Len Goodman has died at the age of 78.<\/p>\n
He was a judge on \u201cDancing With the Stars.\u201d<\/p>\n
The English dancer, who competed in the ballroom competition from 2005 to 2018, died on Saturday in a hospice in Kent, southern England. He had been sick with bone cancer for a long time.<\/p>\n
There were many family members around him, Goodman\u2019s manager, Jackie Gill, told CNN on Monday.<\/p>\n
Along with Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli, Len Goodman is a judge on \u201cDancing With the Stars.\u201dDisney General Entertainment Content\/Getty Images \/ Adam Taylor<\/p>\n
He was born in London in 1944. His website says he started dancing when he was 19 years old and was a professional dancer before he went into TV.<\/p>\n
Goodman was the head judge on the British version of Dancing With The Stars, BBC\u2019s \u201cStrictly Come Dancing,\u201d from the show\u2019s start in 2004 until its last episode on Christmas Day 2016. Instead, Shirley Ballas filled in for him after he left.<\/p>\n
The tributes were led by BBC director-general Tim Davie, who called Goodman a \u201cwonderful, warm entertainer who was loved by millions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davie also said, \u201cHe was liked by people of all ages and made everyone feel like he was part of their family.\u201d Len was the main reason why Strictly was so popular. The public, his many friends and family, and himself will all miss him very much.<\/p>\n
Bruno Tonioli, another judge on \u201cDancing With The Stars,\u201d posted a touching picture of himself and Goodman holding hands and wrote, \u201cHart broken my dear friend and partner for 19 years the one and only ballroom LEGEND #LenGoodman passed away I will treasure the memories of our adventures @bbcstrictly @officialdwts there will never be anyone like you you will always be my perfect 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside of TV, Goodman ran the Goodman Dance Academy in Kent, which was a dance school. His autobiography, \u201cBetter Late Than Never: From Barrow Boy to Ballroom,\u201d came out in 2009. He also wrote \u201cDancing Around Britain\u201d and \u201cLost London.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Len Goodman has died at the age of 78. He was a judge on \u201cDancing With the Stars.\u201d The English dancer, who competed in the ballroom competition from 2005 to 2018, died on Saturday in a hospice in Kent, southern England. He had been sick with bone cancer for a long time. There were many…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2840,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions\/2840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzzflash1.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}