Early life

Goldberg was born in Manhattan and raised in the Chelsea-Elliot Houses, the daughter of Emma Johnson (née Harris; September 21, 1931 - August 29, 2010), a nurse and teacher, and Robert James Johnson Jr. (March 4, 1930 - May 25, 1993), a clergyman. Most sources give her birth year as 1955. Goldberg has described her mother as a "stern, strong, and wise woman" who raised her as a single mother with her brother Clyde (1949 - May 11, 2015). Her recent forebears migrated north from Faceville, Georgia, Palatka, Florida, and Virginia.

Goldberg dropped out of Washington Irving High School. She worked as a phone sex operator, working from home at night.

Her stage name, Whoopi, was taken from a whoopee cushion; she has stated that "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." The name Goldberg is an alternative family name that she says she chose to use to be taken more seriously.

According to an anecdote told by Nichelle Nichols in the documentary film Trekkies (1997), a young Goldberg was watching Star Trek, and upon seeing Nichols' character Uhura, exclaimed, "Momma! There's a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!" This spawned lifelong fandom of Star Trek for Goldberg, who would eventually ask for and receive a recurring guest-starring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Between the years of 1979 and 1981, she lived in East Germany, working in a number of theater productions. During her travels, she would smuggle various items into the country for the artists she stayed with.

Career

Early work

Goldberg trained under acting teacher Uta Hagen at the HB Studio in New York City. She first appeared onscreen in 1981-82 in Citizen: I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away, an avant-garde ensemble feature by San Francisco filmmaker William Farley. Goldberg created The Spook Show, a one-woman show composed of different character monologues, in 1983. Director Mike Nichols offered to take the show to Broadway. The show, retitled Whoopi Goldberg for its Broadway incarnation, ran from October 24, 1984 to March 10, 1985, for a total of 156 performances; the play was taped during this run and subsequently broadcast by HBO as Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway in 1985.

While on Broadway, Goldberg's performance caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg. He was about to direct the film The Color Purple, based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, and offered her a leading role. The Color Purple was released in late 1985 and was a critical and commercial success. It was later nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including a nomination for Goldberg as Best Actress.

Comedic and dramatic balance

Goldberg 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; the couple 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 these were not as successful as her prior motion pictures, Goldberg still garnered awards from the NAACP Image Awards. Claessen and Goldberg divorced after the poor box office performance of The Telephone, which Goldberg was under contract to star in. She tried unsuccessfully to sue the producers of the film. The 1988 family movie Clara's Heart did poorly at the box office, though her own performance was critically acclaimed. As the 1980s concluded, she participated in the numerous HBO specials of Comic Relief with fellow comedians Robin Williams and Billy Crystal.

In January 1990, Goldberg starred with Jean Stapleton in the situation comedy Bagdad Cafe. The show ran for two seasons on CBS. Simultaneously, Goldberg starred in The Long Walk Home, portraying a woman in the civil rights movement. She played a psychic in the 1990 film Ghost, 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 1939's Gone with the Wind). Premiere named her character Oda Mae Brown in its list of Top 100 best film characters.

Goldberg starred in ensemble film Soapdish (1991) and had a recurring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation as Guinan, which she would reprise in two Star Trek movies. On May 29, 1992, Sister Act was released. The motion picture grossed well over US $200 million and Goldberg was nominated for a Golden Globe. Next, she starred in Sarafina!. During the next year, she hosted a late-night talk show, The Whoopi Goldberg Show, and starred in two more motion pictures: Made in America and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. From 1994 to 1995, Goldberg appeared in Corrina, Corrina, The Lion King (voice), The Pagemaster (voice), Boys on the Side and Moonlight and Valentino. Goldberg guest starred on Muppets Tonight in 1996. She became the first African-American woman to host the Academy Awards show in 1994, and the first woman to solo host. She hosted the awards show again in 1996, 1999 and 2002.

Goldberg starred in four motion pictures in 1996: Bogus (with Gérard Depardieu and Haley Joel Osment), Eddie, The Associate (with Dianne Wiest) and Ghosts of Mississippi (with Alec Baldwin and James Woods). During the filming of Eddie, Goldberg began dating co-star Frank Langella, a relationship that lasted until early 2000. In October 1997, Goldberg and ghostwriter Daniel Paisner cowrote Book, a collection featuring insights and opinions. In November and December 2005, Goldberg revived her one-woman show on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre in honor of its 20th anniversary.

