Whoopi Goldberg Personal life Does Goldberg have any children? had a daughter, Alexandrea Martin, Is she married? Goldberg has been married three times Is she currently married? I don't know. Why did she get divorced? Some people are not meant to be married and I am not meant to. I'm sure it is wonderful for lots of people." Does she have family besides her daughter? Through her daughter, Goldberg has three grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? On August 29, 2010, Goldberg's mother Emma Johnson died after suffering a stroke.
Was Goldberg there with her when she passed?
Was Whoopi Goldberg there with her mother Emma Johnson when she passed?
Goldberg has been married three times--in 1973 to Alvin Martin (divorced in 1979, one daughter), on September 1, 1986 to cinematographer David Claessen (divorced in 1988), and on October 1, 1994 to the union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg (divorced in 1995).  She was romantically linked with actors Frank Langella, Timothy Dalton, and Ted Danson, who controversially appeared in blackface during her 1993 Friars Club roast. She has stated that she has no 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." 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."  When Goldberg was a teen she and first husband, Martin, had a daughter, Alexandrea Martin, who also became an actress and producer. Through her daughter, Goldberg has three grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.  On August 29, 2010, Goldberg's mother Emma Johnson died after suffering a stroke. She left London at the time, where she had been performing in Sister Act the Musical, but returned to perform on October 22, 2010. In 2015, Goldberg's brother Clyde died of a brain aneurysm.  Goldberg has stated that she was a "high functioning" drug addict years ago, at one point being too terrified to even leave her bed to use the toilet. She stated that she smoked marijuana before accepting the Best Supporting Actress award for Ghost in 1991. Goldberg has dyslexia. CANNOTANSWER
She left London at the time, where she had been performing in Sister Act the Musical, but returned to perform on October 22, 2010.
Caryn Elaine Johnson (born November 13, 1955), known professionally as Whoopi Goldberg (), is an American actor, comedian, author, and television personality. A recipient of numerous accolades, she is one of 16 entertainers to win the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award.

Goldberg began her career on stage in 1983 with her one-woman show, Spook Show, which transferred to Broadway under the title Whoopi Goldberg, running from 1984 to 1985. She won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for the recording of the show. Her film breakthrough came in 1985 with her role as Celie, a mistreated woman in the Deep South, in Steven Spielberg's period drama film The Color Purple, for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. For her performance as an eccentric psychic in the romantic fantasy film Ghost (1990), she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a second Golden Globe Award. She starred in the comedy Sister Act (1992), its sequel, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993) and "Theodore Rex" (1996).  She became the highest-paid actress at the time.

On stage, Goldberg has starred in the Broadway revivals of Stephen Sondheim's musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and August Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. She won a Tony Award as a producer of the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. On television, Goldberg portrayed Guinan in the science fiction series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since 2007, she has co-hosted and moderated the daytime talk show The View, for which she won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. She has hosted the Academy Awards ceremony four times.

Early life
Caryn Elaine Johnson was born in Manhattan, New York City, on November 13, 1955, the daughter of Robert James Johnson Jr. (1930–1993), a Baptist clergyman, and Emma Johnson (née Harris; 1931–2010), a nurse and teacher. She was raised in a public housing project, the Chelsea-Elliot Houses, in New York City.

Goldberg described her mother as a "stern, strong, and wise woman" who raised her as a single mother with her brother Clyde (c. 1949 – 2015). She attended a local Catholic school, St Columba's. Her more recent forebears migrated north from Faceville, Georgia; Palatka, Florida; and Virginia. She dropped out of Washington Irving High School.

She has stated that her stage forename ("Whoopi") was taken from a whoopee cushion: "When you're performing on stage, you never really have time to go into the bathroom and close the door. So 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."

About her stage surname, she claimed in 2011, "My mother did not name me Whoopi, but Goldberg is my name—it's part of my family, part of my heritage, just like being black," and "I just know I am Jewish. I practice nothing. I don't go to temple, but I do remember the holidays." She has stated that "people would say 'Come on, are you Jewish?' And I always say 'Would you ask me that if I was white? I bet not.'" One account suggests that her mother, Emma Johnson, thought the family's original surname was "not Jewish enough" for her daughter to become a star. Researcher Henry Louis Gates Jr. found that all of Goldberg's traceable ancestors were blacks, that she had no known German or Jewish ancestry, and that none of her ancestors was named Goldberg. 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 of West Africa. The show identified her great-great-grandparents William and Elsie Washington, who had acquired property in northern Florida in 1873, and mentions they were among a very small number of blacks who became landowners through homesteading in the years following the Civil War. The show also mentions that her grandparents were living in Harlem and that her grandfather was working as a Pullman porter.

