Editing Goodman Ace

{{short description|American screenwriter (1899–1982)}}

{{Infobox presenter
| name       = Goodman Ace
| image      = Goodman jane ace 1938 nbc.JPG
| image_upright = 1.15
| caption    = Goodman and Jane Ace, 1938.
| birth_name  = Goodman Aiskowitz
| birth_date  = {{birth date|1899|1|15}}
| birth_place = [[Kansas City, Missouri]], U.S.
| death_date  = {{death date and age|1982|3|25|1899|1|15}}
| death_place = [[New York City]], U.S.
| show       = ''Ace Goes To the Movies''<br>''Easy Aces'' (radio and television)<br>''Mr. Ace and Jane''<br>''Monitor''<br>''Weekday''<br>''You Are There''<br>''Jane Ace, Disk Jockey'' (writer)<ref>{{cite news|title='Jane Ace, Disk Jockey' premieres tonight|date=27 October 1951|work=The Miami News}}</ref><br>''The Danny Kaye Show'' (writer)<br>''The Milton Berle Show'' (writer)<br>''The Texaco Star Theater'' (writer)<br>''The Big Show'' (writer)<br>''The Texaco Star Theater'' (television writer)<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Stempel|editor-first=Tom|title=Storytellers to the Nation: A History of American Television Writing |page=307|year=1996|publisher=Syracuse University Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lFTZrcyWnswC&q=perry+como&pg=PA110|isbn=0-8156-0368-1|access-date=22 September 2010}}</ref><br>''The Perry Como Show''<br> (television writer)<br>''Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall'' (television writer)
| station    = KMBC<br>WPAT
| network    = CBS<br>NBC<br>DuMont<br>National Public Radio
| timeslot   = 
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| style      = 
| country    = 
| prevshow   = 
| parents    = 
| spouse(s)  =[[Jane Ace|Jane Epstein]]
| partner    = 
| children   = 
| website    = 
}}

'''Goodman Ace''' (January 15, 1899<ref name="Who's Who">{{cite book|title=Who Was Who in America, with World Notables, v. 10: 1989–1993|year=1993|publisher=Marquis Who's Who|location=New Providence, NJ|isbn=0837902207|page=2|chapter=Ace, Goodman}}</ref> –  March 25, 1982), born '''Goodman Aiskowitz''', was an American humorist, radio writer and [[comedian]], television writer, and magazine columnist.

His low-key, literate drollery and softly tart way of tweaking trends and pretenses made him one of the most sought-after writers in radio and television from the 1930s through the 1960s.

==Early years==
Born in [[Kansas City, Missouri]], the son of Latvian Jewish immigrants Harry Aiskowitz, who worked as a [[haberdasher]], and Anna Katzen,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1803059 |title=Ace, Goodman |last=Douglas |first=George H. |website=American National Biography |year=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1803059 |access-date=August 22, 2022}}</ref> Ace grew up wanting to write, and as the editor of his high school newspaper, he took on his first ''nom de plume'', Asa Goodman. Ace worked as a [[roller skating]] messenger for [[Montgomery Ward]] while he studied journalism at [[Metropolitan Community College (Kansas City)|Kansas City Polytechnic Institute]].<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Singer|editor-first=Mark|title=Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker|page=189|year=2005|publisher=Mariner Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=noDkchBP1E4C&pg=PA214|isbn= 0-618-19726-5|access-date=1 October 2017}}</ref> He also wrote a weekly column called "The Dyspeptic"<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7g1XAAAAIBAJ&pg=6503,4082560&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Goodman Ace, "Dyspeptic", Called Best of TV Writers|author=O'Brian, Jack|date=23 May 1958|work=Reading Eagle|access-date=21 January 2011}}</ref> for the school's newspaper. After working at the post office and a local haberdashery to support his mother and sisters after his father's death, he became a reporter and columnist for the Kansas City ''Journal-Post''.<ref name="New Yorker">{{cite book|editor-last=Singer|editor-first=Mark|title=Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker|pages=188–189|year=2005|publisher=Mariner Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=noDkchBP1E4C&q=perry+como&pg=PA214|isbn= 0-618-19726-5|access-date=22 September 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Win with a Wife!|date=30 March 1941|work=The Milwaukee Journal}}</ref>

[[Jane Ace|Jane Epstein]] was his high school sweetheart. Jane wanted to attend the sold-out performance of [[Al Jolson]] in Kansas City; her boyfriends were unable to get tickets, but Ace had access to the concert via his press pass. The Jolson concert was the couple's first date; they married six months later, in 1922.<ref name="Jane">{{cite news|title=A Couple of Aces|author=Jacobs, Mary|date=25 June 1939|work=The Milwaukee Journal}}</ref>

