Jean Goodman; biographer,journalist
Hyfler/Rosner
<times of london>
Journalist whose career spanned print, radio, television -and the
eccentricities of painters.
Jean Goodman, journalist and biographer, was born on June 17, 1918. She died
on September 5, 2003, aged 85.
A BIOGRAPHER, short-story writer, journalist and broadcaster, Jean Goodman
had an active career in journalism at a time when the position of women in
the industry was considered rather secondary. The title of her first
published book, in 1973, a collection of autobiographical short stories,
summarised her views on adopting the traditional role of women: Anything But
Housework. But it was her work as a biographer that will be most lasting,
particularly for throwing new light on the eccentric personal lives of two
of the great Norfolk artists, Edward Seago and Sir Alfred Munnings.
Subtitled What a Go!, Goodman's biography of the famous painter of horses
drew heavily on anecdotal evidence to reveal the turbulent private life of
Munnings and some of the complex dichotomies of his personality: his love of
bawdy songs is contrasted, for instance, with his two unconsummated
marriages; his lack of interest in women, with his passion for horses.
Critics were delighted by the tale of Munnings's response to a fire in the
art school run by Cedric Morris in 1939.
Driving past, Munnings rolled down the window of his car, waved his stick
out of the window and shouted: "Hoorah!"
Praised also for its meticulous research and sensitive writing, Goodman's
biography of Edward Seago, The Other Side of the Canvas, with a foreword by
the Prince of Wales, put on display an artist with an equally turbulent
personal life.
As described by Goodman, Seago was a sickly child, unable to escape the
constant pressure from a protective but overbearing mother, and he grew into
a man prone to frequent attacks from a heart illness. Goodman may have felt
frustrated by her subject, and the "negative approach" of this biography was
summarised by The Times Literary Supplement as a method "in which a man's
achievements are measured by his limitations". Despite showing great promise
and dabbling in portraiture, wrote Goodman (who had herself once been a
sitter), Seago settled for safe depictions of what he knew he could do well,
land and seascapes.
Jean Harrison was born in 1918 in Leeds and attended Malvern Girls' College.
Inspired by her father, who was a correspondent for the Jewish Chronicle,
she studied journalism at King's College, London, and supported herself with
contributions to the Yorkshire Evening Post.
After marrying Lionel Goodman in 1940, she moved to Norwich and began
writing weekly features for the Eastern Daily Press. With the arrival of
local radio in the area, she moved into the new field, firstly as a local
correspondent and then as a contributor to Women's Hour nationally and as
presenter when Women's Hour went to East Anglia. She continued to keep her
hand in at print journalism, writing for The Times and Vogue.
She worked for both the BBC and the newly formed Anglia TV until forced to
choose between them. Choosing the BBC, she worked with Martin Bell on Look
East. This could involve anything from interviewing the Beatles, to driving
a Cooper Climax round a racing circuit or presenting a report from the city
sewers.
Goodman believed that as a woman one of the responsibilities of expecting
equal pay and opportunities was that she should not refuse jobs offered her.
She did not take time off to write her books, but published them while
continuing to write for the papers. As well as Munnings and Seago, she wrote
lives of Ludwig Mond, who laid the foundations of ICI, and the English
artist Bunty Miller. She was also one of the authors of Debrett's Royal
Scotland and Debrett's Book of the Engagement about the wedding of the Duke
and Duchess of York.
Jean Goodman's husband died in 1985. She is survived by their two sons.