According to an anecdote told by Nichelle Nichols in Trekkies (1997), a young Goldberg was watching Star Trek, and on seeing Nichols's character Uhura, exclaimed, "Momma! There's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!" This spawned Goldberg's lifelong Star Trek fandom, and she eventually asked for and received a recurring guest-star role as Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

In the 1970s, Goldberg moved to San Diego, California, where she became a waitress, then to Berkeley, where she worked odd jobs, including as a bank teller, a mortuary cosmetologist, and a bricklayer. She joined the avant-garde theater troupe the Blake Street Hawkeyes and gave comedy and acting classes; Courtney Love was one of her acting students. Goldberg was also in a number of theater productions. In 1978, she witnessed a midair collision of two planes in San Diego, causing her to develop a fear of flying and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Acting career

1980s
Goldberg trained under acting teacher Uta Hagen at the HB Studio in New York City. She first appeared onscreen in Citizen: I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away (1982), an avant-garde ensemble feature by San Francisco filmmaker William Farley.

In 1983 and 1984, she "first came to national prominence with her one-woman show" in which she portrayed Moms Mabley, Moms, first performed in Berkeley, California, and then at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco; the Oakland Museum of California preserves a poster advertising the show.

She created The Spook Show, a one-woman show composed of different character monologues in 1983. Director Mike Nichols "discovered" her when he saw her perform. In an interview, he recalled that he "burst into tears", and that he and Goldberg "fell into each other's arms" when they first met backstage. Goldberg considered Nichols her mentor. Nichols helped her transfer the show to Broadway; where it was retitled Whoopi Goldberg and ran from October 24, 1984, to March 10, 1985. It was taped during this run and broadcast by HBO as Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway in 1985.

Goldberg's Broadway performance caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg while she performed in The Belly Room at The Comedy Store. Spielberg gave her the lead role in his film The Color Purple, based on the novel by Alice Walker. It was released in late 1985 and was a critical and commercial success. Film critic Roger Ebert described Goldberg's performance as "one of the most amazing debut performances in movie history." It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including a nomination for Goldberg as Best Actress.

Between 1985 and 1988, Goldberg was the busiest female star, making seven films. She starred in Penny Marshall's directorial debut Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) and began a relationship with David Claessen, a director of photography on the set; they married later that year. The film was a modest success, and during the next two years, three additional motion pictures featured Goldberg: Burglar (1987), Fatal Beauty (1987), and The Telephone (1988). Though they were not as successful, Goldberg garnered awards from the NAACP Image Awards. Goldberg and Claessen divorced after the poor box office performance of The Telephone, in which she was contracted to perform. She tried unsuccessfully to sue the film's producers. Clara's Heart (1988) did poorly at the box office, though her own performance was critically acclaimed. As the 1980s concluded, she hosted numerous HBO specials of Comic Relief with fellow comedians Robin Williams and Billy Crystal.

1990s
In January 1990, Goldberg starred with Jean Stapleton in the situation comedy Bagdad Cafe (inspired by the 1987 film of the same name). The sitcom ran for two seasons on CBS. Simultaneously, she starred in The Long Walk Home, portraying a woman in the US civil rights movement. She played a psychic in the film Ghost (1990) and became the first black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in nearly 50 years, and the second black woman to win an Academy Award for acting (the first being Hattie McDaniel for Gone with the Wind in 1940). Premiere named her character Oda Mae Brown in its list of Top 100 best film characters.

Goldberg starred in Soapdish (1991) and had a recurring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation between 1988 and 1993 as Guinan, a character she reprised in two Star Trek films. She made a cameo in the Traveling Wilburys 1991 music video "Wilbury Twist". On May 29, 1992, the film Sister Act was released. It grossed well over US$200 million, and Goldberg was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. That year, she starred in The Player and Sarafina!. She also hosted the 34th Annual Grammy Awards, receiving praise from the Sun-Sentinels Deborah Wilker for bringing to life what Wilker considered "stodgy and stale" ceremonies. During the next year, Goldberg hosted a late-night talk show, The Whoopi Goldberg Show, and starred in two more films: Made in America and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. With an estimated salary of $7–12 million for Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), she was the highest-paid actress at the time. From 1994 to 1995, she appeared in Corrina, Corrina, The Lion King (voice), Theodore Rex, The Little Rascals, The Pagemaster (voice), Boys on the Side, and Moonlight and Valentino, and guest-starred on Muppets Tonight in 1996.

In 1994, Goldberg became the first black woman to host the Academy Awards ceremony starting with the 66th Oscar telecast. She hosted it again in 1996, 1999, and 2002, and has been regarded as one of the show's best hosts.

Goldberg starred in four motion pictures in 1996: Bogus (with Gérard Depardieu and Haley Joel Osment), Eddie, The Associate (with Dianne Wiest), and Ghosts of Mississippi (with Alec Baldwin and James Woods). During the filming of Eddie, she began dating co-star Frank Langella, a relationship that lasted until early 2000. In October 1997, she and ghostwriter Daniel Paisner cowrote Book, a collection featuring Goldberg's insights and opinions.