==Radio aces==
In 1930, Ace took on a second job reading the Sunday comics on radio station [[KMBZ (AM)|KMBC]] (anticipating the famous newspaper strike stunt, almost two decades later, by legendary New York mayor [[Fiorello H. La Guardia]]) and hosting a Friday night film review and gossip program called ''Ace Goes to the Movies''.<ref>{{cite news|title=Goodman's Gamble in Radio Wins Fortune on 'Aces Up'|date=28 December 1939|work=The Milwaukee Journal}}</ref> Ace was not initially a volunteer for the job.  An editor at the ''Journal-Post'' had the idea that having an employee read the newspaper's comics on the air for children would increase circulation for the paper.  Taking the job meant an extra $10 per week in one's paycheck, but none of the newsroom staff was interested.  The editor, reasoning that since Ace's current assignment was covering local theater he would be the perfect man for the job, insisted he take it.<ref name="Guide">{{cite web|url=http://www.otrr.org/FILES/Magz_pdf/Radio%20Guide/Radio_Guide_36_05_23.pdf|title=Deuces Wild|author=Pomeroy, Hally|date=23 May 1936|work=Radio Guide|access-date=18 November 2010}}{{Dead link|date=December 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Ace suggested a second radio show, this one dealing with films, thus collecting an additional $10 per week.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Singer|editor-first=Mark|title=Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker|pages=192–193|year=2005|publisher=Mariner Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=noDkchBP1E4C&q=perry+como&pg=PA214|isbn= 0-618-19726-5|access-date=22 September 2010}}</ref>

But one night the recorded fifteen-minute show scheduled to air after Ace's timeslot failed to feed. With an immediate need to fill fifteen minutes' more airtime and his wife having accompanied him to the station that night, Ace slipped into an impromptu chat about a bridge game the couple played the previous weekend and invited Jane to join the chat which soon enough included discussion of a local murder case in which a wife murdered her husband over an argument about bridge. Loaded with Goodman's wry wit and Jane's knack for malaprops ("Would you care to shoot a game of bridge, dear?"), the couple's surprise improvisation provoked a response enthusiastic enough to convince KMBC to hand them a regular fifteen-minute slot, creating and performing a "domestic comedy" of their own.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Singer|editor-first=Mark|title=Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker|pages=194–195|year=2005|publisher=Mariner Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=noDkchBP1E4C&q=perry+como&pg=PA214|isbn= 0-618-19726-5|access-date=22 September 2010}}</ref>

At first, the show that became known as ''[[Easy Aces]]'' centered around the couple's bridge playing, according to John Dunning in ''On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998): "Ace was not wild about Jane's bridge game, on the air or off, and he kept picking at her until she lost her temper and threatened to quit. The show settled into a new niche, a more universally based domestic comedy revolving around Jane's improbable situations and her impossible turns of phrase."<ref name="On">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EwtRbXNca0oC&dq=%22The+Easy+Aces+situation+comedy%22&pg=PA216 |last=Dunning |first=John |author-link=John Dunning (detective fiction author) |title=On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio |section=Easy Aces|date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York, NY |isbn=978-0-19-507678-3 |pages=216–218|edition=Revised |access-date=2024-11-16}}</ref>

Written by Goodman Ace, who cast himself as a harried real estate salesman and the exasperated but loving husband of the scatterbrained, [[malaprop]]-prone Jane ("You've got to take the bitter with the better"; "Time wounds all heels"), ''Easy Aces'' became a long-running serial comedy (1930–1945) and a low-keyed legend of [[old-time radio]] for its literate, unobtrusive, conversational style and the malaprops of the female half of the team.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mHXu2rrV1JoC&q=jane+ace&pg=PA127|title=Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War I|editor-last=Horten|editor-first=Gerd|publisher=University of California Press|year=2003|page=232|isbn=0-520-24061-8|access-date=1 March 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X77jSHAkKnMC&q=jane+ace&pg=PA110|title=Queens of comedy: Lucille Ball, Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnett, Joan Rivers, and the New Generation of Funny Women (Studies in Humor and Gender , Vol 2)|editor-last=Horowitz|editor-first=Susan|publisher=Routledge|year=1997|page=184|isbn=2-88449-244-5|access-date=1 March 2010}}</ref> The show was never a rating blockbuster, but according to Dunning it "was always a favorite of [[Radio Row]] insiders. Like [[Fred Allen]] and [[Henry Morgan (comedian)|Henry Morgan]], Ace was considered an intelligent man's wit.<ref name="On" /><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8g6YQTuBYQ8C&q=jane+ace&pg=PA71|title=Mixed Nuts: America's Love Affair With Comedy Teams From Burns And Allen To Belushi And Aykroyd|editor-last=Epstein|editor-first=Lawrence J.|publisher=PublicAffairs|year=2004|page=320|isbn=1-58648-190-8|access-date=1 March 2011}}{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> His show limped along [but] . . . lasted across several formats for more than fifteen years and was one of radio's fondest memories." The radio show was popular enough to get to the big screen; in 1934, the couple signed with [[Educational Pictures]] for some two-reel comedies.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=b9cwAAAAIBAJ&pg=1371,2659956&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Easy Aces on Screen|date=13 December 1934|work=Reading Eagle|access-date=27 November 2010}}</ref> ''Dumb Luck'' was released 18 January 1935, with Goodman and Jane playing their radio characters.{{Citation needed |date=May 2021}} While writing ''Easy Aces'', Ace also wrote for other radio shows, earning $3,000 per week in this way.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=11IbAAAAIBAJ&pg=3926,1355976&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Radio Notes|author=Steinhauser, Si|date=8 July 1945|work=The Pittsburgh Press|access-date=19 November 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=11IbAAAAIBAJ&pg=3926,1355976&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Radio Notes|author=Steinhauser, Si|date=8 July 1943|work=The Pittsburgh Press|access-date=10 November 2010}}</ref>

