Whoopi Goldberg has been in the spotlight for four decades. Today, what he longs for is a quiet place in the sun. He has found a holiday home and tranquility on the Italian island of Sardinia.
“A lot of people just need a place where they can go and just 'aaaaaaaaah'” he said. “The more I wrote about my mother, I thought, I would have loved to have given her this. Same with my brother.”
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He has been thinking a lot about his mother, Emma, and his brother, Clyde, who have both died. They're the subject of Goldberg's new memoir, “Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me,” out this week.
In the book, she paints her childhood – growing up as Caryn Johnson in a housing project in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood – as quite idyllic. “It was; I was very lucky,” he said. “It was a great moment for me, to be able to have the freedom with a mom who really just said, 'Listen, you're going to have to figure some of this out for yourself. I can't give you everything. the answers.'”
Her mother was a teacher, and when young Caryn dropped out of school, she made a pact with her mother to use the city's museums and libraries to continue learning. “You know, a lot of people had two parents; I just had one,” Goldberg said. “And that father acted like 900 people, you know? She never made it about what we didn't have; she made it about what we did have and how to celebrate.”
Goldberg began acting on stage, made it to Broadway and earned an Oscar nomination for her first major film role, “The Color Purple.” For a period, she is said to have become the highest paid actress in Hollywood, with hits like “Sister Act”.
She says her mother also had a talent for acting, like when Marlon Brando stopped by: “My mother would become the 'other Emma,'” Goldberg said. “She came in, and I got up specifically to say -us as he came towards us: “Don't panic. It's Marlon Brando sitting on the couch.” But I couldn't, all I could say was, “Hey mom, come meet Marlon Brando who came to visit us.” And she just went like this: — Mr. Bran-do. Wait wait who they are you?”
Patrick Swayze wanted her to play a psychic in “Ghost,” for which Goldberg won an Oscar.
Add to that an Oscar, two Emmys, a Grammy and a Tony, making her one of only 20 people with EGOT status.
Her book chronicles the start of her career and doesn't stop, detailing problems with drugs, social welfare and learning marriage isn't for her, after three tries.
Doane asked, “Are you still in love with the idea of being in love, or is that just gone?”
“I think other people seem to glow when they're in love, and I like to see that,” she said. “But for me, it's like I shine when I'm shining no in love, that's fine. And the older I get, the happier I am.
“And so, just in case, and I'm directing this to people who want to write to me on the Internet, here's the deal: I know how nice I am. So you don't need to tell me I'm not attractive enough to have a boyfriend because, surprisingly, I've had quite a few!”
“Are you always as confident as you look?”
“I'm very confident,” Goldberg said. “But I'm also confident in the fact that I make gigantic mistakes and poop a lot along the way.”
black rock
On “The View,” the talk show she has co-hosted for 16 years, Goldberg made a comment about the Holocaust that she said was misunderstood. She apologized, but ABC suspended her for two weeks in 2022.
Doane asked, “When you look back on that Holocaust comment on 'The View,' for which you were suspended, do you regret it?”
“I'm at a loss as to how to answer this,” he said, “because people are waiting for me to say something. I said what I had to say and they suspended me. I respected what they said. I respected everyone's . opinion. And if anyone is really interested [in what I said] in its entirety, they can search for it. But I won't put myself in that position again.”
She has been a long-time advocate on a number of issues, often using the show as a platform. But in Sardinia you can detach from the world. He scrolls through the audiobooks (he has about 9,000) and sometimes he just…sits.
Overlooking his peninsula, Doane asked, “Oh my God, how do you ever leave?”
“Very reluctantly!” she laughed.
He dreamed of finding a way to spend six months a year in Sardinia. “I'm willing to not be scrutinized as rigorously as I am,” she said. “And I think the further I get away from opinionated television, the easier it will be for a while.”
At 68 and a great-grandmother, Whoopi Goldberg's pioneering journey has been one of reinvention and determination. She calls herself “a singular kind of person” and says she was well-equipped, starting with her mother's lessons in that two-bedroom apartment in New York. It makes her setting in Sardinia even more impressive.
“It's the end of a peninsula,” he said. “I mean, I come from the projects. I've got a peninsula! That's a long way from Chelsea!”
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Story produced by Aria Shavelson. Publisher: Remington Korper.
Seth Doane