Also in 1996, Goldberg replaced Nathan Lane as Pseudolus in the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Greg Evans of Variety regarded her "thoroughly modern style" as "a welcome invitation to a new audience that could find this 1962 musical as dated as ancient Rome." The Washington Posts Chip Crews deemed Goldberg "a pip and a pro", and that she "ultimately [...] steers the show past its rough spots."

From 1998 to 2001, Goldberg took supporting roles in How Stella Got Her Groove Back with Angela Bassett, Girl, Interrupted with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, Kingdom Come, and Rat Race with an all-star ensemble cast. She starred in the ABC-TV versions of Cinderella, A Knight in Camelot, and Call Me Claus. In 1998 she gained a new audience when she became the "Center Square" on Hollywood Squares, hosted by Tom Bergeron. She also served as executive producer, for which she was nominated for four Emmy Awards. She left the series in 2002. In 1999, she voiced Ransome in the British animated children's show Foxbusters by Cosgrove Hall Films. AC Nielsen EDI ranked her as the actress appearing in the most theatrical films in the 1990s, with 29 films grossing $1.3 billion in the U.S. and Canada.

2000s
Goldberg hosted the documentary short The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas (2001). In 2003, she returned to television in Whoopi, which was canceled after one season. On her 46th birthday, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She also appeared alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett in the HBO documentary Unchained Memories (2003), narrating slave narratives. During the next two years, she became a spokeswoman for Slim Fast and produced two television series: Lifetime's original drama Strong Medicine, which ran six seasons; and Whoopi's Littleburg, a children's television series on Nickelodeon.

Goldberg returned to the stage in 2003, starring as blues singer Ma Rainey in the Broadway revival of August Wilson's historical drama Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Royale Theatre. She was also one of the show's producers.

Goldberg was involved in controversy at a fundraiser for John Kerry at Radio City Music Hall in New York in July 2004 when she made a sexual joke about President George W. Bush by waving a bottle of wine, pointed toward her pubic area, and said, "We should keep Bush where he belongs, and not in the White House." As result, Slim-Fast dropped her from their ad campaign. Later that year, she revived her one-woman show at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway in honor of its 20th anniversary; Charles Isherwood of The New York Times called the opening night performance an "intermittently funny but sluggish evening of comic portraiture." Goldberg made guest appearances on Everybody Hates Chris as elderly character Louise Clarkson.

From August 2006 to March 2008, Goldberg hosted Wake Up with Whoopi, a nationally syndicated morning radio talk and entertainment program. In October 2007, Goldberg announced on the air that she was going to retire from acting because she was no longer sent scripts, saying, "You know, there's no room for the very talented Whoopi. There's no room right now in the marketplace of cinema". On December 13, 2008, she guest starred on The Naked Brothers Band, a Nickelodeon rock- mockumentary television series. Before the episode premiered, on February 18, 2008, the band performed on The View and the band members were interviewed by Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd. That same year, Goldberg hosted 62nd Tony Awards.

2010s

In 2010, she starred in the Tyler Perry movie For Colored Girls, alongside Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, Thandie Newton, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose, Kimberly Elise, Kerry Washington, and Macy Gray. The film received generally good reviews from critics and grossed over $38 million worldwide. The same year, she voiced Stretch in the Disney/Pixar animated movie Toy Story 3. The movie received critical acclaim and grossed $1.067 billion worldwide.

Goldberg had a recurring role on the television series Glee during its third and fourth seasons as Carmen Tibideaux, a renowned Broadway performer and opera singer and the dean at a fictional performing arts college NYADA (New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts). In 2011, she had a cameo in The Muppets. In 2012, Goldberg guest starred as Jane Marsh, Sue Heck's guidance counselor on The Middle. She voiced the Magic Mirror on Disney XD's The 7D. In 2014, she also portrayed a character in the superhero film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014). She also appeared as herself in Chris Rock's Top Five and starred in the romantic comedy film Big Stone Gap.

In 2016, Goldberg executive produced a reality television series called Strut, based on transgender models from the modeling agency Slay Model Management in Los Angeles. The series aired on Oxygen. In 2017, she voiced Ursula, the Sea Witch and Uma's mother, in the TV movie Descendants 2. In 2018, she starred in the Tyler Perry's film Nobody's Fool, alongside Tiffany Haddish, Omari Hardwick, Mehcad Brooks, Amber Riley and Tika Sumpter. That same year, she also starred in the comedy-drama film Furlough, alongside Tessa Thompson, Melissa Leo and Anna Paquin.