During World War II, he participated in the selection of music for the War Department's ''Hit Kit'' songbook series as part of a carefully selected group of writers, composers, and show business personalities known collectively as the "Committee of 25".<ref name=Smith>{{cite book|last1=Smith|first1=Kathleen E. R.|title=God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War|date=2003|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|isbn=0813122562|page=87}}</ref>

In 1945, Ace signed on as one of the writers of ''[[The Danny Kaye Show (radio program)|The Danny Kaye Show]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-Danny-Kaye-Show.html |title=The Danny Kaye Show |work=DigitalDeli |access-date=14 January 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120106215433/http://digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-Danny-Kaye-Show.html |archive-date=6 January 2012 }}</ref> Previously he and Jane had been part of a series of celebrity guests who filled in for Kaye while he entertained the armed forces troops who were overseas.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fP4tAAAAIBAJ&pg=5895,2185251&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Maggie Teyte, Alec Templeton, First of 9th Loan Show Stars|date=12 October 1945|work=The Montreal Gazette|access-date=14 January 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/Images/Danny-Overseas-Spot-Ad-45-10-12.png|title=Easy Aces/Danny Kaye Show ad|work=DigitalDeli|access-date=14 January 2011|archive-date=7 November 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111107193929/http://digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/Images/Danny-Overseas-Spot-Ad-45-10-12.png|url-status=dead}}</ref> When Kaye moved his show from New York to Hollywood, Ace resigned.<ref name=AceTime>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804192,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080504171700/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804192,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=May 4, 2008|title=Aces Up|date=8 September 1947|magazine=Time|access-date=14 January 2011}}(subscription required)</ref> Whether writing for himself and Jane or for another performer, Ace's rating system of how well a script would do was based on the number of cigars he smoked while writing it. One cigar meant the show would do very well, while four cigars meant this program or episode was most likely hopeless.<ref name=Move>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,773883,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091029121016/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,773883,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 29, 2009|title=The Aces Move|date=2 November 1942|magazine=Time|access-date=14 January 2011}}(subscription required)</ref> Ace was sued in 1940 because of the name he selected for a character.  He used the first name of one of his staff coupled with the last name of another.  Unknown to Ace, this resulted in the name of a real person who was publicly embarrassed by the use of his name on the show.  He then began the practice of having those on the program use their own names for their characters.<ref>{{cite news|title=Goodman Ace Shies Away From Names of Strangers|author=BCL|date=23 May 1941|work=The Milwaukee Journal}}</ref>

In 1948, Ace created a new, half-hour version of the show, ''mr. ace and JANE''; this expanded version, perhaps because a live studio audience detracted from its quiet style (a point made especially vivid by its audience-less, quiet audition show, and when new episodes expanded upon some of the old show's vintages), didn't last beyond a single season.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=k8szAAAAIBAJ&pg=3080,3639355&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Comedy writer dies at age 83|date=26 March 1982|work=Bangor Daily News|access-date=27 November 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0uQMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4363,596413&dq=john+crosby+aces&hl=en|title=Tearful Parting:Aces Will Leave Radio|author=Crosby, John|date=18 May 1949|work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|access-date=27 November 2010}}</ref> And it fared no better on television.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=tNZaAAAAIBAJ&pg=3728,3368850&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=The Invisible Aces|date=27 December 1949|author=Crosby, John|work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|access-date=10 November 2010}}</ref> In 1956, both Ace and NBC thought seriously enough about another try for the television series to announce [[Ernie Kovacs]] and his wife [[Edie Adams]] would play the Aces in a pilot for the show; it is unknown whether the pilot took place.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eAoEAAAAMBAJ&q=ernie+kovacs&pg=PA2|title='Easy Aces' For the Kovacs|date=8 December 1956|magazine=Billboard|access-date=8 November 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=NQwrAAAAIBAJ&pg=1663,3925429&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Mary Astor Gets Star Role on Montgomery's TV Show|author=O'Brian, Jack|date=10 November 1956|work=Reading Eagle|access-date=14 January 2011}}</ref>

