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Carol Goodner

American actress (1904-2001)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ5044337
Source-derived summary

Carol Marie Goodner (May 30, 1904 – November 29, 2001) was an American actress who appeared mostly in British films and television.

Career

Carol Goodner was born in New York City on May 30, 1904.

A toe dancer when she was only four years old, she continued to earn her living that way until she was nine, when she went to school. She achieved her first New York stage success in 1926 and the following year made her London debut in the stage play; The Butter and Egg Man at the Garrick Theatre. Her New York theater credits include creating the role of Lorraine Sheldon, loosely based on Gertrude Lawrence, in The Man Who Came to Dinner. In England, she appeared in her first film Those Who Love in 1929. In 1931, when in London, she was a friend of actress Kay Walsh and the girlfriend of actor Henry Wilcoxon. In 1937 she played the title role in John Van Druten's play Gertie Maude at St Martin's Theatre. Goodner returned to America at the outbreak of war in 1939. She appeared in theatre in New York, but made no more films, and retired in 1957.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Carol Goodner” is american actress (1904-2001). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Carol, Goodner and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1904, 2001, 1926, 1929—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1904-05-30. For this dossier, Carol, Goodner and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american actress (1904-2001)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5044337. VIAF identifies the subject as 28612860. The Library of Congress control number is n88035000. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1904, 2001, 1926 and 1929.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Carol Goodner”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Carol Goodner primary sources, Carol Goodner archive and Carol research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Carol Goodner”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Carol Goodner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.