Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg always had a healthy sense of humor, which explains her stage name Whoopi, which is a reference to a whoopi cushion. She was born in New York City and dropped out of high school at the age of 17, partly due to her dyslexia. She didn’t think anything of being an actress, but she knew she belonged in the show business, and so like anyone aspiring to enter the show business, Goldberg decided to travel to Los Angeles. Before she settled there, however, she spent some time around California, working some pretty odd jobs.
Among other things, Whoopi Goldberg worked as a waitress, a bank teller, a bricklayer (don’t ask us how or why she got this job) and perhaps the oddest one of them all – she worked as a mortuary beautician, preparing corpses before burial. In Berkeley, California, she joined an avant-garde theater troupe, and worked in a number of theater productions. She also taught comedy and acting classes, although she never officially took acting lessons, since comedy and performance were in her nature.