Who

Goldberg is a foul-mouthed comedienne, iconic 1980s actress, and one of the heads of the evil Hydra that is The View.

Backstory

Born Caryn Elaine Johnson, Whoopi grew up in a housing project in Chelsea and dropped out of high school on account of her dyslexia. She spent the late 1970s trying to make it as an actor—and struggling with a heroin addiction—cleaning up when she had a baby at 19. In order to pursue a showbiz career, she moved to California and took a series of bizarre jobs to make ends meet as a single parent, including doing hair and makeup for corpses at a funeral parlor and working as a bricklayer. She eventually decided to move back to New York and worked the stand-up comedy circuit, before writing and starring in a 1983 one-woman off-Broadway show called The Spook Show. The show caught the attention of director Mike Nichols, who helped Goldberg bring her act to Broadway the following year; it also attracted the attention of Steven Spielberg and led to her big screen debut in The Color Purple in 1985. The award-winning film (which also helped make Oprah's career) established Goldberg as a legit actress, and she went on to parts in Ghost and Star Trek: The Next Generation. She's since hosted the Academy Awards, written three books, made countless TV and film appearances, and done voice-over work in animated films.

Of note

Until recently Goldberg's career had been relatively sleepy: There'd been a few cameos on shows like Law & Order and Everybody Hates Chris, a low-profile radio show, Wake Up With Whoopi, and she'd also done a few commercials for such winning products as SlimFast. (She lost the gig in 2004 when she made some raunchy jokes at Bush's expense at a Democratic fundraiser.) Everything changed in August 2007 when it was announced she was joining chat-fest The View. Now the show's resident liberal, she gets to sits alongside Barbara Walters and Joy Behar and clash with her Jesus-loving co-stars Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd.

Trophy case

Whoopi is one of very few people who can boast she's won all five of the biggies: She picked up an Oscar for Ghost, a Golden Globe for The Color Purple, a Tony as producer of Thoroughly Modern Millie, an Emmy for Back to Broadway, and a Grammy for her 1985 comedy album.

Personal

Married and divorced three times, Whoopi's first marriage, at age 19, was to her drug counselor. She later married and divorced cinematographer David Claessen and union rep Lyle Trachtenberg. In between, Goldberg has dated playwright David Schein, Ted Danson, cameraman Eddie Gold and actor Frank Langella. In 2000, she announced plans to marry director Michael Visbal, but she got cold feet and they broke up in 2004. She has a daughter, Alexandrea, from her first marriage, and is now a grandma to Amarah Skye (born in 1993) and Jerzy (born in 1995).

Habitat

Goldberg lives in a SoHo loft, where she keeps her Oscar statuette on a windowsill. She relaxes on weekends at her 745-acre farm in Vermont, which she affectionately describes as the "whitest state in the nation."

True story

Never one to shy away from a scat joke, Goldberg claims her nickname arose after someone compared her flatulence to a whoopie cushion.