The husband and wife team returned to network radio with the debut of NBC's ''[[Monitor (NBC Radio)|Monitor]]''; the Aces were announced as "Communicators" just after [[Dave Garroway]]'s joining the show.<ref>{{cite book|title=Monitor: The Last Great Radio Show|editor-last=Hart|editor-first=Dennis|page=254|publisher=iUniverse, Inc.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FuhPB7yz1TwC&q=jane+ace+monitor&pg=PA16|isbn=0-595-21395-2|year=2002|access-date=19 September 2010}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Say Goodnight Gracie: The Last Years of Network Radio|editor-last=Cox|editor-first=Jim|page=224|publisher=McFarland and Company|year=2002|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o18qwF_TZIIC&q=freeman+gosden&pg=PA184|isbn=0-7864-1168-6|access-date=16 September 2010}}</ref> <!-- Comment Have yet to find anything more about this-how long they stayed with the show, etc.--> They were also part of NBC Radio's ''Weekday'', which was a Monday through Friday network offering aimed at women that premiered not long after ''Monitor''.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=x9YyAAAAIBAJ&pg=4124,993291&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title='Weekday' (5 Times) NBC's Latest|author=Miller, Leo|date=6 November 1955|work=Sunday Herald|access-date=14 January 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,861682,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081215063008/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,861682,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 15, 2008|title=Radio:Woman's Home Companion|date=28 November 1955|magazine=Time|access-date=14 January 2011}}</ref> Ace branched out by writing commercials, featuring himself and Jane.<ref name="Writes"/><ref>{{cite news|title=Instant Brew By Real Ace|author=Grace, Arthur|date=18 February 1959|work=The Miami News}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/14003149/jane_ace_takes_it_easy/|page=10|title=Jane Ace Takes It Easy|date=9 January 1959|work=The Miami News|access-date=23 September 2010|via = [[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lcAuAAAAIBAJ&pg=4473,2622297&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=A TV Commercial Steals Show|author=Danzig, Fred|date=16 December 1959|work=Beaver Valley Times|access-date=23 September 2010}}</ref> The couple also voiced some commercials used on NBC's ''[[Startime (1959 TV series)|Startime]]'', while other actors played the visual roles.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ISUsAAAAIBAJ&pg=814,5273974&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title='Electronic Deceits' To Be Eliminated From TV Shows|author=Lowry, Cynthia|date=14 December 1959|work=Times Daily|access-date=27 November 2010}}</ref>

=="Terrible Vaudeville" and ''You Are There''==
Ace needled television in a 1953 letter to Groucho Marx: "...TV—a clever contraction derived from the words Terrible Vaudeville. However, it is our latest medium—we call it a medium because nothing's well done."<ref>Groucho Marx, ''The Groucho Letters: Letters From and To Groucho Marx'', (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1967) p. 114.</ref> Nonetheless, he hadn't been averse to giving television a try.

Goodman and Jane Ace adapted ''Easy Aces'' to television in December 1949, with a fifteen-minute filmed version on the [[DuMont Television Network|DuMont]] network (also syndicated in some areas through [[Ziv Television Programs]]) that ended in mid-June 1950, after airing Wednesday nights from 7:45–8:00&nbsp;p.m.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/14131290/easy_aces_on_dumont_network/|title=Show Within A Show Is Basis For Easy Aces TV Program|date=12 March 1950|page=88|work=The Courier Journal|access-date=2 October 2017|via = [[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref> "As on radio," authors [[Tim Brooks (television historian)|Tim Brooks]] and Earle Marsh wrote, "Ace was his witty, intelligent self, and his wife, Jane, was a charming bundle of malapropisms".<ref name=TV>{{cite book |first1=Tim |last1=Brooks |first2=Earle |last2=Marsh |title=The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows – 1946–present |edition=8 |year=2003 |pages=407–408 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w8KztFy6QYwC&dq=%22Easy+Aces+humor%22&pg=PA407 |section=Easy Aces |isbn=0-345-45542-8 |publisher=Ballantine Books |access-date=November 16, 2024 }}</ref> The television show included Betty Garde as Jane Ace's friend, Dorothy.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855076,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110131070641/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,855076,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 31, 2011|title=Radio: A Homey Little Thing|date=19 December 1949|magazine=Time|access-date=14 January 2011}}</ref> What it didn't include was an audience equal to the ones who kept ''Easy Aces'' on radio for all those years. The demise of the show also meant the demise of the Aces' career in front of a microphone or camera. Jane Ace retired almost completely; Goodman  retired as a performer, becoming for the most part a writer from 1949 onward.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z4XJQD4O_TkC&q=jane+ace&pg=PA839|title=Encyclopedia of Radio 3-Volume Set|editor-last=Sterling|editor-first=Christopher H.|publisher=Routledge|page=1696|year=2003|isbn=1-57958-249-4|access-date=1 March 2011}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.audio-classics.com/lyouarethere.html|title=You Are There Radio Broadcast Log|publisher=Audio Classics|access-date=12 January 2011}}</ref> The problem, as revealed by CBS historian Robert Metz (in ''CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye''), was that Ace didn't get official credit for his creation for many years; a CBS executive vice president named Desmond Taylor gained the original credit for the show born on radio as ''[[You Are There (series)|CBS Was There]]''<ref name=AceTime/> and famed (especially on television, with future anchor [[Walter Cronkite]] narrating) for its introduction, which leapt into the American vernacular: "All things are as they were then, except you... are... there!"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-42584.html|title=You Are There|publisher=Audio Karma|access-date=12 January 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110510072222/http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-42584.html|archive-date=10 May 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OAEEAAAAMBAJ&q=jane+ace&pg=PA6|title=Aces Backed Up|date=15 May 1948|magazine=Billboard|access-date=1 March 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zdlBAAAAIBAJ&pg=1849,1482582&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Long step backward|author=Crosby, John|date=9 February 1953|work=The Portsmouth Times|access-date=7 May 2011}}</ref>