2020s
In an appearance on The View on January 22, 2020, Patrick Stewart invited Goldberg to reprise her role as Guinan during the second season of Star Trek: Picard. She immediately accepted his offer. Goldberg also starred in The Stand, a CBS All Access miniseries based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Stephen King, portraying Mother Abagail, a 108-year-old woman. In 2020, it was announced Goldberg was set to return in Sister Act 3 with Tyler Perry producing. The film is slated to debut on Disney+.

Goldberg is also set to star in the biographical film Till, written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu.

Influences 
Goldberg has stated that her influences are Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Moms Mabley, Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers, Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, Sidney Poitier, and Harry Belafonte.

Other ventures

The View

On September 4, 2007, Goldberg became the new moderator and co-host of The View, replacing Rosie O'Donnell. Goldberg's debut as moderator drew 3.4 million viewers, 1 million fewer than O'Donnell's debut ratings. However, after 2 weeks, The View was averaging 3.5 million total viewers under Goldberg, a 7 percent increase from 3.3 million under O'Donnell the previous season.

Goldberg has made controversial comments on the program on several occasions. One of her first appearances involved defending Michael Vick's participation in dogfighting as a result of "cultural upbringing". In 2009, she opined that Roman Polanski's rape conviction of a thirteen-year-old in 1977 was not "rape-rape". She later clarified that she had intended to distinguish between statutory rape and forcible rape. The following year, in response to alleged comments by Mel Gibson considered racist, she said: "I don't like what he did here, but I know Mel and I know he's not a racist".

In 2015, Goldberg was initially a defender of Bill Cosby from the rape allegations made against him, asserting he should be considered innocent until proven guilty, and questioning why Cosby had never been arrested or tried for them. She later changed her stance, stating that "all of the information that's out there kinda points to 'guilt'." After learning that the statute of limitations on these allegations had expired and thus could not be tried, she also stated her support for removing the statute of limitations for rape.

On January 31, 2022, Goldberg drew widespread criticism for stating on the show that the Holocaust was not based on race but "about man's inhumanity to man", telling her co-hosts: "This is white people doing it to white people, so y'all going to fight amongst yourselves." She apologized on Twitter later that day. She maintained that the Nazis' issue was with ethnicity and not race on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that same day, which drew further criticism. Goldberg issued another apology on air the following day. She was subsequently suspended from The View for two weeks over the comments, and returned February 2022.

Media appearances

Goldberg performed the role of Califia, the Queen of the Island of California, for a theater presentation called Golden Dreams at Disney California Adventure Park, the second gate at the Disneyland Resort, in 2000. The show, which explains the history of the Golden State (California), opened on February 8, 2001, with the rest of the park. Golden Dreams closed in September 2008 to make way for the upcoming Little Mermaid ride planned for DCA. In 2001, Goldberg co-hosted the 50th Anniversary of I Love Lucy.

In July 2006, Goldberg became the main host of the Universal Studios Hollywood Studio Tour, in which she appears multiple times in video clips shown to the guests on monitors placed on the trams.

She made a guest appearance on the situation comedy 30 Rock during the series' fourth season, in which she played herself, counseling Tracy Jordan on winning the "EGOT", the coveted combination of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards. On July 14, 2008, Goldberg announced on The View that from July 29 to September 7, she would perform in the Broadway musical Xanadu. On November 13, 2008, Goldberg's birthday, she announced live on The View that she would be producing, along with Stage Entertainment, the premiere of Sister Act: The Musical at the London Palladium.

She gave a short message at the beginning of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2008 wishing all the participants good luck, and stressing the importance of UNICEF, the official charity of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Since its launch in 2008, Goldberg has been a contributor for wowOwow.com, a new website for women to talk culture, politics, and gossip.

On December 18 through 20, 2009, Goldberg performed in the Candlelight Processional at Epcot in Walt Disney World. She was given a standing ovation during her final performance for her reading of the Christmas story and her tribute to the guest choirs performing in the show with her. She made a guest appearance in Michael Jackson's short film for the song "Liberian Girl". She also appeared on the seventh season of the cooking reality series Hell's Kitchen as a special guest. On January 14, 2010, Goldberg made a one-night-only appearance at the Minskoff Theatre to perform in the mega-hit musical The Lion King. That same year, she attended the Life Ball in Austria.

Goldberg made her West End debut as the Mother Superior in a musical version of Sister Act for a limited engagement set for August 10–31, 2010, but prematurely left the cast on August 27 to be with her family; her mother had suffered from a severe stroke. However, she later returned to the cast for five performances. The show closed on October 30, 2010.

Entrepreneurship
Goldberg is co-founder of Whoopi & Maya, a company that makes medical cannabis products for women seeking relief from menstrual cramps. Goldberg says she was inspired to go into business by "a lifetime of difficult periods and the fact that cannabis was literally the only thing that gave me relief". The company was launched in April 2016.

