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Len Goodman
Len-S28Finale
Judge Profile
Birth Date 25 April 1944
Died 22 April 2023 (aged 78)
Hometown Bromley, London, England

Season(s) Season 1, Season 2, Season 3
Season 4, Season 5, Season 6
Season 7, Season 8, Season 9
Season 10, Season 11, Season 12
Season 13, Season 14, All-stars
Season 16, Season 17, Season 18
Season 19, Season 20, Season 22
Season 23, Season 24, Season 25
Athletes, Season 27, Season 28, Season 30 & Season 31

Leonard Gordon "Len" Goodman was the head judge of Dancing with the Stars. He mainly judged alongside Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli.

Biography[]

Retrieved from abc.com
Len Goodman has been a head judge on Strictly Come Dancing, the original UK version of Dancing with the Stars. He was a professional dancer and dance teacher, and now runs his own successful dance school in Kent, England, where he resides.

Having performed his entire adult life, specializing in the form of Ballroom called "Exhibition" dancing, Goodman has won the British Exhibition four times and was the runner up in the Exhibition World Championships. He has also been awarded the British Rising Star Award, the Carl Allen Award and, most recently, a Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition he is an accomplished judge of Latin American and Ballroom professional dance competition, serving as a regular at the World and British Championships.

Trivia[]

  • He never wanted to be a ballroom dancer. He left school at fifteen to become a welder, working on the docks for ship-building firms. His father urged him to try ballroom dancing again. When he was twenty, he broke his foot playing five-a-side after work, and the doctor suggested ballroom dancing as a way of rehabilitating it.[1]
  • Len was married to Cherry Kingston from 1972 to 1987.
  • He was in a relationship with a woman named Lesley, with whom he has a son.
    • His son, James William Goodman, was born in 1981.
  • In 2012 he married his companion for over ten years, Sue Barrett.
  • His favorite football team is West Ham.
    • He was featured on the BBC football magazine show Football Focus in 2009.[2]
  • He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in March 2009.
    • It was treated surgically in London, and he is now cancer free.
  • Dancing with the Stars 31 was his last season as a judge as he wished to return to England and spend more time with his grandchildren.
  • He passed away from bone cancer in a hospice in Royal Tunbridge Wells, on 22 April 2023, just three days before what would have been his 79th birthday.

Gallery[]

References[]

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