You can't miss John Goodman - whether it be due to his size, his booming voice, or his on-screen charisma. And you won't miss him in Coyote Ugly (now screening in Hong Kong), as his is perhaps the only decent performance in an otherwise forgettable film.
Born on June 20, 1952 in St Louis, Goodman's family struggled to make ends meet after his father died one month before his second birthday. His elder brother Leslie - 15 at the time - took over the role as father for Goodman and his sister.
Tall and large from an early age, Goodman (right) looked set to pursue a career on the football field - he was a standout at the Affton High School and then won a football scholarship to Southwestern Missouri State University. But a knee injury soon ended those dreams and Goodman was forced to seek an alternative major. He chose drama, and took his place in classes alongside another soon-to-be star named Katherine Turner. By 1975, backed by US$1,000 (about HK$8,000) Leslie had saved for him, Goodman graduated and took off for New York. The money had gone in three months, but Goodman was soon making his way in the dinner and children's theatre circuits. By 1978 he had broken into the off-Broadway production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a year later he made it to Broadway for a production of Loose Ends.
Goodman's film career kicked off around the mid-80s, with small roles in films such as Revenge Of The Nerds (1984). His first major movie role of note was in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona (1987).
In 1988 he won the role that made him a household name in the US - that of the blue-collar hero Dan Conner in the hit TV sitcom Roseanne, in which he starred from 1988 to 1997. During and after that the film roles continued to flow in for Goodman and he has appeared in, among others, the Coen brothers' Barton Fink (1991) and The Big Lebowski (1998), Blues Brothers 2000 and, more recently, Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out The Dead (1999).