Michael Goldman Popular Books

Michael Goldman Biography & Facts

Ronald Lyle Goldman (July 2, 1968 – June 12, 1994) was an American restaurant waiter and aspiring actor. A working volunteer with children suffering from cerebral palsy, Goldman appeared as a contestant on the short-lived game show Studs in 1992. In 1994, Goldman became a friend of Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of American football player O. J. Simpson. On June 12, 1994, Goldman was murdered, along with Brown, outside her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles. Following a controversial and highly publicized criminal trial, Simpson was acquitted of all charges. He was later found liable of the wrongful deaths in a civil lawsuit in 1997, filed by Fred Goldman, Ron's father. Early life Goldman was born on July 2, 1968. He grew up in the community of Buffalo Grove, Illinois. After his parents divorced in 1974 and after spending a brief time in the custody of his mother, Sharon Rufo (née Fohrman), he was raised by his father, Frederic Goldman (born December 6, 1940). Goldman lived with his father and his younger sister. Goldman was raised Jewish. Goldman attended high school at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois. He was a student at Illinois State University for one semester, where he planned to major in psychology, and he also had an interest in becoming a pledge in Sigma Nu fraternity. After his family relocated to Southern California when he was 18 years old, however, Goldman discontinued his studies and followed his family. Prior to relocating with his family, Goldman worked as a camp counselor and had experience volunteering with children who suffered from cerebral palsy. In California While living in Los Angeles, Goldman took some classes at Pierce College. He learned to surf and enjoyed playing beach volleyball, rollerblading, and nightclubbing. Upon arriving in California, Goldman lived independently from his family and supported himself by working as an employment headhunter, tennis instructor, and waiter. He worked occasionally as a model for Barry Zeldes, owner of the Z90049 store in Brentwood Gardens. Not long before his death, he had earned an emergency medical technician license, but chose not to pursue that career. Instead, Goldman told friends that he wanted to open a bar or restaurant in the Brentwood area. He had shared with them his vision for a venue to be known not by a name, but by the ankh, an Egyptian religious symbol of life that matched the tattoo on his shoulder. According to his friend Jeff Keller, he wanted to learn all facets of the restaurant-bar business, and occasionally worked as a promoter at a Century City dance club called Tripps. For Memorial Day, he participated with a group of event promoters in organizing a party at Renaissance, a club and restaurant on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Goldman had expressed aspirations to act and to be on a show, and he was hosted by Mark DeCarlo in a 1992 episode of the dating game show Studs. He had dated Jacqui Bell for nearly two years before she broke off their relationship three months before his death. Death Friendship with Nicole Brown Simpson According to a June 15, 1994, Los Angeles Times article published three days after his death, Goldman met Brown only six weeks prior to the date they were murdered, when he borrowed her Ferrari. The two grew increasingly friendly, occasionally meeting for coffee and dinner in the weeks before their deaths. According to police and friends, however, the relationship between the two was platonic. One article noted that he had borrowed her car when he met his friend, Craig Clark, for lunch. According to Clark, he told him it was her car, but that he did not say she was his girlfriend. Instead, Goldman said they were friends. According to Killing Time: The First Full Investigation into the Unsolved Murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, a 1996 book by Donald Freed and Raymond P. Briggs, lipstick was found on Goldman’s cheek after his death. In an interview on Larry King Live, Ron Goldman’s father called into the show and berated Freed about the book. June 12, 1994 On the evening of Sunday, June 12, 1994, Goldman worked a server shift at Mezzaluna Trattoria in Brentwood. Brown called to report that her mother had inadvertently left her reading glasses on the table when they dined there earlier in the evening. Goldman had not been their server. But, after a search at the restaurant turned up the glasses, Goldman agreed, at Brown’s request, to drop them off at her home after work. The Los Angeles Times reported that Goldman "punched out at 9:33 pm and stayed another 15 minutes to have bottled water at the bar." Before returning the glasses, he stopped by his Brentwood apartment, at 11663 Gorham Avenue. He had made plans to go out with Mezzaluna's bartender Stewart Tanner later that evening. Goldman then walked the approximate 10 minutes to Brown’s condominium. Goldman and Brown were stabbed to death on the walkway leading to the condominium at 875 South Bundy Drive; their bodies were discovered shortly after midnight. During a reconstruction of the events, the police came to believe that Brown and Goldman were talking when they were attacked or that Goldman had walked in on Brown being attacked. In any case, the police believe that Brown was the intended target and that Goldman was killed in order to silence him. Witness Robert Heidstra testified, that while walking near Brown's house that night, he heard a man yelling, "Hey! Hey! Hey!" who was shouted at by a second man. Goldman's family came to believe that Ron was the man shouting "Hey! Hey! Hey!" and that he may have attempted to save Brown and intervened in the attack. Goldman was 20 days shy of his 26th birthday. Goldman is buried at Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California. Aftermath Simpson was tried for the killings of both Brown and Goldman. In October 1995, after a public trial that lasted nearly nine months and presented both circumstantial and physical evidence that Simpson killed both, he was acquitted in a controversial verdict. In 1997, Fred Goldman, Ron's father, filed a civil lawsuit against Simpson. The jury found him liable for the wrongful death of Goldman and awarded the Goldman family $33 million. Simpson was subsequently jailed for an unrelated armed robbery at a Las Vegas hotel in 2008. Both Fred and Kim Goldman were present at the robbery trial, and after Simpson's conviction, Fred Goldman expressed his satisfaction and referred to it as a "bittersweet" moment. The rights to Simpson's book, If I Did It, a first-person account of how he would have committed the murders, were awarded to the Goldman family in August 2007. They were granted the proceeds from the book as part of the multi-million dollar civil jury award against him they had been trying to collect for over a decade. They own the copyright, media rights, and movie rights. They also acquired Simpson's name, likeness, life story, an.... Discover the Michael Goldman popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Michael Goldman books.