She used to spend hours on end in a mortuary… wait, what?
Yep, Whoopi had a job working with dead people, and you won't believe what she did to them!
From acting to hosting, stage to television and film, comedy to drama — Whoopi Goldberg
has done it all, with her no-nonsense attitude, characteristic grin and impeccable sense of
humour.
She's been unapologetic about every role she's ever taken.
That's just who she is and what she does.
Is that how she caught the eye of Steven Spielberg?
With all her success, why would she have to get funds through Kickstarter?
And why does she credit Patrick Swayze for her Oscar?
In today’s video, we’ll tell you what shocking thing she’s done at the Oscars
and then some.
Before becoming a certified rock-star of the movie industry, Goldberg worked all sorts
of jobs.
Some were standard, like a bank teller and waitress, or a bit different like a bricklayer,
but others were… interesting.
The future all-sort-of-awards winner used to be a mortuary makeup artist.
Yep.
You heard that right.
That's how she made her first dollar – by working in a morgue.
She was the individual that would make the bodies look beautiful by putting makeup on
them to be presented to loved ones for the funeral.
It almost seems as though you'd need an iron stomach for this.
On her first day at work, Whoopi was called to the boss's office, where the dead bodies
were kept in drawers.
She panicked when one of the drawers behind her opened and someone sat up and waved at
her, but then she realised it was her boss.
Funnily enough, people who work with dead bodies seem to have a good sense of humour.
He told her she just had to imagine the dead bodies were dolls whose hair and makeup needed
fixing.
She was "fine with it" after this, but it certainly doesn't sound like a to-die-for
job.
Still, the young actor took the job to provide for her infant daughter.
The future star gave birth to Alex Martin when she was just 18 years old.
Only a year before that, Whoopi’s life was drastically different.
She dropped out of high school and started doing drugs.
"I took drugs because they were available to everyone at that time," she said.
When she finally sought help, cleaned herself up, she ended up marrying the counsellor that
helped her through the rough time.
A year later, Whoopi gave birth.
Less than a year after that, she was divorced and trying to get by, taking on all kinds
of available jobs.
The actor’s other rather unconventional job was as a phone sex operator.
She made the shocking confession about her past on The View in 2011, adding that the
money was "great".
Of course, you have to be quite good at acting to do the job, right?
You'd think that this job would prepare young Whoopi for all the awkward sex scenes actors
usually dread or laugh away at.
Well, not really.
Turns out, the great Whoopi Goldberg, who's done tons of movies, has never been in one!
Whoa!
While she was doing the glamorous work of laying bricks and beautifying dead bodies,
Whoopi Goldberg constantly tried to make her acting dream come true and discover her own
comedic and dramatic acting skills.
During her theatre years, Goldberg came up with a one-woman act in which she played SEVENTEEN
different personalities.
She titled this The Spook Show and performed it on the West Coast, after which she took
it to New York.
The characters range from a pregnant 13-year-old to a person with paraplegia who dreams of
walking again.
She based these on people she knew, and the act was widely praised, appearing on Broadway
and later broadcast by HBO.
The Sister Act's alum got her big breakthrough when she caught Steven Spielberg's eye.
Goldberg's performance was so powerful that he immediately offered her the lead role in
his adaptation of Alice Walker's novel, The Color Purple.
She was so keen to be part of the film that she said she was prepared to "eat the dirt…play
the dirt…be the dirt" for it.
How can she not be iconic?
The movie went on to earn 11 Academy Award nominations, and Goldberg herself was nominated
for Best Actress.
Although Goldberg's performance got rave reviews, The Color Purple did not do too well with
the critics.
They mostly did not like Spielberg's clichéd portrayal of the black male characters and
felt that he wasn't the right director for this film as a white man.
However, Goldberg defended her director and stands by her defence till today, claiming
that Spielberg made a film no one else was willing to make at the time.
Whoopi Goldberg always knew she was destined to perform.
She was nine when she made her stage debut playing a teapot for a school production.
The teachers couldn't get her off the stage because the future Ghost star loved being
up there so much.
So little Whoopi kept bowing until she was pulled away.
She also spent much of her free time watching movies, sometimes three or four a day.
