50 facts about Whoopi Goldberg: Whoopi, was taken from a whoopee cushion

Learn 50 interesting facts about actress Whoopi Goldberg.

1. Whoopi Goldberg was born as Caryn Elaine Johnson.

2. Whoopi Goldberg is not only an actress but also comedian, writer, social critic, and television host.

3. She has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards for her work in television.

4. She is one of the few entertainers who has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award.

5. She was the second black woman in the history of the Academy Awards to win an acting Oscar.

6. Her breakthrough role was playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South in the period drama film The Color Purple, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

7. Goldberg played Oda Mae Brown, an eccentric psychic helping a slain man (Patrick Swayze) save his lover (Demi Moore), in the romantic fantasy film Ghost, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

8. She was co-producer of the television game show Hollywood Squares from 1998 to 2002.

9. She has been the moderator of the daytime television talk show The View since 2007.

10. Goldberg was born in Manhattan, NY.

11. Her mother was a nurse and teacher.

12. Her father was a clergyman.

13. Her recent forbears migrated north from Faceville, Georgia, Palatka, Florida, and Virginia.

14. Goldberg dropped out of Washington Irving High School.

15. Her stage name, Whoopi, was taken from a whoopee cushion; she has stated that "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."

16. The name Goldberg is an alternative family name which she says she chose to use to be taken more seriously.

17. According to an anecdote told by Nichelle Nichols in the documentary film Trekkies, a young Goldberg was watching Star Trek, and upon seeing Nichols' character Uhura, exclaimed, "Momma! There's a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!" This spawned lifelong fandom of Star Trek for Goldberg, who would eventually ask for and receive a recurring guest-starring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

18. Between the years of 1979 and 1981, she lived in East Germany, working in a number of theater productions. During her travels, she would smuggle various items into the country for the artists she stayed with.

19. Goldberg trained under acting teacher Uta Hagen at the HB Studio in New York City.

20. She first appeared onscreen in 1981-82 in Citizen: I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away, an avant-garde ensemble feature by San Francisco filmmaker William Farley.

21. Goldberg created The Spook Show, a one-woman show composed of different character monologues, in 1983. Director Mike Nichols offered to take the show to Broadway. The show, retitled Whoopi Goldberg for its Broadway incarnation, ran from October 24, 1984 to March 10, 1985, for a total of 156 performances.

22. Her play on Broadway was taped during this run and subsequently broadcast by HBO as Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway in 1985.

23. While on Broadway, Goldberg's performance caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg. He was about to direct the film The Color Purple, based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, and offered her a leading role. The Color Purple was released in late 1985 and was a critical and commercial success. It was later nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including a nomination for Goldberg as Best Actress.

24. Goldberg has been married three times.

25. She was romantically linked with actors Frank Langella, Timothy Dalton, and, most famously, Ted Danson, who infamously appeared in blackface during her 1993 Friars Club roast.

26. She has stated that she has no future plans to marry again, commenting "Some people are not meant to be married and I am not meant to. I'm sure it is wonderful for lots of people."

27. In a 2011 interview with Piers Morgan, she explained that she never loved the men she married and commented "You have to really be committed to them. And I'm just-I don't have that commitment. I'm committed to my family."

28. In an October 2013 interview with Howard Stern, Whoopi admitted that she did love one man, not in the show business industry, who died of AIDS after contracting HIV from a blood transfusion.

29. On May 9, 1974, when Goldberg was 18, she and Alvin Martin had one daughter, Alexandrea Martin.

30. Her daugther Alexandrea Martin also became an actress and producer.

31. Goldberg became a grandmother at the age of 34 when her then-sixteen-year-old daughter gave birth to a daughter, Amara Skye, on Goldberg's birthday.

32. Granddaughter Jerzey followed on 7 February 1995 and grandson Mason on 28 September 1998.

33. Goldberg became a great-grandmother on March 15, 2014 when her granddaughter gave birth to a daughter named Charli Rose Burr-Reynaud.

34. Goldberg has admitted publicly to having been a "high functioning" drug addict years ago, at one point being too terrified to even leave her bed to go use the toilet.

35. She states that she smoked marijuana before accepting the Best Supporting Actress award for Ghost in 1991.

36. Goldberg has dyslexia.

37. 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.

38. Her admixture test indicates that she is of 92 percent sub-Saharan African origin and of 8 percent European origin.

39. Goldberg has received two Academy Award nominations, for The Color Purple and Ghost, winning for Ghost.

40. She is the first African American to have received Academy Award nominations for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.

41. She is the recipient of the 1985 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show for her solo performance on Broadway.

42. She has received eight Daytime Emmy nominations, winning two.

43. She has received three Golden Globe nominations, winning two (Best Actress in 1986 for The Color Purple, and Best Supporting Actress in 1991 for Ghost).

44. She won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1985 for "Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway," becoming only the second woman at the time to receive the award, and the first African-American woman.

45. Goldberg is one of only three women to receive that award.

46. Also for Ghost, she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1991.

47. She won a Tony Award in 2002 as a producer of the Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie.

48. She has won three People's Choice Awards.

49. She has been nominated for five American Comedy Awards with two wins (Funniest Supporting Actress in 1991 for Ghost and Funniest Actress in 1993 for Sister Act).

50. In 2001, she won the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center as well as the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry.

Source: Wikipedia.org