Philanthropy and activism

In 2006, Goldberg appeared during the 20th anniversary of Comic Relief. Goldberg is an advocate for human rights, moderating a panel at the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit on how social networks can be used to fight violent extremism in 2008, and also moderating a panel at the UN on human rights, children and armed conflict, terrorism, human rights, and reconciliation in 2009.

On April 1, 2010, Goldberg joined Cyndi Lauper in the launch of her Give a Damn campaign to bring a wider awareness of discrimination of the LGBT community and to invite straight people to ally with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community. Her high-profile support for LGBT rights and AIDS activism dates from the 1987 March on Washington, in which she participated. On an episode of The View that aired on May 9, 2012, Goldberg stated she is a member of the National Rifle Association. In May 2017, she spoke in support of transgender rights at the 28th GLAAD Media Awards.

Goldberg is on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service. She also serves on the National Council Advisory Board of the National Museum of American Illustration. She was a speaker at the 2017 Women's March in New York City and was such again at the following year's event.

On January 24, 2021, Goldberg appeared with Tom Everett Scott as guests on the Amairican Grabbuddies marathon fundraising episode of The George Lucas Talk Show, where she spoke of her time working on Snow Buddies and raised money for the ASPCA.

Personal life
Goldberg has been married three times. She was married to Alvin Martin from 1973 to 1979; to cinematographer David Claessen from 1986 to 1988; and to union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg from 1994 to 1995. She has been romantically linked to actors Frank Langella and Ted Danson. Danson controversially appeared in blackface during her 1993 Friars Club roast; Goldberg wrote some of his jokes for the event and defended Danson after a media furor.

She has stated that she has no plans to marry again: "Some people are not meant to be married and I am not meant to. I'm sure it is wonderful for lots of people." 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...I don't have that commitment. I'm committed to my family."

In 1973, Goldberg gave birth to a daughter, Alexandrea Martin, who also became an actress and producer. Through her daughter, Goldberg has three grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. On August 29, 2010, Goldberg's mother, Emma Johnson, died after suffering a stroke. She left London at the time, where she had been performing in the musical Sister Act, but returned to perform on October 22, 2010. In 2015, Goldberg's brother Clyde died of a brain aneurysm.

In 1991, Goldberg spoke out about her abortion in The Choices We Made: Twenty-Five Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion. In that book, she spoke about using a coat hanger to terminate a pregnancy at age 14. She said she had had six or seven abortions by the age of 25 and that birth control pills failed to stop several of her pregnancies. Goldberg has stated that she was once a "functioning" drug addict. She has stated that she smoked marijuana before accepting the Best Supporting Actress award for Ghost in 1991.

Goldberg has dyslexia. She has lived in Llewellyn Park, a neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey, saying she moved there to be able to be outside in private. She has expressed a preference for defining herself by the gender-neutral term "actor" rather than "actress", saying: "An actress can only play a woman. I'm an actor–I can play anything." In March 2019, Goldberg revealed that she had been battling pneumonia and sepsis, which caused her to take a leave of absence from The View.

Acting credits

Awards and honors

Having acted in over 150 films, Goldberg is one of the 16 people to achieve the EGOT, having won the four major American awards for professional entertainers: an Emmy (Television), a Grammy (Music), an Oscar (Film), and a Tony (Theater). She is the only black woman to have achieved all four awards.

Goldberg has received two Academy Award nominations, for The Color Purple and Ghost, winning for Ghost. She is the first African-American actor to have received Academy Award nominations for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. 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). For Ghost, she also won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1991.

She won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1985 for "Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway", becoming only the second solo woman performer—not part of a duo or team—at the time to receive the award, and the first African-American woman. Goldberg is one of only three single women performers to receive that award. She won a Tony Award in 2002 as a producer of the Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. She has received eight Daytime Emmy nominations, winning two. She has received nine Primetime Emmy nominations. In 2009, Goldberg won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host for her work on The View. She shared the award with her then co-hosts Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Barbara Walters.

Goldberg is the recipient of the 1985 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show for her solo performance on Broadway. She has won three People's Choice Awards. 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). She was the three-time (and inaugural) winner of the Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actress. In 2001, she became the first African-American female to receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

In 1990, Goldberg was officially named an honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters exhibition basketball team by the members. In 1999, she received the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Vanguard Award for her continued work in supporting the gay and lesbian community, 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. In July 2010, the Ride of Fame honored Goldberg with a double-decker tour bus in New York City for her life's achievements. In 2017, Goldberg was named a Disney Legend for her contributions to the Walt Disney Company.

