Whoopi Goldberg (born Caryn Elaine Johnson in 1955) is a highly successful American actress/singer/comedian. Known for tackling serious issues with a sense of humor, she became the highest-paid actress of all time during her peak in the 1990s. Whoopi's first film appearance was in the movie
The Color Purple, where she garnered an
Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for her performance as a mistreated African American woman in the
Deep South. Five years later, she won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar for her performance in the blockbuster title
Ghost.
Debatably, her most famous role is that of Las Vegas singer Deloris van Cartier, who hides from the mob as Sister Mary Clarence in the movie
Sister Act and its sequel. She also voiced the lead female Hyena, Shenzi, in the animated movie
The Lion King as well as recently doing voice work in
Toy Story 3 as Stretch. Another notable role would be that of Guinan in
Star Trek: The Next Generation. Whoopi was a fan of the original show and asked to appear in the series. (
Nichelle Nichols' role as Uhura in
TOS was one of her biggest driving inspirations for becoming an actress.)
She's appeared in over 150 different movies, and has won two Golden Globe Awards, an Oscar,
a Grammy, a Tony, three People's Choice Awards, two American Comedy Awards, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and two Daytime Emmy Awards. With such a large list of films she's been in, they tend to vary from great inspirational roles like in
The Color Purple, to... well,
Theodore Rex.
Currently, she leads the roundtable of women that comprise
The View.
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