Whoopi Goldberg
Caryn Elaine Johnson (born November 13, 1955),[1][2][3] known professionally as Whoopi Goldberg (/ˈwʊpi/), is an American actor, comedian, author, and television personality.[4][5] A recipient of numerous accolades, she is one of 19 entertainers to win the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award. In 2001, she received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
"Whoopi" redirects here. For the sitcom, see Whoopi (TV series).Whoopi Goldberg
Caryn Elaine Johnson
November 13, 1955
New York City, U.S.
- Stand-up
- film
- television
- theater
- books
1982–present
- African-American culture
- American politics
- race relations
- racism
- marriage
- sex
- everyday life
- popular culture
- current events
-
Alvin Martin(m. 1973; div. 1979)
-
Lyle Trachtenberg(m. 1994; div. 1995)
- David Schein (1980–1985)
- Frank Langella (1995–2000)
Goldberg began her career on stage in 1983 with her one-woman show, Spook Show, which transferred to Broadway under the title Whoopi Goldberg, running from 1984 to 1985. She won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for the recording of the show. Her film breakthrough came in 1985 with her role as Celie, a mistreated woman in the Deep South, in Steven Spielberg's period drama film The Color Purple, for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. For her role as an eccentric psychic in the romantic fantasy film Ghost (1990), she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a second Golden Globe Award. She starred in the comedy Sister Act (1992) and its sequel Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), becoming the highest-paid actress at the time. She also starred in Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986), Clara's Heart (1988), Soapdish (1991), Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), and Till (2022). She also is known for voicing roles in The Lion King (1994) and Toy Story 3 (2010).
On stage, Goldberg has starred in the Broadway revivals of Stephen Sondheim's musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and August Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. She won a Tony Award as a producer of the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. In 2011 she received her third Tony Award nomination for the stage adaptation of Sister Act (2011). On television, Goldberg portrayed Guinan in the science fiction series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1988–1993), and Star Trek: Picard (2022). Since 2007, she has co-hosted and moderated the daytime talk show The View, for which she won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. She has hosted the Academy Awards ceremony four times.
Early life
Caryn Elaine Johnson was born in Manhattan, New York City,[6] on November 13, 1955,[1][2][3] the daughter of Emma Johnson (née Harris; 1931–2010),[7] a nurse and teacher,[8] and Robert James Johnson Jr. (1930–1993), a Baptist[9] clergyman. She was raised in a public housing project, the Chelsea-Elliot Houses, in New York City.[10]
Goldberg described her mother as a "stern, strong, and wise woman" who raised her as a single mother with her brother Clyde (c. 1949 – 2015).[11][12] She attended a local Catholic school, St Columba's. Her more recent forebears migrated north from Faceville, Georgia; Palatka, Florida; and Virginia.[13] She dropped out of Washington Irving High School.[14][15]
She has stated that her stage forename ("Whoopi") was taken from a whoopee cushion: "When you're performing on stage, you never really have time to go into the bathroom and close the door. So if you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go. So people used to say to me, 'You're like a whoopee cushion.' And that's where the name came from."[16]
About her stage surname, she claimed in 2011, "My mother did not name me Whoopi, but Goldberg is my name—it's part of my family, part of my heritage, just like being black," and "I just know I am Jewish. I practice nothing. I don't go to temple, but I do remember the holidays."[17] She has stated that "people would say 'Come on, are you Jewish?' And I always say 'Would you ask me that if I was white? I bet not.'"[17] One account suggests that her mother, Emma Johnson, thought the family's original surname was "not Jewish enough" for her daughter to become a star.[17] Researcher Henry Louis Gates Jr. found that all of Goldberg's traceable ancestors were black, that she had no known German or Jewish ancestry, and that none of her ancestors were named Goldberg.[13] Results of a DNA test, revealed in the 2006 PBS documentary African American Lives, traced part of her ancestry to the Papel and Bayote people of modern-day Guinea-Bissau of West Africa.[18] The show identified her great-great-grandparents as William and Elsie Washington, who had acquired property in northern Florida in 1873, and mentions they were among a very small number of black people who became landowners through homesteading in the years following the Civil War. The show also mentions that her grandparents were living in Harlem, and that her grandfather was working as a Pullman porter.[19]
According to an anecdote told by Nichelle Nichols in Trekkies (1997), a young Goldberg was watching Star Trek, and on seeing Nichols's character Uhura, exclaimed, "Momma! There's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!"[20] This spawned Goldberg's lifelong Star Trek fandom. Goldberg lobbied for and was eventually cast in a recurring guest starring role as Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