== "You Gentlemen, The Authors" ==
[[File:Ace and como 1955.JPG|thumb|right|250px|Ace and Perry Como confer before the start of ''The Perry Como Show'' on 17 September 1955.]]
By this time, however, Ace began writing for other performers, including [[Milton Berle]], [[Perry Como]], [[Danny Kaye]], [[Robert Q. Lewis]], and [[Bob Newhart]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sQUOAAAAIBAJ&pg=1996,2469766&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Miltie Berle Now Civilized, Thanks To Goodman Ace|date=20 January 1954|author=Crosby, John|work=St. Petersburg Times|access-date=23 September 2010}}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=OQorAAAAIBAJ&pg=4926,1505346&dq=perry+como&hl=en|title=Goodman Ace to Get $7,500 For Writing Each Como Show|author=O'Brian, Jack|date=22 July 1955|work=Reading Eagle|access-date=19 October 2010}}</ref> He would be nominated for [[Emmy Awards]] twice during his term as Como's head writer, in 1956 and 1959.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vVxSAAAAIBAJ&pg=5037,424989&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Caution! Gag Writers at Work|author=Quigg, Doc|date=1 January 1961|work=St. Petersburg Times|access-date=24 October 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.emmys.com/awards/nominations/award-search?search_api_views_fulltext=ray%20charles&field_is_winner=All&field_nomination_category=All&field_nominations_year=All&search_api_views_fulltext_1=&search_api_views_fulltext_2=&search_api_views_fulltext_3=&search_api_views_fulltext_4=&page=1&submit=Search|title=Emmy Award Database-Goodman Ace|publisher=Academy of Television Arts & Sciences|access-date=20 September 2013|archive-date=21 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921061445/http://www.emmys.com/awards/nominations/award-search?search_api_views_fulltext=ray%20charles&field_is_winner=All&field_nomination_category=All&field_nominations_year=All&search_api_views_fulltext_1=&search_api_views_fulltext_2=&search_api_views_fulltext_3=&search_api_views_fulltext_4=&page=1&submit=Search|url-status=dead}}</ref> Ace rationalized his work by saying, "I'm not in television. I'm with Perry Como."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6BIxAAAAIBAJ&pg=7059,633494&dq=perry+como&hl=en|title=Perry Como's Relaxed As Ever|author=Smith, Cecil|date=22 January 1970|work=Toledo Blade|access-date=8 January 2011}}</ref> Perhaps his best turn of writing in these years, however, was his collaboration with Frank Wilson on ''[[The Big Show (radio show)|The Big Show]]'', considered [[NBC]]'s last-gasp attempt to keep classic radio alive. This 90-minute variety program was hosted by [[Tallulah Bankhead]] and featured a rotating cast that included some of America's and the world's greatest entertainers, including [[Fred Allen]], [[Groucho Marx]], [[Jimmy Durante]], [[Joan Davis]], [[Bob Hope]], [[Louis Armstrong]], [[George Jessel (actor)|George Jessel]], [[Ethel Merman]], [[José Ferrer]], [[Ed Wynn]], [[Lauritz Melchior]], [[Ezio Pinza]], [[Édith Piaf]], [[Ginger Rogers]], [[Ethel Barrymore]], [[Phil Silvers]], [[Benny Goodman]], and [[Danny Thomas]].<ref name="On2">{{cite book |last=Dunning |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EwtRbXNca0oC&dq=%22The+Big+Show,+spectacular%22&pg=PA85 |title=On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio |section=The Big Show |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-507678-3 |edition=Revised |location=New York, NY |pages=85–86 |access-date=2024-11-16 |author-link=John Dunning (detective fiction author)}}</ref> The show was marked by Ace's wry style, adapted to Bankhead's diva-blunt style.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-The-Big-Show.html |title=The Big Show |work=DigitalDeliToo |access-date=30 November 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110903172215/http://digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-The-Big-Show.html |archive-date=3 September 2011 }}</ref> Ace said years later that one of his secrets was isolating particular interests of the guests – for example, Ginger Rogers' passion for playing golf – and writing comic routines around those interests.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

Ace fondly remembered working with Bankhead in later years. "'You gentlemen, the authors,' she would say", he once told author Robert Metz, "we gag writers felt pretty good about that."<ref name="Writes">{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=aMVCAAAAIBAJ&pg=6922,3407349&dq=perry+como&hl=en|title=Former Radio Comic Now Writes Perry Como Show|author=Danzig, Fred|date=25 March 1958|work=Middlesboro Daily News|access-date=2 November 2010}}</ref> What he didn't necessarily feel good about, as he told radio interviewers Richard Lamparski and John Dunning two decades later, was the writers' non-mention in Bankhead's memoir recollection about ''The Big Show''.

