About Whoopi Goldberg
Caryn Elaine Johnson, known professionally as Whoopi Goldberg, is an American actor, comedian, author, and television personality. The recipient of numerous accolades, she is one of few people to receive an Emmy Award, Grammy Award, Academy Award, and Tony Award, collectively known as the EGOT. In 2001, she received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
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 acted in Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986), Clara's Heart (1988), Soapdish (1991), Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), and Till (2022). She also voiced 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.
Goldberg has stated that her influences are Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Moms Mabley, Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers, Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, Sidney Poitier, and Harry Belafonte.
Goldberg has been married three times. She was married to drug counselor Alvin Martin from 1973 to 1979; to cinematographer David Claessen from 1986 to 1988; and to union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg from 1994 to 1995. She has had live-in relationships with actor Frank Langella and playwright David Schein. Her other ex-boyfriends include businessman Michael Visbal, orthodontist Jeffrey Cohen, camera operator Edward Gold, and actors Timothy Dalton and Ted Danson. 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.
