Goodwin he joined the film industry as a teaboy at the
Rank Organisation.
Producer Goodwin's earliest credits are as a location and production manager, and after working as associate producer on
Franco Zeffirelli's
Romeo and Juliet (1968), he produced
The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971), featuring the
Royal Ballet. John Brabourne's father in law,
Lord Mountbatten, assisted in securing the film rights to several
Agatha Christie novels, from Christie herself. The film was a success, grossing $35 million from a budget of $1.9 million. Directed by
Sidney Lumet, the cast included
Albert Finney,
Lauren Bacall,
Sean Connery, and
Ingrid Bergman.
Death on the Nile (1978) with a cast headed by
Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot with
Maggie Smith,
Angela Lansbury,
Bette Davis,
Mia Farrow, and
David Niven. The later adaptions, ''
The Mirror Crack'd (1980), and Evil Under the Sun'' (1982), received mixed reviews, and were disappointments at the box office. In 1981, Goodwin and John Brabourne finally secured the rights to produce
E. M. Forster's
A Passage to India (1984).
A Passage to India (1984) opened to positive notices, and received 11 Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture, for which Goodwin and Brabourne were nominated as producers. They lost to
Amadeus, but their feature film won two Oscars: Best Supporting Actress for Dame
Peggy Ashcroft, and best music for
Maurice Jarre. Their next major project was
Little Dorrit (1988).
Little Dorrit was the last film that
John Brabourne and Goodwin made together. Goodwin's last major film, which he executive produced, was
Seven Years in Tibet (1997) starring
Brad Pitt and
David Thewlis.
Television and writing In the latter part of the 1980s, Goodwin turned his hand to a television series for Britain's
Channel 4 and the American
PBS,
Leontyne by Barge from London to Vienna, about his international travels on a barge, called the
Leontyne. An accompanying book,
Leontyne, written by Goodwin, was published by Collins. Later, Goodwin went on to shoot and produce a collection of films, titled
Barging Through Europe, on his travels, on another boat, the
Regina, depicting the vanishing trades of France. == Selected filmography ==