Black History Fact: Whoopi Goldberg

Did you guys know that Whoopi Goldberg real name is Caryn Elaine Johnson?  Did you also know that she made her film debut in The Color Purple (1985) playing Celie? A mistreated black woman in the south. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won her first Golden Globe Award for her role in the film. In 1990, she starred as Oda Mae Brown, a psychic helping a slain manPatrick Swayze find his killer in the blockbuster film Ghost. This performance won her a second Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Notable later films include Sister Act (1992) and Sister Act 2 (1993), Made in America (1993), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), Girl, Interrupted (1999) and Rat Race (2001). She is also acclaimed for her role as the bartender Guinan in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Goldberg has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards for her work in television. She was the co-producer and center square of the latest edition game showHollywood Squares from 1998 to 2002. She has achieved success on Broadway and in the music industry, and is one of 10 people who have won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony (EGOT) Awards. In addition, she has won a British Academy Film Award, four People’s Choice Awards and has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Currently, Goldberg is moderator and co-host of The View, which earned her an Emmy in 2009. She is currently the producer of Head Games, a science themed game show.

On September 4, 2007, Goldberg became the new moderator and co-host of The View, replacing Rosie O’Donnell. O’Donnell stated on her official blog that she wanted Goldberg to be moderator. Goldberg’s debut as moderator drew 3.4 million viewers, 1 million fewer than O’Donnell’s debut ratings. After two weeks, however, The View was averaging 3.5 million total viewers under Goldberg, a 7% increase from 3.3 million under O’Donnell the previous season.

Goldberg’s first appearance on the show was controversial when she made statements about Michael Vick’s dogfighting as being “part of his cultural upbringing” and “not all that unusual” in parts of the South. Another comment that stirred controversy was the statement that the Chinese “have a very different relationship to cats” and that “you and I would be very pissed if somebody ate kitty.”

Some defended Goldberg, including her co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, saying that her comments were taken out of context by the press, because she repeated several times that she did not condone what Vick did.^[20]

On more than one occasion, Goldberg has expressed strong disagreement and irritation with different remarks made by Elisabeth Hasselbeck, such as on October 3, 2007, when Hasselbeck commented that Hillary Clinton’s proposed US$ 5,000 baby entitlement might lead to fewer abortions because of women wanting to keep the money.

Goldberg also created controversy when on September 28, 2009, during a discussion of Roman Polanski’s case, she opined that Polanski’s rape of a thirteen year old in 1977 was not “rape-rape”. Goldberg later reasoned that she was “only referring” to the legal charge against Polanksi at the time 30 years ago, which was later classified as statutory rape, i.e. unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, and that her comment was not in support of his freedom.

Kudo’s to Whoopi a very accomplished woman who isn’t afraid to be herself.