Whoopi Goldberg Galleries 2

  Versatile stand-up comedienne and performance artist Whoopi Goldberg gained the attention of Hollywood with her eponymous 1984 Broadway show of character sketches, directed by Mike Nichols. Her trademark dreadlocks, gravelly voice and blunt, hip yet compassionate style made her unconventional star material to be sure, and the ups and downs of her career clearly represent the attempts of producers to smooth over what they consider to be her "rough edges." She made an auspicious feature debut with an atypically subdued but very moving performance in Steven Spielberg's controversial "The Color Purple" (1985), but subsequently her energetic presence was underutilized in a series of mostly uninspired vehicles (e.g., "Burglar" and "Fatal Beauty", both 1987) prior to her Oscar-winning portrayal of a fake psychic medium in the 1990 boxoffice hit "Ghost".

Things were not all bad for this unique actress during the second half of the 80s before "Ghost", with "Jumping Jack Flash" (1986) and "Clara's Heart" (1988) having their fair share of ardent admirers. Goldberg became a seemingly ubiquitous presence on TV, racking up over 80 appearances in specials (most notably HBO's "Comic Relief" and its follow-ups), several memorable guest spots (including a 1986 Emmy-nominated turn on ABC's "Moonlighting"), in addition to a stint co-starring with Jean Stapleton on "Bagdad Cafe" (1990-91), a short-lived CBS comedy series based on the 1987 feature film of the same name. Goldberg played a likable if rather modest recurring role as Guinan, the enigmatic alien bartender, on the hit syndicated series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1988-94), reprising the role in the feature "Star Trek: Generations" (1994), and also produced several specials for cable and syndication.

Her feature career enlivened by "Ghost", Goldberg went on to a dignified dramatic role in the pre-civil rights 50s era film "The Long Walk Home" (1990) and a comic part in "Soapdish" (1991) before starring in the surprise blockbuster comedy of 1992, "Sister Act", which grossed more than $300 million worldwide. She ended 1992 with a strong supporting role as a cop in Robert Altman's "The Player" and the lead in "Sarafina!". Goldberg also began hosting her own late night one-on-one chat show, "The Whoopi Goldberg Show" (syndicated, 1992-93). Though the informal show featured major stars, Goldberg was more of a gushy friend than a probing interviewer, and lackluster ratings led to a quick cancellation. She returned to films with "Made in America" (1993), a comedy co-starring Ted Danson, and the inevitable sequel, "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit" (also 1993).

Far from making her difficult to cast, Goldberg's unusual and considerable talents and her earthy, straightforward persona have kept her extremely busy, from hosting three Academy Awards ceremonies to performing in the low-key romance "Corinna, Corinna", voicing Shenzi the hyena in "The Lion King" (both 1994) or playing a lesbian in the road film "Boys on the Side" (1995). She was all-but-inescapable in 1996, prompting her to quip in 1997 that most of her 30 movies were "released last year." She starred in the passable comedy "Eddie", as an ardent basketball fan who wins the chance to coach her favorite team; the whimsical misfire "Bogus", about an orphaned boy who creates an imaginary friend to help him cope with his mother's death; "The Associate", a remake of a 1979 French/West German comedy, portraying an investment banker who furthers her career by employing male drag and "whiteface" to personify a fictional white male CEO; and Rob Reiner's "Ghosts of Mississippi", a return to civil rights era drama, as Myrlie Evers-Williams, the wife of slain NAACP officer Medgar Evers.

Perhaps watching those four movies rack up disappointing to outright disastrous grosses made Goldberg hungry for a change, and she returned to the Broadway stage, replacing Nathan Lane in a gender-switching turn as Pseudolus in the revival of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", her first attempt at a book musical. Never mind that the show's leering combination of vaudeville and Plautus presented a somewhat dated attitude toward women, Goldberg made the role (originated by the great Zero Mostel) her own, identifying particularly with the Roman slave's thirst for freedom. After appearing as herself in two 1997 features ("Burn, Hollywood, Burn" and "In & Out"), she played Delilah, a woman dying of cancer in "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" (1998) and a gay detective in "The Deep End of the Ocean" (1999). For the former, her death scene was touching but in a way extraneous to the adaptation by Ron Bass and Terry McMillan of McMillan's novel, which yielded thinner material than the duo's previous "Waiting to Exhale" (1995). As for the latter, her detective seemed gay only for the sake of political correctness, and not for anything directly connected to the ponderous story itself.

