Manning Haynes.Her next role was Cora Ann Milton in the crime thriller Ringer (1931) made for British Lion Studios. Other roles and a one-year contract to Warner Brothers at Teddington, soon followed. She starred opposite Henry Wilcoxon in The Flying Squad (1932), and Jessie Matthews in There Goes the Bride (1932). In the crime thriller Strange Evidence (1933) she took the female lead. Michael Powell wrote and directed her next picture, The Fire Raisers (1934) about an insurance investigator (Leslie Banks), who, unhappy with his work, gets involved with a gang of arsonists with disastrous consequences.The Warner Brothers’ studios in England were nestled on the River Thames in Teddington.

“It was like a mini Hollywood,” she recalled recently:Jack Warner placed the American Irving Asher in charge of the outlet. I enjoyed watching the likes of Hitchcock around the place, and actors like Robert Douglas, Owen Nares, Joan Marion and Vivien Leigh arriving from the station chauffeur-driven in glistening black motor cars.Tom Walls directed Goodner (and starred himself) in her next film, the comedy Leave it to Smith (1934). Realising Goodner had a flair for comic parts, the producer Herbert Wilcox then used her in a catalogue of British stage farces in repertory.In 1935, she joined the all-star cast for the lavish Royal Cavalcade (1935), and was reunited with Leslie Banks and the director Michael Powell for Red Ensign (1935), which told the story of the life of a troubled British shipyard. Music Hath Charms (1935) and The Student’s Romance (1936) showcased Goodner’s versatility as a musical star.Whilst Goodner enjoyed some of the movies she made, she rather preferred the stage. She returned to New York in 1939 to play the part of Lorraine Sheldon in the first production of Moss Hart and George S.

Kaufman’s The Man Who Came to Dinner at the Music Box Theatre starring Monty Woolley. Although she played in over 700 performances, Goodner lost out to Ann Sheridan when Warner Brothers cast for the film version in 1942; Woolley, who received rave reviews, was more fortunate.Goodner made a small contribution to television history when she joined Estelle Winwood and Lenore Corbett in a New York broadcast of Blithe Spirit in 1946. The play was first filmed at Alexander Palace earlier that year. She then went on to appear in various television dramatisations during the late Forties and early Fifties both in England and Hollywood.Despite the demise of her film career – her last appearance was in 1938 – Goodner continued to perform on stage throughout the next three decades. These included the female lead (replacing Eve Arden) in Let’s Face It in 1942, a musical comedy with lyrics by Cole Porter and starring Danny Kaye; The Living Room (1954), staged at the Henry Miller Theatre, New York, with Barbara Bel Geddes; and as Lady Alice opposite Faye Dunaway’s Margaret and Paul Scofield’s Thomas More in A Man for all Seasons, which ran for two years between 1961 and 1963.Goodner retired from show business during the 1970s, preferring to travel the world instead. “I wanted to do things and visit places that my career wouldn’t allow me to do.” In 1988, she accepted one or two minor roles in television “I kinda missed all the fun,” she said.