Daily News, 20 August 1938, p.1 7998574916249160311.jpg
Ivan Goff Ivan Goff i(12 works by)
Born: Established: 17 Apr 1910 Perth, Western Australia, ; Died: Ceased: 23 Sep 1999 Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California,
c
United States of America (USA),
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Americas,
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Journalist and script-writer.

Goff was born in Perth, Western Australia, to two concert musicians.

After starting work as a journalist at 15, Goff became gradually dissastified with the geographic and cultural isolation in Australia, and undertook a journey to England. In the UK, he worked a number of jobs, including as a bookmaker, before picking up a position on the Daily Mirror.

In the mid-1930s, the Mirror sent Goff to the United States as their Hollywood correspondent, and he decided not only to stay, but also to seek work as a script-writer.

Goff had several screenplays under his belt (Westerns, melodramas, and crime films) by the time World War II broke out. During the war, he made propaganda short films, and fortuitously met fellow script-writer Ben Roberts, engaged in the same work. Goff and Roberts were to collaborate on a range of scripts together over the next several decades, including White Heat (1949), which was nominated for an Oscar for script-writing (though the nomination, under Academy rules of the time, went to Virginia Kellogg, who had suggested the original idea).

In the mid 1950s, Goff was president of the screenwriters council of the Screen Writers Guild.

During the 1960s, Goff and Roberts (still working collaboratively) turned their attention to the relatively new medium of television, where they continued to be successful, writing and producing such programs as The Rogues and Charlie's Angels.

Goff died in 1999 of of Alzheimer's Disease.

Most Referenced Works

1
y separately published work icon No Longer Innocent Edward Way Darley Irwin , Ivan Goff , Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1934 Z843747 1934 single work non-fiction travel adventure 4.1231055
2
y separately published work icon Portrait in Black Ivan Goff , Ben Roberts , New York (City) : Samuel French , 1948 6439323 1948 single work drama crime thriller

A contemporary review of the London performance offers the following synopsis:

'The rich shipowner's widow is a good hater, and Miss Diana Wynyard, a fashionable portrait painter's study in black, presents her various hates with measure and tact, enveloping them all in her own personal stillness and beauty. She has hated her husband, and she and a calmly murderous doctor with Mr. Hugh Williams's charming fireside manner have hastened his end. She hates her former lover, Mr. Ronald Squire imperially disguised and unusually solemn under the compulsion to utter more cautious threats than soft insincerities. She hates her step-daughter, a pleasant girl pleasantly played by Miss Ann Leon. It is a wonder that the step-daughter is alive at the end, for what the widow hates the doctor cold-bloodedly destroys. They are driven by hate and fear to go on destroying until, except for the step-daughter and a few minor characters, they have no one left but themselves to destroy.'

'Piccadilly Theatre. "Portrait in Black",' The Times, 31 May 1946, p.6.

 3.6055512
3
form y separately published work icon Portrait in Black Ben Roberts , Ivan Goff , ( dir. Michael Gordon ) United States of America (USA) : Ross Hunter Productions , 1960 6439914 1960 single work film/TV crime thriller

'Mystery melodrama about love between a beautiful young married woman and the doctor of her bedridden husband ending with murder.'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/46813). (Sighted: 16/9/2013)

 3.6055512
4
form y separately published work icon I Was A Criminal Captain of Kopenick; Passport to Heaven; Great Awakening Ivan Goff , ( dir. Richard Oswald ) United States of America (USA) : John Hall Productions , 1945 6441733 1945 single work film/TV crime historical fiction

'Based on the "Captain of Kopenick" incident of 1906, when an unemployed cobbler, in order to get a passport, dresses as a staff officer and takes over the town hall only to find it has no passport office. Because he is taken for a military officer everybody obeys him without question. His cheek ultimately gets him a passport.'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/248560). (Sighted: 17/9/2013)

 3.6055512
5
form y separately published work icon White Heat Ivan Goff , Ben Roberts , ( dir. Raoul Walsh ) United States of America (USA) : Warner Brothers , 1949 6441881 1949 single work film/TV crime thriller

'Gangster film/melodrama. A psychopathic criminal, obsessed with his mother, is befriended and betrayed by an undercover policeman whom he meets in jail.'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/57918). (Sighted: 17/9/2013)

 3.6055512
VIEW ALL WORKS BY (12)

Notes

  • Goff and Roberts worked extensively in television, including episodes of:

    Bourbon Street Beat (1960)

    Ironside (1968)

    The Danny Thomas Hour (1968)

    Mannix (1973-1974)

    Goff and Roberts also created a range of television shows, including:

    The Rogues (1964-1965)

    My Friend Tony (1969)

    Time Express (1979)

    Charlie's Angels (1976-1981)

  • Goff and collaborator Roberts are sometimes credited with the script for the 1970 telemovie The Lawyer, but their roles are unclear, since the 'official' script-writers (the ones who appear on advertising posters and in the credits) are Sidney J. Furie and Harold Buchman.

  • Goff and Roberts are credited as producers and with 'story' on the telemovie (and failed TV pilot) The Killer Who Wouldn't Die (1976), but did not actually write the screenplay.

Awards for Works

form y separately published work icon White Heat ( dir. Raoul Walsh ) United States of America (USA) : Warner Brothers , 1949 6441881 1949 single work film/TV crime thriller

'Gangster film/melodrama. A psychopathic criminal, obsessed with his mother, is befriended and betrayed by an undercover policeman whom he meets in jail.'

Source: British Film Institute (http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/57918). (Sighted: 17/9/2013)
1950 nominated Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award — Best Motion Picture Virginia Kellogg was also included in this nomination.
VIEW ALL AWARDS
Last amended 17 Apr 2018 09:29:07
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