Whoopi Goldberg

From bricklayer and bank teller to Broadway was not a typical career arc. After dropping out of high school, getting clean from heroin, and going on welfare to support her daughter, she built a one-woman show in Berkeley and San Francisco that eventually landed in front of Mike Nichols, who helped move it to Broadway in 1984. Steven Spielberg caught the show and cast her as Celie in The Color Purple, which earned her a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. The Oscar went elsewhere, but the Ghost supporting role in 1990 fixed that.

She's been co-hosting The View since 2007, which sounds like a steady gig until you remember she was suspended in 2022 after claiming the Holocaust 'wasn't about race.' ABC suspended her for two weeks, she doubled down in a Sunday Times interview months later, and she's been polarizing daytime audiences ever since. She's also one of only 19 people to complete the EGOT, finishing the set in 2002 when she won a Tony as producer of Thoroughly Modern Millie and a Daytime Emmy. Whether her current gig enhances or undermines that legacy depends heavily on which day you catch her.

'Goldberg' wasn't her birth name. Caryn Johnson chose it in 1981 because she calculated a Jewish last name would help her career, and the first name reportedly came from a whoopee cushion joke. She's a genuine Star Trek obsessive who lobbied her way onto The Next Generation out of pure fandom. She's also hosted the Academy Awards four times but refuses to fly anywhere, traveling by bus. The brand was calculated from the start; the quirks apparently came for free.