the marvelous air conditioning.

Goodman Ace wrote back that he was well aware of how cool it was at the Stork, having received the cold shoulder there.

Goodman Ace wrote one screenplay, I Married a Woman, in 1957.

Goodman Ace revealed in the mid-1960s that CBS once developed a kind of school for young comedy writers, with Goodman Ace himself "placed in charge of a group of six or seven young writers who wanted to make all that easy money", as he recalled in a later magazine column.

Goodman Ace became a regular columnist for Saturday Review in the early 1950s.

Later, Goodman Ace shifted to more broad contemporary concerns and called the column "Top of My Head"; these essays became as well-read as his old radio show had been, without being either too frivolous or too overbearing.

Goodman Ace held a small regular slot offering witty commentaries on New York station WPAT for a time, before going out over the full National Public Radio network during the 1970s.

Note, though, that while Goodman Ace had a hand in the modern adaptation of the scripts, neither he nor Jane Goodman Ace appeared in it, and neither played any part in the actual production of the series.

Jane Goodman Ace died after a long illness in 1974, just days before what would have been their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

Goodman Ace had the grace to celebrate her arrival with a handful of His confetti.

Goodman Ace died eight years after his wife, in their New York City home in March 1982.

Goodman Ace said that neither the writer nor a star alone could make or break a comedy show.

Goodman Ace offered his own epitaph when Saturday Review ran a poll asking well-known Americans to nominate members of a contemporary Hall of Fame.