Our Black History Month through the lens of Oscar continues with abstew on Whoopi...
It took fifty-one years after Hattie McDaniel's historic win for Gone With the Wind (1939) for another black actress to hear her name called as the winner on Oscar night. Her successor scored an Oscar factoid of her own becoming the first black actress to score two Oscar nominations (thankfully, she is no longer alone with that distinction, having been joined by Viola Davis). Instead of prestigious talents along the lines of a Cicely Tyson, Ruby Dee, or Alfre Woodard, the honor went to a comedienne that took her stage name from a gag toy that makes fart sounds. Not exactly the typical Oscar winner, but that uniqueness has always been what defined Whoopi Goldberg as a performer and her Oscar win for playing medium Oda Mae Brown in the hit film Ghost (1990) is perhaps the quintessential Whoopi performance.
Born Caryn Johnson, Goldberg's first encounter with Oscar came for 1985's The Color Purple from director Steven Spielberg and based on Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winner. While performing in her one-woman show on Broadway, Goldberg was asked by Spielberg to play the lead, Miss Celie, in the film. She won the Golden Globe and became the 5th black woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award, but she lost the Oscar that year to sentimental favorite Geraldine Page in The Trip to Bountiful, who finally won her Oscar on the 8th try.
Goldberg had much better luck the second time around, but her Oscar-winning performance was almost not to be. [More...]
Goldberg has stated that an actress friend told her about the part in Ghost that apparently every black actress in Hollywood was dying to play. Goldberg called her agent and asked why she hadn't been asked to audition. She was told that she was too well-known and they were looking elsewhere. That reasoning didn't make a whole lot of sense since Tina Turner and Oprah were both up for the part (two women that were certainly a little more than "well-known"), but perhaps the implication was that Goldberg's films since The Color Purple hadn't exactly been hits at the box office.
It was her eventual co-star Patrick Swayze (who also had to fight for his part as Sam, the titular ghost) that asked the filmmakers to have Goldberg film an audition with him. Swayze felt that Goldberg was the only one that could play Oda Mae. He was right and the film ended up the second highest grossing film of the year, thanks in large part to Goldberg's crowd-pleasing turn. The film even scored 5 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, winning two for Goldberg in Supporting Actress and for the screenplay.
But her character was not without controversy. At that point, there had only been two black actresses to win Oscars, the first was a slave and the second, some felt, was another example of the stock "Magical Negro" archetype. But just as McDaniel was able to bring real humanity to Mammy, Goldberg, by infusing Oda Mae with her own live-wire personality, ably overcomes the film's shortcomings (none of the characters in the film are especially well-written). By embracing what it is that makes Whoopi such a singular personality, Oda Mae feels well-rounded. Whoopi brought her whole package as an actress, comedienne, and her very distinct humor (which has never shied away from touchy subjects, especially race) shines through. Oda Mae famously tells Sam that she needs to say things in her own way and Goldberg does the same. She takes the part as written and manages to give her Whoopi's voice.
And let's not forget - she is damn funny in the movie. Despite the now infamous potter's wheel scene between Swayze and Demi Moore ("Unchained Melody" has never been the same again, igniting the flames of horny soccer moms for 25 years now), once Goldberg shows up 40 minutes into the film, she breathe much needed comic life into the sappy proceedings and runs away with the entire film. Her scenes at the bank, decked out in flashy purple hat and suit while posing as Rita Miller ("I'm sorry, but, could I get another one? I... uh... signed the wrong name...Can I keep this pen? Thank you so much.") are the highlight of the film, a master class in comedic timing and delivery. And she's not just all laughs. Her huckster spiritualist does have a character arc, ironically ending up becoming what she had always falsely claimed to be. Wearily allowing her body to be used as a vessel, she opens herself to a deeper understanding of the spiritual world and of human connections.
The night of the Oscars, Goldberg was up against Annette Bening in The Grifters, Lorraine Bracco in Goodfellas, Diane Ladd in Wild at Heart, and Mary McDonnell in Dances With Wolves, but having previously won the Golden Globe and BAFTA, she was the favorite to win. Despite her front-runner status, Goldberg was genuinely elated about her victory (she later admitted that she was also high fom smoking weed that night) and you can tell that winning the Academy Award really did mean something to her. She was back at the Oscars only three years later, but this time as the host of the ceremony. Making Oscar history again, she was the second black woman to host the awards show and the first woman to do it solo.
Her achievements didn't stop there. Goldberg is one of only 12 people (and the only black person) that has received all four of the major entertainment awards, called the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony). And, yes, her Daytime Emmys count! Proving that Goldberg wouldn't be the awards magnet she is without a certain woman that came before her, she won her first Emmy for hosting a special called Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel.