1980s: Early work and recognition 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. The show ran from October 24, 1984, to March 10, 1985, and was taped and broadcast by
HBO as
Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway. The recording of the special was awarded the
Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, making Goldberg the first Black female comedian to win the Grammy. 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. She won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for her portrayal of Celie, becoming the first Black actress to win in this category. 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. She made a guest appearance in
Michael Jackson's short film for the song "
Liberian Girl". As the 1980s concluded, she hosted numerous HBO specials of
Comic Relief with fellow comedians
Robin Williams and
Billy Crystal.
1990s: Mainstream breakthrough in 1998 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). She also won the
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and the
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture.
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 (equivalent to $ million in ), 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 versions of
Cinderella and
A Knight in Camelot. 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 (equivalent to $ billion in ).
2000s: Established actor and career expansion '' magazine 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 2001, Goldberg hosted the documentary short
The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas and later portrayed
Death in
Monkeybone. 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 the dietary supplement company
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. In 2002, Goldberg completed the
EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards) when she received the
Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Special as a producer of
Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel and the
Tony Award for Best Musical for producing
Thoroughly Modern Millie. She is the first Black woman to be an EGOT recipient. 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". 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. From August 2006 to March 2008, Goldberg hosted
Wake Up with Whoopi, a nationally syndicated morning
radio talk and entertainment program. 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. Goldberg 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.
2010s: Television and stage focus Goldberg has been a frequent guest narrator at
Disney's Candlelight Processional at
Walt Disney World. 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. 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 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 had a severe stroke. However, she later returned to the cast for five performances. The show closed on October 30, 2010. 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. In 2019, Goldberg's voice was used for the role of the Giant's Wife in the
Hollywood Bowl production of
Into the Woods.
2020s: Current work 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 also stars in the biographical film
Till (2021), written and directed by
Chinonye Chukwu, which she also produced. The film focuses on abduction and
lynching of
Emmett Till with Goldberg playing Till's grandmother, Alma Carthan. The film debuted at the
60th New York Film Festival. Goldberg guest starred on the
Disney Channel show
Amphibia as the character
Mother Olms. In 2023, she appeared in a cameo role in the musical film
The Color Purple playing a midwife. She also took supporting roles in the drama
Ezra (2023) and the western
Outlaw Posse (2024). Patrick Ryan of
USA Today agreed writing, "[She] is perfectly prickly and altogether hilarious in her first stage acting role in more than 15 years". Goldberg started filming the Italian
soap opera un posto al sole on November 17, 2025, in a recurring role. == Artistry ==