"I liked the idea that you could pretend to be somebody else, and nobody would cart you
off to the hospital," Goldberg said.
With that sense of humour, her own show and starring in movies like The Color Purple and
Ghost, Goldberg had the opportunity to show off her skills, and oh boy, she had many.
Her Sister Act co-stars were pretty impressed when she performed all her musical numbers.
Every single time she sang, it was her, not a voice-over, which was a big deal at the
time.
So, it makes sense that she's one of only a handful of people to achieve the "EGOT"
(winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony).
Whoopi credits Patrick Swayze for her Oscar.
As Goldberg tells it, practically every Black woman in Hollywood was considered for the
part, but Swayze fought for her to get it.
He refused to do the movie without her.
The actor and the director, Jerry Zucker, flew to Alabama, where Goldberg was filming
another movie to read together.
Goldberg and Swayze had immediate chemistry; she says: "He and I just took to each other."
Zucker was charmed as well.
During the audition, Goldberg really sold it.
While the first table read, Goldberg began suggesting new lines, ultimately written into
the script.
She brought a swagger to the character, delivering memorable quips like "Molly, you in danger,
girl," to our immense joy.
"Oda Mae, at some point, stopped being how I had imagined it, and it became Whoopi,"
Zucker says.
And the rest is history.
History with an Oscar and commercial success, grossing whooping (pun intended) $505 million
against a budget of $22 million.
She might not be your favourite actor, or she might be, but one thing she’s proven
to be throughout the years is a certified star with a no-nonsense attitude and quite
a sense of humour.
She doesn't even shy away from having a joint right before getting up on stage to accept
her Oscar.
In a video obtained by TMZ, Goldberg admits to "calming her nerves" at the ceremony.
"I thought, I've got to relax," she said.
"So, I smoked this wonderful joint that was the last of my homegrown, and honey, I'm telling
you when he said my name, I popped up, and I thought, 'Oh f***'."
Despite a long and very successful career, she maintains she's not rich.
In 2013, Goldberg produced a documentary about legendary comedian Moms Mabley.
But she copped a lot of criticism by partially funding the film through Kickstarter, a website
that asks for donations from the public to get projects completed.
"I ran out of money because it is some expensive s***," Goldberg said.
"Do you think I would open myself to this kind of bulls*** if I didn't need the help?
And you are just assuming that everyone who is an actor is a billionaire."
When talking about bad reviews and criticism, Whoopi is adamant about not listening to them
at all.
"I've just stopped.
I've taken crazy movies that appeal to me.
I don't care what other people think about it.
If it was pretty decent when I did it, I did my job."
Being so unapologetically herself, she's not shying away from telling her daughter, Alex
Martin, how bad an actor she is.
"Oh, she's a terrible actress," Goldberg says, laughing.
"I've said, 'It might not be for you.'"
In 1993, the mother and daughter starred in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.
Martin has acted in other films too, but this is still her best-known work.
The duo is very close, and Goldberg calls Martin her best friend, even though she isn't
a big fan of her acting chops.
Martin, for her part, considers her mother to be her "hero."
And we're right there with you.
Goldberg's Oscar's win was not only aspirational; it was historic.
On that March night, she became the first Black woman to receive an Oscar in 50 years.
The categorisations of "first" and "only" have been a hallmark of Goldberg's career.
Since her Oscar win, 11 more Black actors have earned the honour, but only Viola Davis
and Octavia Spencer have joined her as Black women with multiple nominations.
Whoopi Goldberg is not just the only Black woman to host the Oscars solo; she's done
so four times.
When the actor hosted the 2002 Oscars, she witnessed another historic moment: Halle Berry
became the first Black woman to win the best actress award.
"It was kind of wonderful," Goldberg says of seeing Berry take the prize.
"I had a little tear in my eye because I always wished it would be me.
But you can't always get what you want; sometimes, you get what you need."
As of now, Whoopi is concentrating on writing her next chapter — literally.
The entertainer is penning the script for a superhero film about an older Black woman
who acquires new powers and has to learn to use them.
"Since I was a little kid, I've been obsessed with superheroes," Goldberg says.
"They're all saving the earth all the time.
But do you know who's really going to save the earth?
Old Black women."
Well, we're definitely here for that.