Goodman's career dated back to Broadway in the 1940s. For all her credits—notably, she was an Emmy-nominated performer on Jack Paar's Tonight Show, and a Fernwood, Ohio, elder in the 1970s cult sitcom Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman—Goodman was arguably best known for one word: Grease.

Goodman played Blanche, the scattered front-office assistant, to Eve Arden's iron-willed Rydell High ruler in the popular 1978 movie musical. The mismatched pair returned for the less-popular 1982 sequel, Grease 2. Arden died in 1990. Goodman kept on, even taking a whirl in the Broadway revival of Grease! in the 1990s.

She was 93 when she died last Sunday at a hospital in New Jersey. Fortunately, Blanche's smudges are indelible.

Other recently noted passings:

  • Kermit Love, 91, was the costume designer from the world of ballet who made Big Bird a big, yellow bird, literally. He also helped create the Sesame Street costumes for Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster.   • Howard Brandy, 79, was a "strong-jawed" publicist, as Variety put it, who was known to cartoon fans, even if they didn't know it, as the model for the strong-jawed Dudley Do-Right.   • William Vince, 44, produced Capote, and per Canada.com, was the first person thanked in star Philip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar-night acceptance speech. Recently, Vince worked on The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the star-crossed Terry Gilliam fantasy that will go down as Heath Ledger's final film.