Whoopi is flavour of the month

Press, 12 June 1986, Page 16

Whoopi is flavour of the month

DUO writer ANNE LONG follows the rising star of an Oscar-nominated actress with an extraordinary talent and a name to match ... Whoopi Goldberg.

Anyone who chooses to call herself Whoopi Goldberg has to be worth watching. It takes nerve, inventiveness and a whacking sense of humour, for a start. But these are not enough to catapult a black woman with a passion for old Hollywood movies into a place right up among the stars, with an Oscar nomination as best actress for her first film role —.

in Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple.”

Without brilliant talent and gritty determination, however, she would have been noticed only for her bizarre name and the startling clothes which have won her a place in America’s “worst dressed” awards. There is no doubt about it, Whoopi is an original in every sense, and she is not going to forget that only two years ago she was living on welfare hand-outs. She has come a long way in a very short time, but her performance as Celie in Spielberg’s screen version of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind that she is going to stay the course as an actress.

Whoopi had, in fact, written to Alice Walker when she first read “The Color Purple.” “If they ever make the movie, I’d play the dirt on the floor to be in it,” she vowed. She did not have to, as it turned out. And as Celie — the victim of an incestbent father, abused by her husband and saved by the love of a female blues singer — she gives a performance that is, at once, touching and spirited. “Celie was in me, waiting to jump out,” she says.

Fame has come suddenly to 35-year-old Whoopi, who grew up in New York as the daughter of a teacher struggling to raise two children alone. For as long as she can remember she was fascinated by the old movies she saw on television. “I wanted to sweep down staircases, and play

scenes with the big stars,” she says. When she was only eight years old, she started acting in local theatre groups, but in the late sixties she dropped out of high school and joined the Greenwich Village hippies in New York. “Everything was starting to happen then, and I happened too,” she says.

Her marriage was short-lived. “I married the father of my child because he was my drug counsellor,” she says honestly. “I thought no one’s going to want me, I’m such a mess. So we got married. “It didn’t work out.”

After her divorce, she drifted out to California in 1975, with her daughter Alexandrea, and became involved with the local theatre scene in San Diego. This was when she shed her real name, Caryn Johnson, for what must be one of the oldest ones in show business — Whoopi Goldberg. “It just came out of the blue. It was a joke,” she says with a broad grin. She was living off welfare money and odd jobs, some of them very odd; she had a spell as a beautician in a mortuary.

Things began to look up when Whoopi teamed up with actor Don Victor to do a double act in comedy clubs. Fate gave her life a hefty push in the right direction when Victor could not make it for an appearance in San Francisco one night in the early 80s.. Apprehensively, Whoopi went on alone, improvising monologues by three different characters. “The

audience went bananas. It freaked me out,” she says, still wondering at it.

She moved to San Francisco to expand her solo act, encouraged by an actor with whom she set up home.

Gradually, there emerged the characters — sharp, funny and poignant — who later appeared in her off-Broadway show in New York. There was the surfer who performs an abortion on herself, the junkie burglar with a degree in literature, the crippled woman transformed by love, and the little black girl — based on Alexandrea — who longs for blue eyes and blonde hair.

When Whoopi went back to San Diego to perform there in 1983, old friends were amazed a thow she had developed. “She had honed her acting skills, and she could twist the audience round her little finger,” said one, a producer. “You could hear a pin drop. At that point, we thought: ‘She’s going to make it’.” And she did — very soon. Only a few months later she was playing in New York, where one critic’s rave review described her as “a satirist with a cutting edge, and an actress with a wry attitude toward life.” She was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Charleston, West Virginia, which reads: “To experience Whoopi Goldberg is to expand your mind, awaken your conscience and view the world through new eyes ...” Whoopi insists: “I never thought of myself as a humorous person, but I

worked hard to develop credibility. I got lucky.” Call it luck, or call it talent — whichever it was, Whoopi’s big break came in a phone call from Steven Spielberg. He said he had missed her show in New York, but would like her to perform for him and “a few friends” in his private screening room. There were over 80 friends there. Whoopi discovered, including stars Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones. “I did the show just like I always do, and then I did a piece I’d been asked not to do by other people,” Whoopi says. It was a parody on E.T., in which Spielberg’s lovable little creature from outer space lands in California, and ends up on drugs and in jail.

“He loved it. Then he said: ‘I think I might be directing “The Color Purple,” and it’s yours if you want it.’

“My teeth caught cold, because all I could do was grin,” Whoopi says.

There has been a heated debate, following the first screening of the film in America, with condemnation of its'portrayal of "brutal” black men and “downtrodden” black

women. Whoopi defends Spielberg indignantly. “He put his heart and soul into the movie and pulled off a coup,” she says. “It was a labour of love. This is a mirror of the things that were happening and still are. Alice Walker just wrote an amazing book, and Steven put his vision in it. It is a story of human spirit and dignity.” In the film, Whoopi, with her plain but pert face and enormous saucer eyes, is transformed into Celie, assuming her downtrodden, half-scared expression and slow gait. Yet she is a creature of tremendous spirit. Asked, during filming, if she researched the part deeply, she answered: “Not at all. For some reason, this stuff comes easy. Once Steven says ‘Action,’ she completely takes over from me. It is scary.” Spielberg made it clear that he had tremendous faith in Whoopi, and she fulfilled it totally. “We had a lingo, because he’s a movie fanatic like me,” she explains. “He’d say something like: ‘You know the scene where Indiana Jones finally finds the girls at the end? The kind of relief he

has? That is what I want.’ He’d give me directions like that and I could do them because I knew what he wanted.” Already her role in “The Color Purple” has been followed by a second film, the comedy “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” And Whoopi is somewhat bemused at being accepted .as an equal by actors like William Hurt. “These are people I’d like to work with, because I know they’re gonna challenge me, and I can’t wait. I can’t wait,” she says. “I hope I’m not sounding like a goody twoshoes, but I used to dream about acting. I wanted this, and they handed it to me on a silver plate.” But in spite of the success and recognition, Whoopi has not become part of the Hollywood scene. She lives in a rather odd neighbourhood near San Francisco, and still goes round with her old friends. She lives with her mother, 11-year-old daughter, Alexandrea, and nanny — there is no serious attachment in her life at the moment. “In my last relationship, I gave everything in my heart. When things started happening, he backed off,” she says. “I thought he’d always be there, supporting me, but it all got a bit too much for him. "A man said a very true

thing to me: ‘Women in your position are often alone because it’s too hard for a lot of men to deal with strength, where you are not dependent on them.’ I’ve always been incredibly independent. I’m probably not good for men, and I think I’m going to be by myself for quite a bit. I’m coming to terms with that.” Scattered around the house are packets of the cigarettes she chainsmokes. And anywhere a dental brace may turn up; written on its pink plastic plate, by someone who obviously knew what she is like, are the words: “Put it back in, Whoopi!” Popping it into her mouth, she explains: “When I got my wisdom teeth out, my teeth started moving.”

But for all her sense of fun which can make her break into a broad grin at any moment, Whoopi is sober in her summing up of her success.

“For the first time in my life, I don’t have to worry what things cost,” she says. “But I have to be more critical of myself, especially in this position of being ‘flavour of the month,’ where everyone tells you how great you are.

“At some point you have to step silently into the attic of ypur brain and say: ‘l’m good at this. I’m not so good at that. This is where I have to get better.”