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Whoopi Goldberg, 2009
Whoopi Goldberg (born Caryn Elaine Johnson, 1955) is one of the most important and bankable stars in Hollywood. Beginning her career as a standup comedian, Goldberg announced herself as a serious actress by appearing as Celie in The Color Purple (1985), a role for which she received an Oscar nomination.
She won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1990 for her role in Ghost -- it was the first Academy Award presented to a black actress since Hattie McDaniel had won fifty years earlier. Goldberg has gone on to win Emmy, Grammy, Tony, and Golden Globe awards and become a one-woman entertainment conglomerate.
She is an outspoken host of The View and is no stranger to politically provocative remarks and humor. In 2001 she won the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Goldberg has made more than 150 films, and at one point in the 1990s she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Her distinctive stage name comes from the gag joke "whoopee cushion," and her last name is a bow to the tradition of Jewish comedians. |