Whoopi Goldberg enjoyed massive critical acclaim and scored an Oscar nomination for best actress for her first major film role, in 1985’s The Color Purple, directed by Steven Spielberg.

Whoopi Goldberg, BRUCE WILLIS, Cher

But even after she became a movie star practically overnight, Hollywood didn’t quite know what to do with the offbeat comedian, as Goldberg acknowledges in the new two-episode Apple TV+ documentary Number One on the Call Sheet.

Whoopi Goldberg The Color Purple - 1985

An Oscar nomination would typically garner a young actress at least a year or two of plum roles, but that didn’t immediately happen for Goldberg. In fact, for her next three films — 1986’s Jumpin’ Jack Flash and 1987’s Burglar and Fatal Beauty — the actress had to dig into the reject piles of stars who were much bigger at the time… and also White.

For many of the actresses interviewed in the documentary’s second episode, “Black Leading Women in Hollywood” — a list of top-tier talent that includes Halle Berry, Angela Bassett and Viola Davis — good, juicy roles have often been hard to come by.

JUMPIN' JACK FLASH, Whoopi Goldberg, 1986.


Whoopi Goldberg in 1986’s ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’.20th Century Fox Film Corp./Courtesy Everett

“You discover that you get what you get, and for me, I went and found stuff,” Goldberg, 69, says in the documentary. “I wanted to know what people were not gonna do. Things that they had greenlit and then said, ‘No, we’re not gonna do [it] ’cause the person dropped out.’ “

“So that’s how I got Jumpin’ Jack Flash, ‘cause Shelley Long wasn’t gonna do it,” Goldberg continues. “That’s how I got Burglar, ‘cause Bruce Willis wasn’t gonna do it. I got Fatal Beauty because Cher wasn’t going to do it. I got Sister Act because Bette Midler wasn’t going to do it.”

Whoopi Goldberg Sister Act 2 - Back In The Habit - 1994

Touchstone/Kobal/Shutterstock

The 1990 movie that ended up winning her the Oscar (making her only the second Black best supporting actress, exactly 50 years after Gone with the Wind‘s Hattie McDaniel), she landed in a less roundabout way.

“Ghost, that wasn’t written for me either,” she reveals. “But then Patrick Swayze said, ‘I want her.’ So that’s how I got Ghost.”

The movie "Ghost", directed by Jerry Zucker and written by Bruce Joel Rubin. Seen here, (from left) Patrick Swayze as Sam Wheat in ghost form, Whoopi Goldberg as Oda Mae Brown (playing as 'Rita Miller') facing Bruce Jarchow as Lyle Furgeson at the bank.


Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg in 1990’s ‘Ghost’.

Goldberg went on to have an unconventional career that has included popcorn fare, prestige projects (2022’s Emmett Till biopic Till, which she produced), TV tentpoles (Star Trek: The Next Generation), a game show (The Hollywood Squares), daytime TV (The View) and Broadway.

In 2023, she made a cameo in the musical adaptation of the film that made her a star,

“It was symbolic not only because of what Whoopi represents in the canon of The Color Purple, but what Whoopi represents, period — the juggernaut that she is and the doors she kicked open,” the remake’s director, Blitz Bazawule, told the Los Angeles Times in December of 2023.