Goldberg saved some of her best work at the end of the 90s for the small screen. She appeared sparingly in Christopher Reeve's movingly acted "In the Gloaming" (HBO,1997) as the live-in nurse of AIDS-stricken Robert Sean Leonard, who had come home to die. She acted in two spare-no-expenses extravaganzas, ABC's multiracial "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella" (1997, as Queen Constantina) and NBC's "Alice in Wonderland" (1999, as a laid-back, marvelously made-up Cheshire Cat), sandwiched around another "Wonderful World of Disney" presentation (fulfilling her contractual obligation to the Mouse), "A Knight in Camelot" (ABC, 1998), a remake of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". Though Twain would not have known what to make of either its vision of Camelot or of Whoopi Goldberg, the combination made for enjoyable, family viewing. That year also saw her executive produce a new syndicated version of "Hollywood Squares", as well as occupying its center square, and she has continued to lend her voice to quality feature animation projects like "A Christmas Carol" (1997), "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie" and "The Rugrats Movie" (both 1998). In addition to gracing the cast of "Girl Interrupted" (1999), starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, Goldberg executive produced and starred in "Kingdom Come" (2001).

Goldberg subsequently busied herself primarily with cameos and voiceover appearances in films of widely varying quality, with more notable leading appearances on the small screen in telepics including the Christmas-themed "Call Me Claus" (2001) and opposite Danny Glover in "Good Fences" (2003), a telepic about an upwardly mobile 1970s-era black family struggling to adapt to their new posh Connecticut neighborhood. Her 2003 NBC sit-com effort "Whoopi," which cast her as opinionated ex-lounge singer-turned-hotelier Mavis Rae, debuted to promising returns but subsequently sunk, cancelled in its first season. She was also a pitchperson for the Slim-Fast weight loss system in 2004 until her salty political comments bashing President George Bush at a Democratic fundraiser prompted the company to drop her. More roles as herself and animated voiceovers followed, including the childrens TV series "Littleburg" (2004) as Mayor Whoopi, "The Lion King 1 1/2" (2004), "Pinocchio 3000" (2004) and (as Franny the Goat) "Racing Stripes" (2005).

Meanwhile, the actress did much of her best work in the theater, replacing Nathan Lane as Pseudolus in the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" in 1997, receiving a Tony Award for best musical as one of the producers of "Thoroughly Modern Millie" in 2002 and playing the title character in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" by August Wilson at New York's Royale Theater in 2003. Two decades years after her acclaimed one-woman show took Broadway by storm, Goldberg revived and updated her performance in 2004 for "Whoopi: The 20th Anniversary Show" in a 12-week run at New York's Lyceum Theater, revisiting characters Fontaine, the Surfer Chick and adding Lurleen, a middle-aged character who talks about topics like dieting and menopause. The show was later broadcast on HBO as "Whoopi: Back to Broadway" in 2005.

from movies.yahoo.com

  Yankee Irving (2006) (filming) (voice) .... Darlin
The Last Guy on Earth (2006) (post-production)
It's Under My Skin (2006) (post-production)

Whoopi: Back to Broadway - The 20th Anniversary (2005) (TV) .... Fontaine/Lerleen/The Cripple
Racing Stripes (2005) (voice) .... Franny
Pinocchio 3000 (2004) (voice) .... Cyberina
... aka PK3: Pinocho 3000 (Spain)
... aka Pinocchio le robot (France)
Sesame Street Presents: The Street We Live On (2004) (TV) (uncredited) .... Cameo appearance
The Lion King 1½ (2004) (V) (voice) .... Shenzi
... aka Lion King 3: Hakuna Matata! (Europe: English title)
"Littleburg" (2004) TV Series .... Mayor Whoopi
... aka Whoopi's Littleburg (USA: complete title)
"Whoopi" (2003) TV Series .... Mavis Rae
Blizzard (2003) (voice) .... Blizzard
Good Fences (2003) (TV) .... Mabel Spader
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) (uncredited) .... Guinan
It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002) (TV) .... Daniel's 'Boss'
Madeline: My Fair Madeline (2002) (TV) (voice) .... Miss Clavel
"Liberty's Kids: Est. 1776" (2002) TV Series (voice) .... Deborah Samson aka Robert Shurtleff
Call Me Claus (2001) (TV) .... Lucy Cullins
The Hollywood Sign (2001) .... One of the women throwing dirt on coffin at funeral scene
... aka Himmel von Hollywood, Der (Germany)
Rat Race (2001) .... Vera Baker
... aka Course folle (Canada: French title)
Monkeybone (2001) .... Death
Kingdom Come (2001/I) .... Raynelle Slocumb
What Makes a Family (2001) (TV) .... Terry Harrison
Golden Dreams (2001) .... Calafia, the Queen of California (Narrator)
More Dogs Than Bones (2000) .... Cleo
A Second Chance at Life (2000) .... Narrator
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000) (uncredited) .... Judge Cameo
... aka Abenteuer von Rocky und Bullwinkle, Die (Germany)

