Len Goodman, who has died of cancer aged 78, had just turned 60 when he found television fame as head judge on Strictly Come Dancing after a professional ballroom career in which he won the British Exhibition Championships and taught at his own school.
“When I was first asked to do the programme, I wasn’t sure, because I thought it might be a bit of a mickey-take,” he told the Guardian in 2006. “But I’m so glad I did it because it’s dispelled the preconception about what dance classes or schools are like. The programme has changed things in dancing schools like you can’t imagine. Everyone has had huge influxes of people coming to dance. It’s absolutely brilliant.”
The show’s title was a nod to the long-running BBC series Come Dancing, which ran for half a century from 1949, featuring ballroom competitions across Britain, and ended just six years before Strictly (as it would become popularly known) began in 2004. Radio Times explained the new show’s format: “Top to toe in slinky sequined dresses and tail suits, eight celebrities are paired with professionals in a live ballroom dancing competition.”
Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly were the hosts, while Goodman was joined on the original judging panel by the choreographers Arlene Phillips, Bruno Tonioli and Craig Revel Horwood. The news presenter Natasha Kaplinsky and her professional dance partner, Brendan Cole, won the first series.
The programme followed in the talent-spotting path of the ITV reality show Pop Idol, which made stars of “unknowns”, but Strictly seemed much more of a risk in terms of finding a wide audience. It turned out to be a Saturday-evening hit that is still running almost 20 years on.
Like other reality TV judges, Goodman could be cutting in his appraisals of contestants – as well as applauding those showing skill. “It’s a 10 from Len!” became a catchphrase of his as he offered such praise as “You floated across the floor like butter on a crumpet”, and “That was a mango of a tango – delicious!” The put-downs ranged from “Your bum was bouncing around like a ball on a roulette wheel” to “It was like watching a stork who had been struck by lightning”. He also added entertainment value by bickering with his fellow judges, once calling Horwood a “silly little sod”, which sparked viewer complaints.
Goodman left Strictly after the 14th series, in 2016. “Now that I’ve reached my 70s, I’ve decided after this year it’s time to hand the role of head judge to someone else,” he said. (It went to Shirley Ballas.)
Nevertheless, he continued as head judge on the American version of the show, Dancing with the Stars, which had begun in 2005, although he eventually announced his retirement at the end of last year’s series.
Len was born in Farnborough, Kent, to Louisa (nee Eldridge) and Len Goodman, an electrician then working at airfields during the second world war. Both parents were Londoners living in Wales because of his father’s job, and his mother was sent for the birth to a London hospital, but moved on to Kent because of German bombing. His parents returned to their roots in Bethnal Green, east London, until moving to Blackfen, in north-west Kent, to run a greengrocer’s shop when Len was six.
Goodman discovered in appearing on the BBC programme Who Do You Think You Are? in 2011 that one of his maternal ancestors was a silk weaver who died a pauper in the Bethnal Green workhouse, while another, Josef Sosnowski, came from Poland, where he received a military decoration for fighting in a 19th-century uprising against Russian troops.
On leaving Westwood secondary modern school, Welling, aged 15, Goodman became an apprentice fitter at the computer company ICT (later International Computers Ltd) in Dartford, then a welder at BOC (the British Oxygen Corporation) in Cricklewood, north London, before working in the Harland & Wolff shipyard at North Woolwich docks.
He also enjoyed football, but a foot injury ended his playing days and a doctor advised him to continue ballroom dancing, something his father had introduced him to at an Erith studio where Goodman met the world champions Bill and Bobbie Irving.
The studio owner Henry Kingston’s daughter, Cherry, became his dancing partner – and eventually his wife; they married in 1972. Their first success was in a Pontin’s dance competition in Camber Sands, from where they progressed to win the final at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
The pair then went professional, becoming Kent professional champions (1969), British Professional Rising Stars (1972) and winning the Duel of the Giants (1973 and 1975). Following Henry’s death, Goodman took over the studio. He opened his own Goodman Dance Academy in Dartford in 1973.
His later celebrity status led him to present Titanic with Len Goodman (2012), a three-part documentary drawing on his own experience as a shipyard welder. He explored the Titanic’s legacy 100 years after its sinking and met the descendants of survivors.
He also presented Goodman’s Dance Band Days, Len Goodman’s Perfect Christmas and Dancing Cheek to Cheek (all in 2013), the documentary series Holiday of My Lifetime (2014), taking star guests to their favourite childhood holiday locations, and the gameshow Partners in Rhyme (2017).
His 2008 autobiography was titled Better Late Than Never: From Barrow Boy to Ballroom.
Goodman’s marriage to Cherry ended in divorce in 1987. He is survived by his second wife, Sue (nee Barrett), a dance teacher whom he married in 2012, and James, the son from his relationship with Lesley Pine, a teacher at Goodman’s dance school.