In the 1970s, Goldberg moved to San Diego, California, where she became a waitress, then to Berkeley,[21] where she worked odd jobs, including as a bank teller, a mortuary cosmetologist, and a bricklayer.[22] She joined the avant-garde theater troupe the Blake Street Hawkeyes[22] and gave comedy and acting classes; Courtney Love was one of her acting students.[23] Goldberg was also in a number of theater productions.[24] In 1978, she witnessed a midair collision of two planes in San Diego, causing her to develop a fear of flying and post-traumatic stress disorder.[25][26]
Acting career
1980s
Goldberg trained under acting teacher Uta Hagen at the HB Studio[27] in New York City. She first appeared onscreen in Citizen: I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away (1982), an avant-garde ensemble feature by San Francisco filmmaker William Farley.
In 1983[28] and 1984, she "first came to national prominence with her one-woman show"[29] in which she portrayed Moms Mabley, Moms, first performed in Berkeley, California, and then at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco; the Oakland Museum of California preserves a poster advertising the show.[30]
She created The Spook Show, a one-woman show composed of different character monologues in 1983. Director Mike Nichols "discovered" her when he saw her perform.[31] In an interview, he recalled that he "burst into tears", and that he and Goldberg "fell into each other's arms" when they first met backstage.[32] Goldberg considered Nichols her mentor.[33] Nichols helped her transfer the show to Broadway, where it was retitled Whoopi Goldberg. The show ran from October 24, 1984, to March 10, 1985, and was taped and broadcast by HBO as Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway.[34]
Goldberg's Broadway performance caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg while she performed in The Belly Room at The Comedy Store.[35] Spielberg gave her the lead role in his film The Color Purple, based on the novel by Alice Walker. It was released in late 1985, and was a critical and commercial success. Film critic Roger Ebert described Goldberg's performance as "one of the most amazing debut performances in movie history".[36] It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including a nomination for Goldberg as Best Actress.[37]
Between 1985 and 1988, Goldberg was the busiest female star, making seven films.[38] She starred in Penny Marshall's directorial debut Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) and began a relationship with David Claessen, a director of photography on the set; they married later that year. The film was a modest success, and during the next two years, three additional motion pictures featured Goldberg: Burglar (1987), Fatal Beauty (1987), and The Telephone (1988). Though they were not as successful, Goldberg garnered awards from the NAACP Image Awards. Goldberg and Claessen divorced after the poor box office performance of The Telephone, in which she was contracted to perform. She tried unsuccessfully to sue the film's producers. Clara's Heart (1988) did poorly at the box office, though her own performance was critically acclaimed. As the 1980s concluded, she hosted numerous HBO specials of Comic Relief with fellow comedians Robin Williams and Billy Crystal.[39]
1990s
In January 1990, Goldberg starred with Jean Stapleton in the situation comedy Bagdad Cafe (inspired by the 1987 film of the same name). The sitcom ran for two seasons on CBS. Simultaneously, she starred in The Long Walk Home, portraying a woman in the US civil rights movement. She played a psychic in the film Ghost (1990) and became the first black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in nearly 50 years, and the second black woman to win an Academy Award for acting (the first being Hattie McDaniel for Gone with the Wind in 1940). She also won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. Premiere named her character Oda Mae Brown in its list of Top 100 best film characters.[40]
Goldberg starred in Soapdish (1991) and had a recurring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation between 1988 and 1993 as Guinan, a character she reprised in two Star Trek films. She made a cameo in the Traveling Wilburys 1991 music video "Wilbury Twist".[41] On May 29, 1992, the film Sister Act was released. It grossed well over US$200 million (equivalent to $434 million in 2023), and Goldberg was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. That year, she starred in The Player and Sarafina!. She also hosted the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, receiving praise from the Sun-Sentinel's Deborah Wilker for bringing to life what Wilker considered "stodgy and stale" ceremonies.[42] During the next year, Goldberg hosted a late-night talk show, The Whoopi Goldberg Show, and starred in two more films: Made in America and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. With an estimated salary of $7–12 million for Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), she was the highest-paid actress at the time.[43][44] From 1994 to 1995, she appeared in Corrina, Corrina, The Lion King (voice), Theodore Rex, The Little Rascals, The Pagemaster (voice), Boys on the Side, and Moonlight and Valentino, and guest-starred on Muppets Tonight in 1996.