Girl, Interrupted (1999) .... Valerie Owens, RN
... aka Durchgeknallt (Germany)
... aka Durchgeknallt - Girl, interrupted (Germany: TV title)
The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns (1999) (TV) .... The Grand Banshee
... aka Kampf der Kobolde (Germany)
... aka Leprechauns (USA: short title)
"Foxbusters" (1999) TV Series (voice)
Jackie's Back! (1999) (TV) .... Nurse Ethyl Washington Rue Owens (Jackie's Sister)
... aka Jackie's Back: Portrait of a Diva (USA)
The Deep End of the Ocean (1999) .... Candy Bliss
Alice in Wonderland (1999) (TV) .... Cheshire Cat
... aka Alice im Wunderland (Germany)
Our Friend, Martin (1999) (V) (voice) .... Mrs. Peck
The Rugrats Movie (1998) (voice) .... Ranger Margaret
A Knight in Camelot (1998) (TV) .... Dr. Vivien Morgan
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie (1998) (voice) .... Stormella, The Evil Ice Queen
How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998) .... Delilah Abraham
Alegría (1998) .... Baby Clown
Cinderella (1997) (TV) .... Queen Constantina
... aka Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (USA: complete title)
Mother Goose: A Rappin' and Rhymin' Special (1997) (TV) (voice) .... Mother Gooseberg
Destination Anywhere (1997) (V) .... Cabbie
In the Gloaming (1997) (TV) .... Nurse Myrna
A Christmas Carol (1997) (voice) .... Spirit of Christmas Present
Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) .... Myrlie Evers
... aka Ghosts From the Past
The Associate (1996) .... Laurel Ayres
Bogus (1996) .... Harriet Franklin
Bordello of Blood (1996) (uncredited) .... Hospital Patient
... aka Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood (USA: complete title)
Eddie (1996) .... Edwina 'Eddie' Franklin
Theodore Rex (1995) (V) .... Katie Coltrane
... aka T. Rex
Moonlight and Valentino (1995) .... Sylvie Morrow
Boys on the Side (1995) .... Jane Deluca
... aka Avec ou sans hommes (France)
"Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child" (1995) TV Series (voice) .... Mother Goose
The Sunshine Boys (1995) (TV) (uncredited) .... Nurse
The Pagemaster (1994) (voice) .... Fantasy
Star Trek: Generations (1994) (uncredited) .... Guinan
... aka Star Trek 7 (USA: informal alternative title)
Corrina, Corrina (1994) .... Corrina Washington
The Little Rascals (1994) .... Buckwheat's Mom
The Lion King (1994) (voice) .... Shenzi the Hyena
A Cool Like That Christmas (1994) (TV) (voice) .... Mom/Irwin
Yuletide in the 'hood (1993) (TV) (voice)
Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993) .... Deloris Van Cartier/Sister Mary Clarence
Made in America (1993) .... Sarah Mathews
Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) (uncredited) .... Sgt. Billy York
... aka National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1
Naked in New York (1993) .... Tragedy Mask on Theater Wall
Sarafina! (1992) .... Mary Masembuko
Sister Act (1992) .... Deloris Van Cartier/Sister Mary Clarence
The Player (1992) .... Detective Susan Avery
Defenders of Dynatron City (1992) (TV) (voice) .... Ms. Megawatt
Soapdish (1991) .... Rose Schwartz
Blackbird Fly (1991)
The Long Walk Home (1990) .... Odessa Cotter
"Captain Planet and the Planeteers" (1990) TV Series (voice) .... Gaia
... aka The New Adventures of Captain Planet (USA: fourth season title)
Ghost (1990) .... Oda Mae Brown
"Bagdad Cafe" (1990) TV Series .... Brenda
Tales from the Whoop: Hot Rod Brown Class Clown (1990) (TV)
... aka Hot Rod Brown, Class Clown (USA: short title)

Homer & Eddie (1989) .... Eddie Cervi
Kiss Shot (1989) (TV) .... Sarah Collins
My Past Is My Own (1989) (TV) .... Mariah Johnston
Beverly Hills Brats (1989) .... Cameo appearance
Comicitis (1989)
Clara's Heart (1988) .... Clara Mayfield
The Telephone (1988) .... Vashti Blue
Whoopi Goldberg: Fontaine... Why Am I Straight (1988) (TV) .... Fontaine
Fatal Beauty (1987) .... Rita Rizzoli
Burglar (1987) .... Bernice 'Bernie' Rhodenbarr
Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) .... Terry Dolittle
The Color Purple (1985) .... Celie
Citizen (1982)