Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg (born November 13, 1955, New York, New York, U.S.) is an American comedian, actress, and producer who was an accomplished performer with a repertoire that ranged from dramatic leading roles to controversial comedic performances. She also garnered attention as a cohost of the TV talk show The View. Goldberg was the first Black woman to win an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony).

Early life and The Color Purple

Goldberg spent her early years in a Manhattan housing project. She began performing at age eight with a children’s theater group and later, as a young adult, went on to perform in the choruses of Broadway shows. She moved to California in 1974 and soon became active in the theater community there, as well as establishing a presence as a stand-up comedian. Eventually she developed The Spook Show, a one-woman stage show noted for its humor, satire, and drama, which she performed throughout the United States and Europe. That performance became the basis for the critically acclaimed Broadway show Whoopi Goldberg, which debuted in 1984, and in 1985 Goldberg won a Grammy Award for the show’s recording.

Soon afterward Goldberg made her Hollywood debut in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple (1985). The acclaimed film is an adaptation of Alice Walker’s epistolary novel about the growing up and self-realization of an African American woman in rural Georgia. For her performance, Goldberg garnered an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award.

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Goldberg went on to perform in less-successful films before appearing as a disreputable medium in Ghost (1990), which also starred Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze. The film was a box-office hit, and Goldberg won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for best supporting actress. She followed up with numerous performances in film and television. In 1992 she had another hit with the musical comedy Sister Act, though the sequel, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), was less successful.

Goldberg also hosted her own talk show for a brief stint, served as host of the Academy Awards show on several occasions, and starred in the television show Whoopi (2003–04). In 2007 she became a cohost on the daytime television talk show The View. While noted for her liberal views, Goldberg served as the moderator during the program’s frequent debates.

Goldberg’s other credits included the TV documentary movie Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel (2001). As the host, she won a Daytime Emmy when it was named outstanding special class special in 2002. Later that year she also won a Tony Award, for producing the Broadway show Thoroughly Modern Millie. With that win, Goldberg completed her EGOT. Although her planned Broadway revival of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 ensemble theater piece For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf was canceled in 2008, Goldberg played a religious zealot in the show’s 2010 film adaptation, For Colored Girls. She later produced the musical Sister Act (2011–12). Goldberg also acted on Broadway, appearing in solo shows as well as Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2003) and Xanadu (2008), and she guest starred on television shows such as the animated Robot Chicken and the musical comedy Glee.

Later career

In 2014 Goldberg appeared as a news editor in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a film adaptation of the comic book series and television program, and as a sharp-tongued pharmacist in the small-town movie comedy Big Stone Gap. She later starred in the miniseries The Stand (2020–21), an adaptation of a Stephen King novel. In addition, Goldberg narrated the true-crime docuseries The Con (2020– ). Her other film credits during this time included the drama 9/11 (2017), which centers on a group of people trapped in a World Trade Center elevator during the September 11, 2001, attacks, and the comedy Nobody’s Fool (2018), wherein she played the mother of a recently paroled ex-convict (played by Tiffany Haddish).

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In 2022 Goldberg had a supporting role in Till, a biopic about Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, who was murdered in 1955 for allegedly flirting with a white grocery store clerk in Mississippi. Two years later Goldberg returned to the stage, earning rave reviews for her portrayal of Miss Hannigan in a revival of Annie.

Goldberg was an activist on behalf of several causes, including human rights, AIDS research, and children’s issues.