George Goodman

George Goodman was a journalist who made economics accessible to TV viewers as host of the PBS series Adam Smith's Money World. 

Born in Clayton, Missouri, Goodman graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. Later, as a Rhodes scholar, he studied political economy at Oxford.

He served in the U.S. Army as an intelligence analyst in the mid-1950s, after which he wrote for Barron's, Time, Fortune and other magazines. He helped to found the magazine The Institutional Investor in the 1960s, and for a time was executive editor of Esquire.

When Goodman began writing for New York magazine in the ’60s, he adopted the psudonym Adam Smith, borrowing the moniker from the noted 18th century economist of the same name, in order to conceal his true identity from Wall Street sources. He reportedly disliked the name, which was widely believed to have been bestowed by New York editor Clay Felker.

In addition to his journalism, Goodman wrote several books, including the nonfiction bestseller The Money Game, the children's book Bascombe, the Fastest Hound Alive and The Wheeler Dealers, a novel that was later adapted into a 1963 film starring James Garner and Lee Remick. He also wrote the screenplay.

His success as a writer on the subject of money and investing led to his television show, Adam Smith's Money World, which aired on PBS from 1984 to 1997.

Goodman died January 3, 2014, in Miami, Florida. He was 83.