Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg
Goldberg on November 15, 2008
Birth name	Caryn Elaine Johnson
Born	(1955-11-13) November 13, 1955 (age 61) Manhattan, New York, United States
Medium	Stand-up, film, television, theatre, books
Years active	1982–present
Genres	Observational comedy, black comedy, insult comedy, musical comedy, character comedy, satire
Subject(s)	African-American culture, American politics, race relations, racism, marriage, sex, everyday life, pop culture, current events
Spouse	Alvin Martin (m. 1973; div. 1979) David Claessen (m. 1986; div. 1988) Lyle Trachtenberg (m. 1994; div. 1995)
Children	Alexandrea Martin

Caryn Elaine Johnson (born November 13, 1955), known professionally as Whoopi Goldberg (/ˈhwʊpi/), is an American actress, comedian, author and television host. She has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards for her work in television and is one of the few entertainers who has won an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Oscar, and a Tony Award. She was the second black woman in the history of the Academy Awards to win an acting Oscar.

In the period drama film, The Color Purple (1985), her breakthrough role was playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In the romantic fantasy film Ghost (1990), Goldberg played Oda Mae Brown, an eccentric psychic who helped a slain man (Patrick Swayze) save his lover (Demi Moore), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1992, she starred as a pretend nun in the comedy Sister Act. From 1998 to 2002, she was co-producer of the television game show Hollywood Squares. Since 2007, she has been the moderator of the daytime television talk show The View.