From 1998 to 2001, Goldberg took supporting roles in How Stella Got Her Groove Back with Angela Bassett, Girl, Interrupted with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, Kingdom Come and Rat Race with an all-star ensemble cast. She starred in the ABC-TV versions of Cinderella, A Knight in Camelot, and the TNT Original Movie Call Me Claus. In 1998, she gained a new audience when she became the "Center Square" on Hollywood Squares, hosted by Tom Bergeron. She also served as executive producer, for which she was nominated for four Emmy Awards. She left the show in 2002, and the "Center Square" was filled in with celebrities for the last two on-air seasons without Goldberg. Most recently, she had a cameo role as Megan Fox's boss in the 2014 reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and played herself in Chris Rock's Top Five.

In 2003, Goldberg returned to television, starring in the NBC comedy Whoopi, which was canceled after one season. On her 46th birthday, Goldberg was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Goldberg also appeared alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett in the HBO documentary Unchained Memories (2003), narrating slave narratives. During the next two years she became a spokeswoman for Slim Fast and produced two television series: Lifetime's original drama Strong Medicine that ran for six seasons and Whoopi's Littleburg, a Nickelodeon show for younger children. Goldberg made guest appearances on Everybody Hates Chris as an elderly character named Louise Clarkson. She produced the Noggin sitcom Just for Kicks in early 2006.

The View

On September 4, 2007, Goldberg became the new moderator and co-host of The View, replacing Rosie O'Donnell, who stated on her official blog that she wanted Goldberg to be moderator. Goldberg's debut as moderator drew 3.4 million viewers, 1 million fewer than O'Donnell's debut ratings. After two weeks, however, The View was averaging 3.5 million total viewers under Goldberg, a 7% increase from 3.3 million under O'Donnell the previous season.

Her first appearance on the show was controversial when she made statements about Michael Vick's dogfighting as being "part of his cultural upbringing" and "not all that unusual" in parts of the South. Another comment that stirred controversy was the statement that the Chinese "have a very different relationship to cats" and that "you and I would be very pissed if somebody ate kitty." Some defended Goldberg, including her co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, saying that her comments were taken out of context by the press, because she repeated several times that she did not condone what Vick did.

On more than one occasion, Goldberg has expressed strong disagreement and irritation with different remarks made by Elisabeth Hasselbeck, such as on October 3, 2007, when Hasselbeck commented that Hillary Clinton's proposed US$5,000 baby entitlement might lead to fewer abortions because of women wanting to keep the money. Despite this, Goldberg always maintained professional respect and friendliness with Hasselbeck, even defending Elisabeth and calling her "my friend" when Hasselbeck came under fire for alleged racist comments in 2015.

Goldberg stirred controversy when on September 28, 2009, during a discussion of Roman Polanski's case, she opined that Polanski's rape of a thirteen-year-old in 1977 was not "rape-rape". Goldberg later clarified that she had intended to highlight the exact charge brought against Polanski, namely statutory rape, i.e. "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor", rather than rape with an unwilling participant. Polanski had been initially charged with "rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor", but under a plea bargain, Polanski pleaded guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor" with the graver charges dropped, before fleeing to France hours before he was to be formally sentenced.

After comedian Kathy Griffin referred to then-United States Senator Scott Brown (R-MA)'s daughters as "prostitutes", Goldberg said that if anyone insulted her daughter like that, "I would beat their ass." The audience reacted with shock and support.

Other media appearances

Goldberg performed the role of Califia, the radiant Queen of the Island of California, for a theater presentation called Golden Dreams at Disney California Adventure Park, the second gate at the Disneyland Resort, in 2000. The show, which explains the history of the Golden State (California), opened on February 8, 2001, with the rest of the park. Golden Dreams closed in September 2008 to make way for the upcoming Little Mermaid ride planned for DCA. In 2001, Goldberg hosted the 50th Anniversary of I Love Lucy, a 50s black-and-white sitcom, celebrating the legacy of Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley.

Goldberg hosted the 2001 documentary short, The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas. In July 2006, Goldberg became the main host of the Universal Studios Hollywood Backlot Tour, in which she appears multiple times in video clips shown to the guests on monitors placed on the trams. Along with her many contributions to film and television and her major impact on this industry, Whoopi Goldberg was a main narrator for HBO's 2003 film Unchained Memories. She made a guest appearance on the hit television show 30 Rock, in which she played herself. She is shown as endorsing her own workout video. In Season 4 of the show, she counsels Tracy Jordan on winning the "EGOT", the coveted combination of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards. Goldberg was involved in controversy in July 2004 when, at a fundraiser for John Kerry at Radio City Music Hall in New York, Goldberg made a sexual joke about President George W. Bush by waving a bottle of wine, pointing toward her pubic area and saying: "We should keep Bush where he belongs, and not in the White House." Slim-Fast took exception to these comments made by Goldberg and dropped her from their then-current ad campaign.

From August 2006 to March 2008, Goldberg hosted Wake Up with Whoopi, a nationally syndicated morning radio talk and entertainment program. In October 2007, Goldberg announced on the air that she would be retiring from acting because she is no longer sent scripts, saying, "You know, there's no room for the very talented Whoopi. There's no room right now in the marketplace of cinema".

