Goudal was born on July 12, 1891, the daughter of Geertruida (née Warradijn; 1866–1920) and Wolf Mozes Goudeket (1860–1942), a wealthy diamond cutter, in Amsterdam.

In 1918, she left World War I-era devastated Europe to settle in New York City in the United States, where she hid her Dutch Jewish ancestry, generally describing herself as a "Parisienne" and on an information sheet for the Paramount Public Department she wrote that she was born at Versailles on July 12, 1901 (shaving 10 years off her age as well), the daughter of a fictional Maurice Guillaume Goudal, a lawyer.

Convinced to move to the West Coast of the United States, Goudal appeared in two more Olcott films in the ensuing three years.

Goudal then worked in the Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky co-production of The Spaniard and her growing fame brought her to the attention of producer/director Cecil B. DeMille.

Because of her audaciousness in suing DeMille and her high-profile activism in the Actors' Equity Association campaign for the theatre and film industry to accept a closed shop, some of the Hollywood studios refused to employ Goudal.

In 1932, at age forty-one, she made her last screen appearance in a sound movie, co-starring with Will Rogers in the Fox Film Corporation production of Business and Pleasure.

[5] She is interred next to her husband in a private room at the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of the Angels, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.