<![CDATA[Caryn Elaine Johnson was born on November 13, 1955 to a minister father and a housewife mother in New York. Due to her flatulence problem everyone called her Whoopie Cushion and this was from where she got her new name. At her first break into the show business the producer preferred keeping her first name and adding Goldberg to it and this was the birth of "Whoopi Goldberg". Whoopi has one brother.

Whoopi Goldberg started working at the tender age of eight in the Children Theatre. Later she went to the High School for Performing Arts. As a teenager she became a heroin addict and married Alvin Martin, her drug counselor in 1973. Same year the couple was blessed with a daughter, Alexandra. After six years of married life Goldberg divorced Martin.

Whoopi worked at different places before she could earn herself the life of a celebrity. She worked as a bricklayer, a bank teller and even as a make up artist at funeral parlor. In 1983 Whoopi performed in "The Spook Show" dressing up as different characters which proved to be a big hit. And it was from here that she got her first big break in the movie "The Color Purple". The movie released in 1985 made her a nomination for the best actress.

She has number of awards to her name Emmy, Grammy and Oscar is a few. She not only worked as an actress but also as a comedian, singer, writer, activist politician and a talk show host.

Now she is seen in roles of supporting actress and is a grandmother of two children as Alexandra gave birth to a baby girl in 1989 on the same date of her mother's birth. 
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