On July 14, 2008, Goldberg announced on The View that from July 29 to September 7, she would perform in the Broadway musical Xanadu. On November 13, 2008, Goldberg's birthday, she announced live on The View that she would be producing, along with Stage Entertainment, the premiere of Sister Act: The Musical at the London Palladium.

She gave a short message at the beginning of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2008 wishing all the participants good luck, and stressing the importance of UNICEF, the official charity of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Since its launch in 2008, Goldberg has been a contributor for wowOwow.com, a new website for women to talk culture, politics and gossip.

Goldberg is an advocate for human rights, moderating a panel at the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit on how social networks can be used to fight violent extremism in 2008, and also moderating a panel at the UN in 2009 on human rights, children and armed conflict, terrorism, human rights and reconciliation. On December 13, 2008, she guest starred on The Naked Brothers Band, a Nickelodeon rock- mockumentary television show. Before the episode premiered, on February 18, 2008, the band performed on The View and the band members were interviewed by Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd.

On December 18 through 20, 2009, Goldberg performed in the Candlelight Processional at Epcot in Walt Disney World. She was given a standing ovation during her final performance for her reading of the Christmas story and her tribute to the guest choirs performing in the show with her. She made a guest appearance in Michael Jackson's short film for the single "Liberian Girl", as well as an appearance on the seventh season of the cooking reality show Hell's Kitchen by Gordon Ramsay, as a special guest where she was served by the contestants. On January 14, 2010, Goldberg made a one-night-only appearance at the Minskoff Theatre to perform in the mega-hit musical The Lion King. That same year, she attended the Life Ball in Austria.

Goldberg made her West End debut as the Mother Superior in a musical version of Sister Act for a limited engagement set for August 10-31, 2010, but prematurely left the cast on August 27 to be with her family; her mother had suffered from a severe stroke. However, she later returned to the cast for five performances. The show closed on October 30, 2010.

Goldberg had a recurring role in the TV series Glee as Carmen Tibideaux, a renowned Broadway performer and opera singer and the newly appointed Dean of Vocal Performance and Song Interpretation at the fictional "NYADA" (New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts), a highly competitive performing arts college. The character appeared in six episodes over 3 seasons (2012-2014).

In 2012, Goldberg guest starred as Jane Marsh, Sue Heck's guidance counselor in the TV series, The Middle. She currently voices the Magic Mirror on Disney XD's The 7D.

Personal life

Goldberg has been married three times‍—‌in 1973 to Alvin Martin (divorced in 1979, one daughter), on September 1, 1986 to cinematographer David Claessen (divorced in 1988), and on October 1, 1994 to the union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg (divorced in 1995).

She was romantically linked with actors Frank Langella, Timothy Dalton, and Ted Danson, who controversially appeared in blackface during her 1993 Friars Club roast. She has stated that she has no future plans to marry again, commenting "Some people are not meant to be married and I am not meant to. I’m sure it is wonderful for lots of people." In a 2011 interview with Piers Morgan, she explained that she never loved the men she married and commented "You have to really be committed to them. And I'm just‍—‌I don't have that commitment. I'm committed to my family." In October 2013, Goldberg revealed she had loved a man not in the entertainment industry who died of AIDS after contracting HIV from a blood transfusion.

When Goldberg was a teen she and first husband Martin had a daughter, Alexandrea Martin, who also became an actress and producer.

On August 29, 2010, Goldberg's mother Emma Johnson died after suffering a stroke. She left London at the time, where she had been performing in Sister Act the Musical, but returned to perform on October 22, 2010. In 2015, Goldberg's brother Clyde died of a brain aneurysm.

Goldberg has said she was a "high functioning" drug addict years ago, at one point being too terrified to even leave her bed to go use the toilet. She states that she smoked marijuana before accepting the Best Supporting Actress award for Ghost in 1991. Goldberg has dyslexia.

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. Her admixture test indicates that she is of 92 percent sub-Saharan African origin and of 8 percent European origin.

Awards and honors

Goldberg has received two Academy Award nominations, for The Color Purple and Ghost, winning for Ghost. She is the first African American to have received Academy Award nominations for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. She is the recipient of the 1985 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show for her solo performance on Broadway. She has received eight Daytime Emmy nominations, winning two. She has received five (non-daytime) Emmy nominations. She has received three Golden Globe nominations, winning two (Best Actress in 1986 for The Color Purple, and Best Supporting Actress in 1991 for Ghost). She won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1985 for "Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway," becoming only the second woman at the time to receive the award, and the first African-American woman. Goldberg is one of only three women to receive that award. Also for Ghost, she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1991.

