Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg, born Caryn Elaine Johnson in New York City on November 13, 1955, is an American actor, comedian, author, producer, and television host whose career has moved across stand-up, Broadway, film, television, animation, books, and daytime talk. Raised in Manhattan, she developed a stage identity through character-based solo performance and emerged nationally when her one-woman show reached Broadway in the mid-1980s. The Grammy-winning recording of that show helped establish her as a distinct comic voice: funny, blunt, observant, and able to shift quickly between satire, pathos, and social commentary.

Goldberg’s film breakthrough came with Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple in 1985, in which she played Celie. The role brought her a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and it announced her as a screen performer capable of carrying emotionally demanding drama. She moved between comedy and drama throughout the late 1980s, appearing in films such as Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Clara’s Heart, and the Star Trek universe as Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation. In 1990 she played psychic Oda Mae Brown in Ghost, a performance that won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and made her one of the few Black women to win an acting Oscar.

Her 1990s screen career broadened her popular reach. Sister Act and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit turned Goldberg into one of the decade’s major comedy stars, while roles in Soapdish, Corrina, Corrina, The Lion King, Ghosts of Mississippi, and Girl, Interrupted showed her range as both live-action and voice performer. She also hosted the Academy Awards multiple times, becoming a familiar public face beyond individual roles.