Goetz, Ruth

Ruth and Augustus Goetz, playwrights.

Ruth Gordon and Augustus Goetz, playwrights.

Ruth Goodman Goetz (1912- ) and Augustus Goetz (1899-1957) collaborated on writing plays and screenplays.

Ruth Goodman Goetz was born in Philadelphia, Pa., on January 12, 1912, the only child of Lily Cartun Goodman and Philip Goodman (1885-1940), a theatrical producer and writer. Ruth grew up in New York City, studied scenic design with Norman Bel Geddes while still a teenager, and later worked for the Alfred A. Knopf publishing house. In 1932, she married Augustus Otto Goetz, a stockbroker who gave up his Wall Street job soon afterwards to pursue a writing career. They collaborated on several plays over the next several years, including FRANKLIN STREET (1940), ONE MAN SHOW (1945), and, most successfully, THE HEIRESS (1947), starring Wendy Hiller and Basil Rathbone, based on Henry James' novel WASHINGTON SQUARE. The Goetzes also adapted this play for Paramount's 1949 film version, which starred Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, and Ralph Richardson. They also adapted Theodore Dreiser's novel SISTER CARRIE for the screen. After returning to New York in the mid 1950s, the Goetzes adapted two more novels for the stage, Andre Gide's THE IMMORALIST (1954) and Storm Jameson's THE HIDDEN RIVER (1957). Augustus Goetz died in September of 1957. Ruth Goetz continued to work with other collaborators on various projects in the years that followed, and has served on the boards of a number of professional and political organizations.

Producer and playwright Philip Goodman, father of Ruth Goetz, was born in Philadelphia in 1885. He came to New York as a young man, worked on a magazine edited by Theodore Dreiser, and later went into the advertising business. In the early 1920s Goodman persuaded his friend, journalist Don Marquis, to write a play. After the great success of Marquis' THE OLD SOAK, Goodman ventured further into theater, producing the musical comedy POPPY (1923) starring W.C. Fields. Other Goodman productions include DEAR SIR (1924), THE RAMBLERS (1926), THE WILD MAN OF BORNEO (1927) by Marc Connelly and Herman J. Mankiewicz, AMONG THE MARRIED (1929), and WASHINGTON HEIGHTS (1931). In his last years, Goodman devoted himself to writing plays and his memoirs. He died of a heart ailment on July 20, 1940, at the age of 55.