In 1994, Goldberg became the first black woman to host the Academy Awards ceremony starting with the 66th Oscar telecast.[45] She hosted it again in 1996, 1999, and 2002, and has been regarded as one of the show's best hosts.[46][47]
Influences
Goldberg has stated that her influences are Richard Pryor,[78] George Carlin,[79] Moms Mabley,[80] Lenny Bruce,[81] Joan Rivers, Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, Sidney Poitier, and Harry Belafonte.[82]
Personal life
Goldberg has been married three times. She was married to drug counselor Alvin Martin from 1973 to 1979;[135][136] to cinematographer David Claessen from 1986 to 1988;[136][137] and to union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg from 1994 to 1995.[136] She has had live-in relationships with actor Frank Langella[138] and playwright David Schein.[139] Her other ex-boyfriends include businessman Michael Visbal,[140] orthodontist Jeffrey Cohen,[141] camera operator Edward Gold,[142] and actors Timothy Dalton[143] and Ted Danson.[144] Danson controversially appeared in blackface during his 1993 Friars Club roast; Goldberg wrote some of his jokes for the event and defended Danson after a media furor.[145]
She has stated that she has no plans to marry again: "Some people are not meant to be married and I am not meant to. I'm sure it is wonderful for lots of people."[136] In a 2011 interview with Piers Morgan, she explained that she was never in love with the men she married[146] and commented: "You have to really be committed to them...I don't have that commitment. I'm committed to my family."[135]
On May 9, 1974, Goldberg gave birth to a daughter, Alexandrea Martin, who also became an actress and producer.[147] Through her daughter, Goldberg has three grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.[148] On August 29, 2010, Goldberg's mother, Emma Johnson, died after having a stroke.[149] She left London at the time, where she had been performing in the musical Sister Act, but returned to perform on October 22, 2010. In 2015, Goldberg's brother Clyde died of a brain aneurysm.[150]
In 1991, Goldberg spoke out about her abortion in The Choices We Made: Twenty-Five Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion. In that book, she spoke about using a coat hanger to terminate a pregnancy at age 14.[151] She said she had had six or seven abortions by the age of 25 and that birth control pills failed to stop several of her pregnancies.[152] After the 2022 Kansas abortion referendum, Goldberg claimed that God would support abortion rights because he gave women freedom of choice.[153]
Goldberg has stated that she was once a "functioning" drug addict.[154] She has stated that she smoked marijuana before accepting the Best Supporting Actress award for Ghost in 1991.[155][156]
Goldberg has dyslexia.[157] She has lived in Llewellyn Park, a neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey, saying she moved there to be able to be outside in private.[158] She maintains an additional summer residence on the coast of Sardinia.[159] She has expressed a preference for defining herself by the gender-neutral term "actor" rather than "actress", saying: "An actress can only play a woman. I'm an actor–I can play anything."[5] In March 2019, Goldberg revealed that she had been battling pneumonia and sepsis, which caused her to take a leave of absence from The View.[160]
On a season 9 episode of PBS's "Finding Your Roots", featuring Pro Football Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez, it was revealed Goldberg and Gonzalez are distant cousins.[161]
Children's books
Non-fiction