Discography
 1985: Original Broadway Recording (Geffen/Warner Bros. Records)
 1985: The Color Purple (Qwest/Warner Bros. Records)
 1988: Fontaine: Why Am I Straight? (MCA Records)
 1989: The Long Walk Home (Miramax Films)
 1992: Sarafina (Qwest/Warner Bros. Records)
 1992: Sister Act – Soundtrack (Hollywood/Elektra Records)
 1993: Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit – Soundtrack (Hollywood/Elektra Records)
 1994: Corrina Corrina (New Line Cinema)
 2001: Call Me Claus (One Ho Productions)
 2005: Live on Broadway: The 20th Anniversary Show (DRG Records)

Bibliography
Children's books
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Non-fiction

See also
 Broadcast journalism
 List of people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards
 List of black Academy Award winners and nominees
 List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
 New Yorkers in journalism

References

Further reading

External links
 
 
 
 
 
 Whoopi Goldberg at Emmys.com
 
 Interview with The Sunday Telegraph, May 2009
 

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Dana Goldberg (born 1976) is an American comedian. She is especially known in the gay community, as Goldberg herself is gay. She is a weekly guest on The Stephanie Miller Show on SiriusXM and hosts her own podcast, Out in Left Field With Dana Goldberg on Advocate.com. She hosts an annual show in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  
In 2013, she was named a finalist in the Advocate'''s Stand Out: The National Queer Comedy Search. In 2017, she hosted the Los Angeles Resist March. Also in 2017, she performed at Trevor Live in New York City on a bill featuring John Oliver and Imagine Dragons. In 2019, she spoke at Lambda Legal's annual National Liberty Awards. In television, Goldberg has appeared on LOGO with her comedy special One Night Stand Up: Episode 4, filmed at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall.

Early life
Goldberg was raised in a single-parent Jewish household with a brother and a sister in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She came out as gay at age 18. One of her siblings, her brother, is also gay. She and her mother began receiving feedback on her humor when she was five, when her kindergarten teacher told her mother that Goldberg "was the funniest 5-year-old" she had ever met. She also had a musical bent, playing drums for many years, eventually auditioning for STOMP in 2001, first auditioning in San Francisco. She was selected for a call-back with a group of 125 out of 2,000, which took her to New York, though she did not make the final cut. (I Love My Wife podcast, Episode 54, 30:43).

Education
Goldberg holds a degree in physical education.

Career
Goldberg's early comedy influences were Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal. She first performed her comedy at age 17 in her high school talent show. She was selected as its winner. She launched her career around 2000, when she was 26, and her first professional show, the philanthropic scholarship-raising Funny Lesbians For A Change, occurred in 2003 in Albuquerque. Early in her career, Goldberg traveled with a group of 13 comedians to perform as part of the U.S. Comedy Invasion at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The death of her father in 2008 propelled her to "take the chance" on comedy by quitting her bartending job to pursue stand-up full-time.

In 2014, Goldberg performed at Black Tie Dinner, with 3,500 people in attendance and over $140,000 raised for charity in its live auction.

In 2017, Goldberg performed at the inaugural Portland Queer Comedy Festival.

In 2018, Goldberg appeared in the film Genesis: The Future of Mankind Is Woman alongside Meredith Baxter, Robert Romanus, and Suzanne Westenhoefer. Also in 2018, Goldberg was interviewed on the podcast LGBTQ&A, created and hosted by Jeffrey Masters, podcast director at the Advocate and Out''. In September 2018, she emceed Equality California's Equality Awards.

In 2019, Goldberg performed at the Beverly Hills Bar Association. She also reprised her 2014 role at Black Tie Dinner, hosting the event's live auction. In addition, she performed at the Human Rights Campaign's Los Angeles Dinner along with Betty Who and Shea Diamond.

Philanthropy
Goldberg is a regular attendee at major Human Rights Campaign events, at which she has also served as emcee. She has also emceed Trevor Project and GLAAD events. Through performing standup, she has helped raise money for HIV/AIDS causes, such as shows in benefit of the AIDS Foundation. She has also performed at Caroline's on Broadway to benefit the Lesbian Political Action Committee (LPAC).

Discography

Podcasts

References

American women comedians
21st-century American comedians
American stand-up comedians
Lesbian comedians
1976 births
Living people
21st-century American women
21st-century LGBT people Lucianne Steinberger Goldberg (born Lucianne Steinberger; April 29, 1935), also known as Lucianne Cummings, is an American literary agent and author.  

Goldberg was named as one of the ‘key players’ in the 1998 impeachment of President Clinton, as it was she who controversially advised Monica Lewinsky’s confidante Linda Tripp to tape Monica’s phone calls about their affair. The 20-hour recording became crucial to the Starr investigation. Goldberg claimed that her motive was purely to expose immorality in public life.

She is the mother of Jonah Goldberg, a conservative political commentator.

