Whoopi Goldberg (born ca. 1955) has been called Hollywood's most uncategorizable star. The high-energy actress, who has appeared in such films as The Color Purple and Sister Act, was the first African American to host the Academy Awards.

Whoopi Goldberg's life and career have followed similar circular journeys: both began with ingenuous hope then slipped dangerously toward extinction, only to be resurrected by a rediscovery of the dormant initial promise. Throughout her acting career, she has not forgotten the lessons she learned in her early, difficult life. There is, in a sense, no division between Goldberg the actress and Goldberg the person, as Paul Chutkow pointed out in Vogue: "She seems much the same way she has often appeared on-screen: fresh, direct, exuberant, no cant, no can't." Goldberg's unpretentiousness and determination imbue her best characterizations--they are direct and empathetic. She is committed to her art. "Simply, I love the...