Whoopi Goldberg has done it all!
She is an award-winning actress, comedian, author, and television personality. Before she became a prominent voice on The View, Whoopi was chasing the bag with numerous odd jobs.
According to a curated list on Factinate, Goldberg worked as a bricklayer while living in California in the 1970s. She got so good at it that she was invited to join the bricklayers’ union. “I needed money, and I needed to work, so I figured I’d rather lay bricks than lay men,” said Goldberg.
Whoopi Goldberg's Hard Road To Fame
Her desire to pursue acting started at a young age. During a stage performance, people commented saying she looked like a whoopee cushion. From there, she took on the stage name Whoopi and adopted Goldberg to sound more Jewish.
According to Glamour, Goldberg grew up one of two children to a single mother in a housing project in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. Whoopi Goldberg was born with the name Caryn Elaine Johnson to parents Emma and Robert James Johnson in Manhattan. She was raised in the Chelsea-Elliot Houses by her mother alone after her father left when she was young.
Her desire to pursue acting started at a young age. After seeing Nichelle Nicholson Star Trek, it was a moment that resonated with Goldberg. "There's a black lady on television, and she ain’t no maid! If you look at any of the shows prior to Star Trek, we were not there," she said. "[Nichols] was really instrumental in making me believe I could be on TV. So I did grow up having a 'me'."
Life wasn’t easy for the Emmy and Oscar prior to fame. Goldberg struggled with dyslexia, dropped out of high school, and had a daughter, Alex, at the age of 18. In the 70s, she was living off welfare in California and working odd jobs, which included bricklayer, mortuary cosmetologist, etc. Also, she was involved in Blake Street Hawkeyes, Berkeley's theater troupe. Years later, Mike Nichols discovered Goldberg.
Goldberg got her big break in 1985 when director Steven Spielberg cast her in The Color Purple. While doing stand-up comedy, she landed a role and eventually won an Oscar for playing Oda Mae Brown in the 1990 Ghost.
Aside from being a bricklayer, Goldberg was also a beautician in a funeral home.
“I did hair and makeup on dead people,” she revealed in a video for Oprah’s Master Class. “There was an ad in the paper! And I’m a licensed beautician as well, because I went to beauty school.”
She found this job to be the most challenging from previous jobs. “It’s a rough gig,” she said. “You have to be a certain kind of person. And you have to love people in order to make them worthy of a great send-off.”
Goldberg revealed a terrifying prank her boss played on her. While waiting for her boss in a room, Goldberg heard a creaking sound.
“As I start to look around, I see that one of the drawers is moving,” she said, “The drawer is really opening, and this thing happens where I see this: [My boss sits up and says,] ‘Hello there.’”
She ran out of the room. When she re-entered, the actress discovered her boss had a reason for his prank. “He said, ‘Now, the worst thing that you could imagine has happened. That’s it. That’s the worst thing that can happen. It’s already happened… You still want to work?’” Goldberg said.
Goldberg continued to explain that her fear of the job was gone once he pulled that prank. “It was the greatest,” she said. “Once he did that, I was fine.”
Whoopi is fearless and iconic!