Early life and education
She was born Lucianne Steinberger in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dr. Raymond Leonard and Lucy Jane (Moseley) von Steinberger. She grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C., where her father was employed as a government physicist, and her mother was a physiotherapist. She attended high school in Alexandria, leaving at age 16 to begin working. She married her high school sweetheart, William Cummings; the couple separated after three years of marriage and later divorced.

Early career
Goldberg started her literary career at a very early age at The Washington Post, during her secondary education. Goldberg decided to seek the opportunity as a press aide in Lyndon Johnson's unsuccessful 1960 campaign for president. After John F. Kennedy won the Democratic nomination, she got a position at the Democratic National Committee followed by a spot on Kennedy's Inaugural Committee. She has said she served on Kennedy's White House staff, but according to the Washington Post, her name does not appear on any staff records. In response, she explained that she worked in the Old Executive Office Building doing opposition research, then worked out of the National Press Building in public relations.

Public relations firm
In 1963, she opened up her own one-person public relations firm, Lucianne Cummings & Associates. She received national media attention in 1965 when she attempted to sell a handwritten note from Jackie Kennedy to Lady Bird Johnson through an auction house for $1000 ($ in today's dollars). She had come into possession of the note when acting as a messenger for Kennedy in 1960. Upon hearing of the auction, the First Lady became irate, and demanded that the note be returned to the White House. Cummings apologized and returned the note, then found out the next day that her income tax returns were going to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service.

In 1966, she married Sidney Goldberg, who was then the executive editor of the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA), later acquired by United Features Syndicate. She took the name Goldberg upon her marriage and worked for the Women's News Service, also a subsidiary of United Features Syndicate.

Conservative activism and Watergate era
In 1970, Goldberg and her friend Jeannie Sakol founded an organization called the "Pussycat League" to oppose the women's liberation movement, and in 1971 she and Sakol published Purr Baby Purr, a critique of feminism.

During the 1972 presidential campaign, she joined the press corps covering Democratic candidate George McGovern claiming to be a reporter for the Women's News Service, though she was on leave of absence from that position. In fact Goldberg was being paid $1000 a week – $ in today's dollars – to spy on McGovern and those traveling with him on the campaign's planes. When recruited, she was told President Nixon himself had approved the spying, which was to include traditional political intelligence and information on personal habits: "'They were looking for really dirty stuff,' [she] said. 'Who was sleeping with whom, what the Secret Service men were doing with the stewardesses, who was smoking pot on the plane – that sort of thing. I was told to send it all along.'" Goldberg's role as a reporter-spy came to light in the Watergate hearings that led to the resignation of Nixon.

Feminist Betty Friedan alleged in June 1973 that Goldberg, as an organizer of the Pussycat League, had been attempting to derail the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment by engaging in Watergate-style "dirty tricks" and by touring the country falsely telling women they would lose their husbands and rights to family support if the amendment was passed.

Literary agent and author
Goldberg ultimately set up her own literary agency and became known as a promoter of "right-wing, tell-all attack books", according to The New York Times. One of her clients, celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley, sued her in 1983 over proceeds from foreign sales of Kelley's unauthorized biography on Elizabeth Taylor. Kelley ultimately won a judgment of $40,000, with the judge declaring that Goldberg was only guilty of "sloppy bookkeeping". Goldberg was also the U.S. agent for the memoirs of Prince Charles' former valet, which were blocked for publication in England by Queen Elizabeth. In the early 1990s, Goldberg promoted a conspiracy theory book about the suicide death of Clinton White House aide, Vincent Foster, and several books dealing with Clinton's purported sexual infidelities including one by Arkansas state troopers who alleged they had procured women to have sex with then-Governor Bill Clinton. None of the Clinton-themed books were ever published. Goldberg was also the agent for former detective Mark Fuhrman's bestselling account of the O.J. Simpson trial, Murder in Brentwood.

Goldberg has written several novels. Friends in High Places co-written with Sondra Robinson, was published in 1979. Her first solo novel Madame Cleo's Girls, a story of three high-priced call girls, was published in 1992, followed by People Will Talk in 1994. She has also ghostwritten for celebrities; the romance novel Washington Wives (1987) (penned under the name of Maureen Dean, wife of Watergate figure John Dean) is one of her behind-the-scenes works.

Monica Lewinsky scandal

The Tripp tapes
Goldberg met Linda Tripp in 1993 or 1994 while working on the proposal for the book on the death of Clinton aide Vince Foster. The two women became friends, and in 1997 Goldberg advised Tripp to secretly record former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, talking about her sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton. Goldberg advised Tripp that it was legal to record phone conversations in Maryland without the consent of the other party; in fact it was illegal to do so.

Goldberg urged Tripp to take the resulting 20 hours of tapes to Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr who had a broad mandate to investigate improprieties by Clinton. Goldberg also brought the tapes to the attention of lawyers working on the Paula Jones sexual harassment case against Clinton. The tapes became crucial to Starr's investigation on whether Clinton committed perjury during a sworn deposition when he denied his affair with Lewinsky, which led to his impeachment by the House and acquittal by the Senate.

