[1] While clerk in a large shop Goodwin studied for the stage and made his first appearance in 1874 at the Howard Athenaeum in Boston in Stuart Robson's company as the newsboy in Joseph Bradford's Law in New York.

[2] The next year he made his New York debut on Broadway at Tony Pastor's Opera House as Captain Crosstree in a lauded burlesque adaptation of Douglas Jerrold's Black-Eyed Susan.

Floyd, in particular, would serve as a go-between, starting in 1887, between the management of the Boston National League club, the Beaneaters, and its newly signed star, Mike "King" Kelly.

In 1889, Goodwin became a member of the governing committee of the newly created Actors' Amateur Athletic Association of America.

For the majority of the 1880s, Goodwin toured the United States in a series of light opera and musical theatre productions.

Pinafore, Lorenzo in La mascotte, Reginald Bunthorne in Patience, and Duc des Ifs in Les noces d'Olivette, and new works with part written specifically for him.

A chance trip to Goldfield, Nevada to witness a prize fight led to Goodwin's involvement in promoting mining stocks in association with George Graham Rice.

[3] Perhaps Goodwin's most famous role was as Fagin in a 1912 stage adaptation of Dickens' Oliver Twist in which he appeared with Marie Doro and Constance Collier.