Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg emerges in the diary through two sharply drawn encounters: a one-woman performance that held an audience’s attention for an hour and a half, and a brief social exchange in which she turned an unexpected audience contribution into a comic aside. Together, the scenes show her as a compelling performer and an engaging presence beyond the stage, though the record offers only glimpses rather than a sustained account of her life.

Performance and Audience

At the Lyceum, Andy Warhol went with Jean-Michel Basquiat and other companions to see Goldberg’s show. They arrived late and sat in the second row. For an hour and a half, she performed on a blank stage and kept the audience interested; Warhol also noted her intelligence. The sparse staging makes the description especially focused on her ability to command attention through performance alone.

An Improvised Exchange

Goldberg asked audience members for quarters as part of the show but did not return them. When Warhol later asked about the money, she explained that she usually gave it back, but receiving a dollar bill had thrown her off. She had collected about four dollars and considered giving the money to a Catholic charity. The diary preserves the small incident as an extension of her performance: an audience interaction that continued, with a different tone, after the show.

Social Encounters

Warhol also recorded Goldberg’s arrival at a gathering. In a separate encounter after the performance, he invited her to dinner, but she declined, saying she had cramps or something. These brief notes place her in both public and informal settings, while leaving her own perspective largely outside the diary’s frame. What they do establish is a contrast between the sustained attention she commanded onstage and the casual, unceremonious quality of her social exchanges.