David Goodis - Return To Philadelphia

Return To Philadelphia

In 1950, Goodis returned to Philadelphia where he lived with his parents and his schizophrenic brother Herbert. At night, he prowled the underside of Philadelphia, hanging out in nightclubs and seedy bars, a milieu he depicted in his fiction. Cassidy's Girl (1951) sold over a million copies, and he continued to write for paperback publishers, notably Gold Medal. There was a renewed interest in his novels when François Truffaut filmed Down There (1956) as the acclaimed Shoot the Piano Player (1960).

Goodis died at 11:30pm on January 7, 1967, at Albert Einstein Medical Center, Northern Division, not far from his home. He was 49. His death certificate lists "cerebral vascular accident," meaning a stroke, as the cause of death. Days earlier, Goodis had been beaten while resisting a robbery. Some have attributed his death to his injuries. It is also said that he keeled over while shoveling snow. He was buried in Roosevelt Memorial Park, in Pennsylvania.