Ace had known [[Jack Benny]] since his Kansas City years.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=WlkbAAAAIBAJ&pg=5712,634622&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Benny Clings To Memories|author=Cook, Alton|date=1 June 1941|work=The Pittsburgh Press|access-date=19 November 2010}}</ref> Radio historian Arthur Frank Wertheim recorded (in ''Radio Comedy'') that, as a young newspaper reporter and columnist, Ace had written a witty gossip column that moved Benny himself to ask the young writer for some jokes for his stage act. Benny asked for more and paid Ace $50 for one packet of jokes. "Your jokes got lots of laughs", said the note Benny sent with the check. "If you have any more, send them along". According to Wertheim, Ace returned the check with a note: "Your check got lots of laughs. If you have any more, send them along". He ended up supplying Benny with gags "on the house" for years, Wertheim noted.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Singer|editor-first=Mark|title=Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker|page=193|year=2005|publisher=Mariner Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=noDkchBP1E4C&q=perry+como&pg=PA214|isbn= 0-618-19726-5|access-date=22 September 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=An Ace Salutes A Jack|author=Ace, Goodman|date=4 January 1975|work=The Milwaukee Journal}}</ref>

Benny was inadvertently responsible for a very funny exchange of letters between Ace and the owner of the [[Stork Club]], [[Sherman Billingsley]].  Benny invited Ace to lunch at the Stork; when Ace got to the club, Benny had not yet arrived.  The staff at the Stork Club did not recognize Ace and he received a very cool reception.  When Benny finally did get to the Stork, he was told Ace didn't want to wait and left.  Soon Billingsley's notes began to arrive in Ace's mailbox, inviting him to come to the club for the marvelous air conditioning.  Ace wrote back that he was well aware of how cool it was at the Stork, having received the cold shoulder there.  Billingsley's response was a gift—bow ties for Ace, whose reply was to ask Billingsley for some matching socks so he would be well-dressed when he was refused admittance again.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6lgbAAAAIBAJ&pg=1569,2567585&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Easy Ace Is Not So Easy|author=Steinhauser, Si|date=28 January 1945|work=The Pittsburgh Press|access-date=23 September 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/147478545/?terms=goodman%2Bace%2Bstork%2Bclub%2Bbenny%2Bsocks|title=It Happened Last Night|page=39|author=Wilson, Earl|date=31 October 1944|work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch|access-date=10 January 2017}}(subscription required)</ref>

Ace wrote one screenplay, ''[[I Married a Woman]]'', in 1957.  Calling it the best thing he had ever written, but the worst thing he had ever seen after viewing the film, He never tried his hand at screenwriting again.<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Singer|editor-first=Mark|title=Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker|page=207|year=2005|publisher=Mariner Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=noDkchBP1E4C&q=perry+como&pg=PA214|isbn= 0-618-19726-5|access-date=22 September 2010}}</ref> When the couple's Miami hotel room was robbed in 1966, Ace managed to find humor in the situation.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/8239235/goodman_ace_robbery/|title=Cafe Circuit: It Happened Last Night|author=Wilson, Earl|date=7 March 1966|page=4|work=The Terre Haute Star|access-date=8 January 2017|via = [[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref>

Ace revealed in the mid-1960s that CBS once developed a kind of school for young comedy writers, with 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. All became television writers and two eventually became successful playwrights: [[George Axelrod]] (''[[The Seven Year Itch]]'') and [[Neil Simon]] (''[[Barefoot in the Park]]'', ''[[The Odd Couple (play)|The Odd Couple]]'', ''[[The Goodbye Girl]]'').<ref>{{cite news|title=Radio Must Recognize Writers|date=23 February 1947|work=The Milwaukee Journal}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6gyxWHRLAWgC&q=jane+ace&pg=PA2|title=Dictionary of Missouri Biography|editor-last=Christensen|editor-first=Lawrence O.|editor2-last=Foley|editor2-first=William E.|editor3-last=Kremer|editor3-first=Gary R.|editor4-last=Winn|editor4-first=Kenneth H.|publisher=University of Missouri|year=1999|page=848|isbn=0-8262-1222-0|access-date=1 March 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PyK_L43IWycC&q=jane+ace&pg=PA54|title=Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 60s|editor-last=McGilligan|editor-first=Patrick|year=1997|publisher=University of California Press|page=418|isbn=0-520-20427-1|access-date=12 March 2011}}</ref>

== The Saturday Reviewer ==
Ace became a regular columnist for ''[[Saturday Review (US magazine)|Saturday Review]]'' (formerly ''The Saturday Review of Literature''; he liked to suggest cause-and-effect in the magazine's name changing two weeks after his debut in its pages) in the early 1950s.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=JE4gAAAAIBAJ&pg=5472,6783639&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Goodman Ace Brings Smiles in Our Still Parlous Times|author=Wilson, Earl|date=23 December 1968|work=Sarasota Herald-Tribune|access-date=20 October 2010}}</ref> At first, he focused—in what a publisher described (considering his parallel employment writing ''for'' television) as "nibbling the hand that feeds him"—on television criticism in his usual droll style; a collection of this criticism was published in 1955 as ''The Book of Little Knowledge: More Than You Want to Know About Television''.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LxoNAAAAIBAJ&pg=2386,3953481&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=A Plug For Goodman Ace's New Book|date=6 October 1955|author=Crosby, John|work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|access-date=23 September 2010}}{{Dead link|date=June 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BPkxAAAAIBAJ&pg=1497,2445799&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=More Than You Want To Know of TV|author=Blackburn, Bob|date=11 February 1956|work=Ottawa Citizen|access-date=19 November 2010}}</ref>

