Caryn Elaine Johnson, known professionally as Whoopi Goldberg (/ˈwʊpi/), is an American actor, comedian, author, and television personality. A recipient of numerous accolades, she is one of 17 entertainers to win the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award ("Oscar"), and a Tony Award. 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 show's recording. 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. 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.

Caryn Elaine Johnson was born in Manhattan, New York City, on November 13, 1955, the daughter of Emma Johnson (née Harris; 1931–2010), a nurse and teacher, and Robert James Johnson Jr. (1930–1993), a Baptist clergyman. She was raised in a public housing project, the Chelsea-Elliot Houses, in New York City.

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). She attended a local Catholic school, St Columba's. Her recent forebears migrated north from Faceville, Georgia; Palatka, Florida; and Virginia. She dropped out of Washington Irving High School.

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."

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 know I am Jewish. I practice nothing. I don't go to the temple but remember the holidays." She stated, "people would say, 'Come on, are you Jewish?' And I always say, 'Would you ask me that if I was white? I bet not.'" 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.

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. 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. The show identified her great-great-grandparents William and Elsie Washington, who had acquired the property in northern Florida in 1873, and mentions they were among a minimal number of black people who became landowners through homesteading in the years following the Civil War. The show also says that her grandparents lived in Harlem and that her grandfather worked as a Pullman porter.

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!" This spawned Goldberg's lifelong Star Trek fandom, and she eventually asked for and received a recurring guest-star 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, where she worked odd jobs as a bank teller, a mortuary cosmetologist, and a bricklayer. She joined the avant-garde theater troupe the Blake Street Hawkeyes and gave comedy and acting classes; Courtney Love was one of her acting students. Goldberg was also in several theater productions. 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.

In the 1980s

Goldberg trained under acting teacher Uta Hagen at the HB Studio 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 and 1984, she "first came to national prominence with her one-woman show" 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.

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. 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. Goldberg considered Nichols her mentor. Nichols helped her transfer the show to Broadway, where it was retitled Whoopi Goldberg and ran from October 24, 1984, to March 10, 1985. It was taped during this run and broadcast by HBO as Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway in 1985.

Goldberg's Broadway performance caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg while she performed in The Belly Room at The Comedy Store. 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 debuts in movie history." It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including a nomination for Goldberg as Best Actress.

Between 1985 and 1988, Goldberg was the busiest female star, making seven films. 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.

In the 1990s

In January 1990, Goldberg starred with Jean Stapleton in the situation comedy Bagdad Cafe. 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.

Whoopi 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.

Goldberg starred in the 1991 film Soapdish 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."

On May 29, 1992, the film Sister Act was released. It grossed well over US$200 million, 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. The following 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. She was the highest-paid actress with an estimated salary of $7–12 million for Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993).

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. She hosted it again in 1996, 1999, and 2002 and has been regarded as one of the show's best hosts.

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, she began dating co-star Frank Langella, a relationship that lasted until early 2000. In October 1997, she and ghostwriter Daniel Paisner cowrote Book, a collection featuring Goldberg's insights and opinions.

Also in 1996, Goldberg replaced Nathan Lane as Pseudolus in the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Greg Evans of Variety regarded her "thoroughly modern style" as "a welcome invitation to a new audience that could find this 1962 musical as dated as ancient Rome".

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 Call Me Claus.

In 1998 she gained a new audience when she became the "Center Square" on Hollywood Squares, hosted by Tom Bergeron. She was also an executive producer and was nominated for four Emmy Awards. She left the series in 2002.

In 1999, she voiced Ransome in the British animated children's show Foxbusters by Cosgrove Hall Films. AC Nielsen EDI ranked her as the actress appearing in the most theatrical films in the 1990s, with 29 films grossing $1.3 billion in the U.S. and Canada.

In the 2000s

Goldberg hosted the documentary short The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas (2001). In 2003, she returned to television in Whoopi, which was canceled after one season.

On her 46th birthday, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

She 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. She produced two television series: Lifetime's original drama Strong Medicine, which ran six seasons, and Whoopi's Littleburg, a children's television series on Nickelodeon.

Goldberg returned to the stage in 2003, starring as blues singer Ma Rainey in the Broadway revival of August Wilson's historical drama Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Royale Theatre. She was also one of the show's producers.

Goldberg was involved in controversy at a fundraiser for John Kerry at Radio City Music Hall in New York in July 2004 when she made a sexual joke about President George W. Bush by waving a bottle of wine, pointed toward her pubic area, and said, "We should keep Bush where he belongs, and not in the White House." As a result, Slim-Fast dropped her from their ad campaign. Later that year, she revived her one-woman show at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway in honor of its 20th anniversary.

Goldberg made guest appearances on Everybody Hates Chris as the elderly character Louise Clarkson.

From August 2006 to March 2008, Goldberg hosted Wake Up with Whoopi, a nationally syndicated morning radio talk and entertainment program.

On September 4, 2007, Goldberg became the new moderator and co-host of The View, replacing Rosie O'Donnell. Goldberg's debut as moderator drew 3.4 million viewers, 1 million fewer than O'Donnell's debut ratings. However, after two weeks, The View averaged 3.5 million total viewers under Goldberg, a 7-percent increase from 3.3 million under O'Donnell the previous season.

In October 2007, Goldberg announced on the air that she would retire from acting because she was 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 December 13, 2008, she guest starred on The Naked Brothers Band, a Nickelodeon rock- mockumentary television series. 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. That same year, Goldberg hosted 62nd Tony Awards.

