Bespectacled English character actor of stage and screen, the son of a barrister. He was educated at Charterhouse and New College, Oxford. He served in the British Army Medical Corps on the Western front during World War I and began acting on stage in 1923. Goolden was a respected interpreter of Shakespearean roles and also had a lengthy career on radio, notably in the titular role of Mr. Chips and as Zaphod Beeblebrox in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".