Soon after the secret taping began in the fall of 1997, Goldberg arranged for Tripp to speak with Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, who had been investigating other allegations about Clinton's sex life. After the scandal became public in January 1998, Goldberg was interviewed frequently by the media. She declared that the tapes proved that Lewinsky and Clinton had had a sexual relationship, and previewed other highlights of the Clinton–Lewinsky affair such as the existence of a semen-stained dress which later proved to have Clinton's DNA.

The Washington Post called her "the producer and publicist" who set the stage for the scandal and the investigation, she called herself the "facilitator". Of Goldberg's role in the scandal, Time magazine said; "At a minimum, she is forever sealed in history as the New York City literary agent who uttered to her friend the most ruinous sentence of the Clinton presidency: 'Linda, buy a tape recorder.'" Author Jeffrey Toobin named her as one of the seven "Key Players" in the impeachment.

Goldberg said her actions in helping to disclose the Lewinsky–Clinton affair were motivated by her sense that general morality had declined, and that America needed "a wake-up call". She also said that the disclosure of Lewinsky's affair with Clinton helped to protect Lewinsky, who suffered from an obsessive infatuation with Clinton. During this time, Goldberg made no secret of her personal animus toward Clinton, saying she was glad Clinton was getting caught "at something", and that "[i]f it took this to get him, fine". She also said she was a political independent, though she was described in the press as having long standing ties to the Republican Party.

Repercussions
In the aftermath of the disclosures about the Clinton–Lewinsky affair, Goldberg was subjected to media attacks on her character and past business dealings. The Democratic National Committee faxed an unflattering "information sheet" on Goldberg to reporters within days after the story broke. Goldberg admitted that slurs on her own character were to be expected, '"I have never thought of myself as a victim in all this," she [said]. '"Never. Let them take their best shot."' She later said she had been worn down by the scrutiny.

Goldberg denied allegations made in the media that she was part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to bring down the presidency of Bill Clinton. When Jeffrey Toobin published his 1999 book, A Vast Conspiracy, that also alleged Goldberg had told friends that she had an affair with Lyndon Johnson, and a Washington Post writer claimed he and others had overheard Goldberg bragging about an affair with Vice President Hubert Humphrey as well, Goldberg threatened Toobin and Random House with a libel suit, denied both affairs, and denied telling any such stories.

Goldberg was subpoenaed to testify before a Maryland grand jury that was contemplating indicting Tripp for having made the recordings. Under Maryland law, knowledge that such recordings were illegal was a necessary element of the crime. Goldberg explained that she had given Tripp incorrect advice, telling her it was legal to make secret recordings. Charges against Tripp were later dropped.

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore later set up a webcam focused on the windows of Goldberg's Manhattan apartment, that he called "I See Lucy Cam". Moore's project did not violate New York State's laws. Claiming that Goldberg did not respect the privacy rights of other people, Moore wrote, "`[s]he believes in keeping an eye on persons who are a threat to the country. So do we.'"  Goldberg responded by "selling advertisements to be placed on her window for $1,000 a week".

Later career
Goldberg was a prominent presence on the conservative website, Free Republic in the late 1990s, posting under the name "Trixie". She and other conservatives, including Matt Drudge, left the site when the webmaster, in Goldberg's words, "let all the Y2K, gun-nut, Jew-baiting crazies take over [the forum] and flame the plain-old conservatives". She then founded her own website, "Lucianne.com", and for a time, was a nationally syndicated talk radio host whose show featured a Washington correspondent.

Goldberg was portrayed by Margo Martindale in season three of American Crime Story, Impeachment.

Personal life
Lucianne was married to Sidney Goldberg, a newspaper executive with United Features Syndicate from 1966 until his death in 2005. The couple had two children. Joshua (1967–2011) was the editor of her websites, and was the 2009 Republican nominee for the New York City Council seat representing district number six on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He lost the election to the now Manhattan Borough President,  Gale Brewer. Jonah (b. 1969) is a best selling author and conservative political commentator. The children were raised in their father's Jewish faith, while Lucianne, who was raised an Episcopalian, remained a Christian.

References

External links
 The Montreal Gazette Excerpt from Goldberg's first book, Purr Baby, Purr
 "Goldberg a Veteran at Recording Gossip", George Lardner Jr., (February 4, 1998), The Washington Post.

1935 births
Living people
American Episcopalians
American whistleblowers
Literary agents
Writers from Alexandria, Virginia
Writers from Boston
People from the Upper West Side
Journalists from Washington, D.C.
American political blogs
The Washington Post people
George Washington University alumni
Massachusetts Democrats
Washington, D.C. Democrats
Clinton–Lewinsky scandal