She won a Tony Award in 2002 as a producer of the Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. She has won three People's Choice Awards. In 1999, she received the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Vanguard Award for her continued work in supporting the gay and lesbian community. She has been nominated for five American Comedy Awards with two wins (Funniest Supporting Actress in 1991 for Ghost and Funniest Actress in 1993 for Sister Act). In 2001, she won the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center as well as the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. In 2009, Goldberg won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host for her role on The View. She shares the award with co-hosts Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Barbara Walters.

Goldberg is one of the few persons to win an Oscar, a Grammy, a Tony, and an Emmy. She has been seen in over 150 films, and during a period in the 1990s, Whoopi was the highest-paid actress of all time. Her humanitarian efforts include working for Comic Relief, recently reuniting with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams for the 20th Anniversary of Comic Relief.

In February 2002, Goldberg sent her Oscar statuette from Ghost to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be cleaned and replated. During this time, the statuette was taken from its shipping container, and later retrieved by the shipping company, UPS. In 1990, Goldberg was officially named an honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters exhibition basketball team by the members. She was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award for outstanding achievement by a dyslexic in 1987. In July 2010, the Ride of Fame honored Goldberg with a double decker tour bus in New York City for her life's achievements.

It was reported that Goldberg's salary for the 1993 film Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit was $7 to 12 million, the highest ever paid for an actress at the time.

Activism

On April 1, 2010, Goldberg joined Cyndi Lauper in the launch of her Give a Damn campaign to bring a wider awareness of discrimination of the LGBT community. The campaign aims to bring straight people to ally with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community. Other names included in the campaign include Jason Mraz, Elton John, Judith Light, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Kardashian West, Clay Aiken, Sharon Osbourne and Kelly Osbourne. Her high-profile support for LGBT rights and AIDS activism dates back to the 1987 March on Washington, in which she participated.

On an episode of The View that aired on May 9, 2012, Goldberg stated she is a member of the National Rifle Association. Goldberg is on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.

Stage

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Whoopi Goldberg	Herself	Also writer
1990	Ghost	Oda Mae Brown
1996	A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum	Prologus; Pseudolus
2002	Thoroughly Modern Millie	non-role	Producer
2003	Ma Rainey's Black Bottom	Ma Rainey	Also producer
2004	Whoopi	Herself	Also writer
2008	Xanadu	Calliope / Aphrodite
2010	Sister Act	Mother Superior (West End)	Producer (Broadway)

Filmography

Main article: Whoopi Goldberg filmography

Discography

• 1985: Original Broadway Recording (Geffen/Warner Bros. Records)
• 1988: Fontaine: Why Am I Straight? (MCA Records)
• 1989: The Long Walk Home (Miramax Films)
• 1992: Sister Act—Soundtrack (Hollywood/Elektra Records)
• 1993: Sister Act 2—Soundtrack (Hollywood/Elektra Records)
• 1994: Corrina Corrina (New Line Cinema)
• 2001: Call Me Claus (One Ho Productions)
• 2005: Live on Broadway: The 20th Anniversary Show (DRG Records)

Bibliography

Children's books

• Goldberg, Whoopi (2006). Whoopi's Big Book of Manners. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 0-7868-5295-X.
• Goldberg, Whoopi (2008). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #1: Plum Fantastic. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 1-4231-1173-7.
• Goldberg, Whoopi (2009). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #2: Toeshoe Trouble. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 1-4231-1913-4.
• Goldberg, Whoopi (2010). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #3: Perfectly Prima. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 1-4231-2054-X.
• Goldberg, Whoopi (October 2010). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #4: Terrible Terrel. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 1-4231-2082-5.
• Goldberg, Whoopi (March 2011). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #5: CATastrophe. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 1-4231-2083-3.
• Goldberg, Whoopi (October 2012). Sugar Plum Ballerinas: Dancing Divas. Los Angeles: Little People Books. ISBN 1-4231-2084-1.

Non-fiction

• Goldberg, Whoopi (1992). Alice. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-08990-0.
• Goldberg, Whoopi (1997). Book. New York: R. Weisbach Books. ISBN 0-688-15252-X.
• Goldberg, Whoopi (October 2010). Is It Just Me? Or Is It Nuts Out There?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-2384-7.
• Goldberg, Whoopi (October 2015). Whoopi's Big Book of Relationships: If Someone Says "You Complete Me," RUN!. Unknown: Hachette. ISBN 978-0-316-30200-5.

Charities

Whoopi Goldberg supports the following charitable causes: Rape/Sexual Abuse, Homeless, Health Education, Dyslexia, Children, Education, Animals, Arts Education, Women's Issues, Disaster Relief, Gay Rights, AIDS, Veterans, Poverty, Underprivileged Children, Adoption, Marijuana Legalization, Human Rights, Peace.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]