Later, 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. Sometimes, they were gentle; sometimes, they were more tart, always they were without genuine malice. Often they included his beloved Jane, and they were strongly enough received to provoke two published collections, ''The Fine Art of Hypochondria; or, How Are You?''<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=B7IhAAAAIBAJ&pg=1896,7676784&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=The Passing Parade|author=Moser, Nick|date=29 August 1966|work=Reading Eagle|access-date=23 September 2010}}</ref> and ''The Better of Goodman Ace.''<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_OQiAAAAIBAJ&pg=4100,5188521&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Goodman Ace Trumps As Holiday Season Draws Near|author=Kuhn, Irene C.|date=17 December 1971|work=Reading Eagle|access-date=23 September 2010}}</ref>

As if suggesting that radio had never really left him, Ace assembled and published a collection of eight complete ''Easy Aces'' scripts, with new essays and comments from the Aces, as ''Ladies and Gentlemen – Easy Aces'' in 1970.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=eX8uAAAAIBAJ&pg=1642,3593574&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=The Passing Parade|author=Moser, Nick|date=7 September 1970|access-date=23 September 2010}}</ref> He also 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.

Also around that time, two decades after the brief, unsuccessful television adaptation of ''Easy Aces'', someone else was willing to give the concept a fresh television try: a number of the original ''Easy Aces'' radio scripts were adapted for the Canadian [[CTV Television Network]] show ''[[The Trouble with Tracy]]'' in 1970.<ref name=CCF/> However, though 130 episodes of this series were produced (all in 1970/71), and the show was re-run well into the 1980s on Canadian TV, ''The Trouble With Tracy'' was regarded as an almost unqualified disaster on a creative level.  This had less to do with the scripts, however, and more with the incredible cheapness of the production.  Seven episodes were filmed every five days on wobbly sets, with almost no time for rehearsal for either the actors or the technical crew—flubbed lines and bloopers sometimes ended up airing in finished episodes, because the show could not afford retakes. Ultimately, ''The Trouble With Tracy'' is often cited, especially in Canada, as the worst sitcom ever made.<ref name=CCF>{{cite web | url=http://www.broadcasting-history.ca/networks/CTV_Television_Program_Details/TheTroubleWithTracy.html | access-date=8 July 2007 | date=July 2002 | first=Pip | last=Wedge | publisher=Canadian Communications Foundation | title=The Trouble With Tracy | url-status=bot: unknown | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030528224221/http://www.broadcasting-history.ca/networks/CTV_Television_Program_Details/TheTroubleWithTracy.html | archive-date=28 May 2003 }}</ref> Note, though, that while Ace had a hand in the modern adaptation of the scripts, neither he nor Jane Ace appeared in it, and neither played any part in the actual production of the series.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8rwyAAAAIBAJ&pg=1823,1607373&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Can These Four People Be Funny For Half An Hour Every Day?|author=Cobb, David|date=23 January 1970|work=Ottawa Citizen|access-date=20 November 2010}}</ref>

Jane Ace died after a long illness in 1974, just days before what would have been their fiftieth wedding anniversary.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=UpxUAAAAIBAJ&pg=1511,2623167&dq=easy+aces&hl=en|title=Radio Star Jane Ace Is Dead at Age 74|date=13 November 1974|work=Ellensburg Daily Record|access-date=10 November 2010}}</ref> Her husband's tribute to her in the 8 February 1975 issue ("Jane") provoked hundreds of letters from his regular readers and from the couple's old radio fans.<ref name="OTR">{{cite web|url=http://otrsite.com/articles/artwb011.html|title=''Easy Aces'': Radio's Original Comedy Couple|author=Beaupre, Walter|work=Old Time Radio|access-date=17 November 2010}}</ref>

<blockquote>"...now alone at a funeral home...the questions...the softly spoken suggestions...repeated, and repeated... because ...because during all the arrangements, through my mind there ran a constant rerun, a line she spoke on radio...on the brotherhood of man ...in her casual, malapropian style ... "we are all cremated equal" ... they kept urging for an answer...a wooden casket? ... a metal casket? ...it's the name of their game ... a tisket a casket...and then transporting it to Kansas City, Mo. ...the plane ride..."smoking or non-smoking section?" somebody asked ... the non-thinking section was what I wanted....

"...a soft sprinkle of snow as we huddled around her...the first of the season, they told me ... lasted only through the short service ...snow stopped the instant the last words were spoken. He had the grace to celebrate her arrival with a handful of His confetti ..."</blockquote>

== Death ==
Goodman Ace died eight years after his wife, in their New York City home in March 1982.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rOYNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5431,6611601&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Goodman Ace, Comedy Writer|date=27 March 1982|work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|access-date=23 September 2010}}{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The couple are interred together in Mount Carmel Cemetery in [[Raytown]]: a suburb of their native Kansas City.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=gW8dAAAAIBAJ&pg=2481,2874958&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en|title=Goodman Ace, Gag Writer, Dies in New York at Age 83|date=26 March 1982|work=The Times-News|access-date=23 September 2010}}{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FOHgDAAAQBAJ&q=jo+stafford&pg=PA229|title=Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed. (2 volume set)|last1=Wilson|first1=Scott|publisher=McFarland|year=2016|page=7|isbn=978-1-4766-2599-7|access-date=25 January 2017}}</ref>

