Early Life
Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in Manhattan and raised in the Chelsea neighborhood, the daughter of Emma (née Harris), a nurse and teacher, and Robert James Johnson, Jr., a clergyman. Goldberg has described her mother as a "stern, strong, and wise woman" who raised her as a single mother after Goldberg's father had left the family. Goldberg's recent ancestors migrated north from Faceville, Georgia, Palatka, Florida, and Virginia. 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. Her admixture test indicates that she is 92 percent of sub-Saharan African origin and 8 percent of European origin.
Her stage name, Whoopi, was taken from a whoopee cushion; she has stated that "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." She adopted the traditionally German/Jewish surname Goldberg as a stage name because her mother felt the original surname of Johnson was not "Jewish enough" to make her a star. According to an anecdote told by Nichelle Nichols in the documentary film Trekkies, a young Goldberg was watching Star Trek, and upon seeing Nichols' character Uhura, exclaimed, "Momma! There's a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!" This spawned lifelong fandom of Star Trek for Goldberg, who would eventually accept a recurring guest-starring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Between the years of 1979 and 1981, she lived in socialist East Germany, working in a number of theater productions. During her travels, she would smuggle various items into the country for the artists she stayed with.
Read more about this topic: Whoopi Goldberg
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“The fancy that extraterrestrial life is by definition of a higher order than our own is one that soothes all children, and many writers.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)