In 2010, she starred in the Tyler Perry movie For Colored Girls alongside Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, Thandie Newton, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose, Kimberly Elise, Kerry Washington, and Macy Gray. The film received good reviews from critics and grossed over $38 million worldwide. The same year, she voiced Stretch in the Disney/Pixar animated movie Toy Story 3. The film received critical acclaim and grossed $1.067 billion worldwide.

Goldberg had a recurring role on the television series Glee during its third and fourth seasons as Carmen Tibideaux, a renowned Broadway performer and opera singer and the dean at a fictional performing arts college NYADA (New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts).

In 2011, she had a cameo in The Muppets.

In 2012, Goldberg guest starred as Jane Marsh, Sue Heck's guidance counselor on The Middle. She voiced the Magic Mirror on Disney XD's The 7D. In 2014, she also portrayed a character in the superhero film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014). She also appeared as herself in Chris Rock's Top Five and starred in the romantic comedy film Big Stone Gap.

In 2015, Goldberg was initially a defender of Bill Cosby from the rape allegations made against him, questioning why Cosby had never been arrested or tried for them. She later changed her stance, stating that "all of the information out there kinda points to 'guilt.'' After learning that the statute of limitations on these allegations had expired and thus Cosby could not be tried, she also stated her support for removing the statute of limitations for rape.

In 2016, Goldberg executive produced a reality television series, Strut, based on transgender models from the modeling agency Slay Model Management in Los Angeles. The series aired on Oxygen. In 2017, she voiced Ursula, the Sea Witch, and Uma's mother in the TV movie Descendants 2. In 2018, she starred in Tyler Perry's film Nobody's Fool alongside Tiffany Haddish, Omari Hardwick, Mehcad Brooks, Amber Riley, and Tika Sumpter. That same year, she starred in the comedy-drama film Furlough alongside Tessa Thompson, Melissa Leo, and Anna Paquin.

In an appearance on The View on January 22, 2020, Patrick Stewart invited Goldberg to reprise her role as Guinan during the second season of Star Trek: Picard. She immediately accepted his offer. Goldberg also starred in The Stand, a CBS All Access miniseries based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Stephen King, portraying Mother Abagail, a 108-year-old woman.

In 2020, it was announced that Goldberg would return in Sister Act 3 with Tyler Perry producing. The film is slated to debut on Disney+.

Goldberg is also set to star in the biographical film Till, written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu, which she also produced. The film is set to debut at the 60th New York Film Festival.

Goldberg guest starred on the Disney Channel show Amphibia as the character Mother Olms.

Goldberg has made controversial comments on the program on several occasions. One of her first appearances involved defending Michael Vick's participation in dogfighting as a result of "cultural upbringing." In 2009, she opined that Roman Polanski's rape conviction of a thirteen-year-old was not "rape-rape." She later clarified that she had intended to distinguish between statutory rape and forcible rape. The following year, in response to alleged comments by Mel Gibson, considered racist, she said: "I don't like what he did here, but I know Mel, and I know he's not a racist.""

On January 31, 2022, Goldberg drew widespread criticism for stating on the show that the Holocaust was not based on race but "about man's inhumanity to man," "telling her co-hosts: "This is white people doing it to white people, so y'all going to fight amongst yourselves." She apologized on Twitter later that day. She maintained that the Nazis' issue was with ethnicity and not race on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that same day, which drew further criticism. Goldberg issued another apology on air the following day. She was subsequently suspended from The View for two weeks over the comments.

Business Ventures

Goldberg is co-founder of Whoopi & Maya, a company that makes medical cannabis products for women seeking relief from menstrual cramps. Goldberg says she was inspired to go into business by "a lifetime of difficult periods and the fact that cannabis was the only thing that gave me relief.""The company was launched in April 2016.

Charity and Politicking

In 2006, Goldberg appeared during the 20th anniversary of Comic Relief. 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 moderating a UN meeting on human rights, children and armed conflict, terrorism, and reconciliation in 2009.

On April 1, 2010, Goldberg joined Cyndi Lauper in the launch of her Give a Damn campaign to bring a broader awareness of discrimination against the LGBT community and to invite straight people to ally with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. Her high-profile support for LGBT rights and AIDS activism dates from 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. In May 2017, she supported transgender rights at the 28th GLAAD Media Awards.

Goldberg is on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service. She also serves on the National Council Advisory Board of the National Museum of American Illustration. She was a speaker at the 2017 Women's March in New York City and was such again at the following year's event.

Also, on January 24, 2021, Goldberg appeared with Tom Everett Scott as a guest on the American Grabbuddies marathon fundraising episode of The George Lucas Talk Show, where she spoke of her time working on Snow Buddies and raising money for the ASPCA.

Life as Whoopi Goldberg

Goldberg has been married three times. She was married to Alvin Martin from 1973 to 1979, to cinematographer David Claessen from 1986 to 1988, and union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg from 1994 to 1995. She has been romantically linked to actors Frank Langella 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.

In 1973, Goldberg gave birth to a daughter, Alexandrea Martin, who also became an actress and producer. Through her daughter, Goldberg has three grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. On August 29, 2010, Goldberg's mother, Emma Johnson, died after having a stroke. 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.

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. She said she had had six or seven abortions by age 25 and that birth control pills failed to stop several of her pregnancies. After the 2022 Kansas abortion referendum, Goldberg claimed God would support abortion rights because he gave women freedom of choice.

Goldberg has stated that she was once a "functioning" drug addict. She said she smoked marijuana before accepting the Best Supporting Actress award for Ghost in 1991.

Goldberg has dyslexia. 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. She maintains an additional summer residence on the coast of Sardinia.

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." 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.

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