"Mr. Ace", wrote  ''The New York Times's'' obituarist, David Bird, "liked to scoff at ratings. He said that neither the writer nor a star alone could make or break a comedy show. It took, he said, a good [[Broadcast programming#Time slot|time spot]] and teamwork. 'The whole thing has to be a kind of partnership—a marriage between writer and performer,' he explained, 'If there is no marriage—well you know what the brainchild has to be'."<ref name="OTR"/>

The author of ''CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye'', Robert Metz, recalled that, once, a relative of Ace's had wired him to say, "Send me $10,000 or I'll jump from the fourteenth floor of my building", and Ace was said to have wired back, "Jump from seven—I'll send $5,000."<ref>{{cite book|editor-last=Singer|editor-first=Mark|title=Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces from The New Yorker|pages=197|year=2005|publisher=Mariner Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=noDkchBP1E4C&q=perry+como&pg=PA214|isbn= 0-618-19726-5|access-date=22 September 2010}}</ref>

When CBS fired Ace as the head of its "comedy workshop" in the late 1940s, according to ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', a sympathetic network vice president told him afterward, "I'll tell you a secret—we haven't got a man who understands comedy."<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ExoEAAAAMBAJ&q=beulah+cbs&pg=PT11|title=CBS Proves Webs Do Build and Sell Packages|date=17 August 1946|magazine=Billboard|access-date=12 January 2012}}</ref> Ace wryly replied, "I'll tell you a secret—that's no secret."

Ace offered his own epitaph when ''Saturday Review'' ran a poll asking well-known Americans to nominate members of a contemporary Hall of Fame. "I respectfully suggest the name of Goodman Ace...if he's still around", Ace replied. "If he isn't, I wouldn't dig him up just for this." The [[National Radio Hall of Fame]] respectfully ignored that suggestion, inducting ''Easy Aces'' in 1990.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.radiohof.org/comedy/goodjane.html |title=Goodman and Jane Ace-Easy Aces |publisher=Radio Hall of Fame |access-date=20 July 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110526100311/http://www.radiohof.org/comedy/goodjane.html |archive-date=26 May 2011 }}</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
*Goodman Ace, ''The Book of Little Knowledge; Or, More Than You Want to Know About Television'' (New York; 1955).
*Goodman Ace, ''The Fine Art of Hypochondria; or, How Are You?'' (New York: Doubleday, 1966). {{OCLC|1047884}}
*Goodman Ace, ''Ladies and Gentlemen, Easy Aces'' (New York: Doubleday, 1970).  {{OCLC|	90706}}
*Goodman Ace, ''The Better of Goodman Ace'' (New York: Doubleday, 1971).  {{OCLC|205234}}
*Fred Allen (Joe McCarthy, editor), ''Fred Allen's Letters'' {{OCLC|702313}}
*Groucho Marx, ''The Groucho Letters'' (Simon & Schuster Pub., 1967). {{OCLC|330741}}
*Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, ''The Complete Directory to Prime Network TV Shows—1946 to Present (First Edition)''
*Frank Buxton and Bill Owen, ''The Big Broadcast 1920–1950'' (1972) {{ISBN|067016240X}}
*John Crosby, ''Out of the Blue'' (Simon and Schuster, 1952) {{OCLC|1453353}}
*Richard Lamparski interview with Goodman Ace, WBAI-FM, December 1970.
*Leonard Maltin, ''The Great American Broadcast: A Celebration of Radio's Golden Age'' (New York: Dutton/Penguin, 1997). {{ISBN|0525941835}}
*Robert Metz, ''CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye'' (Playboy Press, 1975) {{ISBN|087223407X}}
*Arthur Frank Wertheim, ''Radio Comedy''. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.) {{ISBN|0195024818}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
{{commons category|Goodman Ace}}
* {{IMDb name|0009640}}
* [http://easyace.blogspot.com/2006/07/late-great-goodman-ace.html "The Late, Great Goodman Ace"]
*{{rhof|158|Goodman & Jane Ace}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080618103632/http://www.friarsclub.com/Immortal%20Friars/Immortal%20Friars.htm "The Friars Club"]
*[http://www.otrr.org/FILES/Magz_pdf/Radio%20TV%20Mirror/Radio%20and%20Television%20Mirror%204104.pdf Goodman and Jane Ace Home-Radio Television Mirror May 1941 – (page 15)]
*[https://archive.today/20130124125804/http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=IwMaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vyMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2050,5773321&dq=goodman+ace&hl=en ''If Lincoln Had Been on TV''] Goodman Ace 29 January 1954

===Listen===
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110715020736/http://otrperk.com/easyaces.cgi ''Easy Aces'' and ''mr. ace and JANE'' episodes] Old Time Radio-OTR
*[https://archive.org/details/Mr.AceAndJane Mr. Ace and Jane Radio Shows at Internet Archives]
*[http://www.originaloldradio.com/easy_aces.html Easy Aces Episode] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130104142916/http://www.originaloldradio.com/easy_aces.html |date=2013-01-04 }} at Original Old Radio

{{Perry Como}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ace, Goodman}}
[[Category:1899 births]]
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[[Category:Radio personalities from Kansas City, Missouri]]
[[Category:American male comedians]]
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[[Category:American male television writers]]
[[Category:Screenwriters from New York City]]
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[[Category:Screenwriters from Missouri]]
[[Category:20th-century American screenwriters]]
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