Classic Desert Island Discs - Whoopi Goldberg

Lauren Laverne· Host0:00

Lauren Laverne here. We're taking our Easter break, so until we're back on air, we're showcasing a few programs from our archive. As usual, the music's been shortened for rights reasons. This week's guest is the actor and comedian Whoopi Goldberg. Kirsty Young cast her away in 2009.

Kirsty Young· Host0:15

[gentle music] My castaway this week is Whoopi Goldberg, a successful actor, comic, and producer. She made her name in The Color Purple and won her Oscar for Ghost. It was bound to happen. Even as a child, she used to practice making acceptance speeches, and today she's one of only a handful of people to have won an Oscar, a Grammy, a Tony, and Emmy Awards. Yet despite her success, she is perhaps an uncomfortable role model. The only person she wants to please, she says, is herself. An observant and quick child, she was also headstrong. She married young, had a child early, then she wrote her own sketch show. It found its way onto Broadway, and her career was launched. "I was in the right place at the right time, seen by the right person," she says, "and spectacular things happened." Well, they surely did, Whoopi Goldberg. [laughs] Um, uh, you were seen by the right person back in, what was it? The, the 1980s.

Whoopi Goldberg· Guest1:21

Yeah.

Kirsty Young· Host1:21

And that right person was Steven Spielberg. I-I ... Is it right, did you do a sort of private performance for him or are you- Yes. [laughs] Yes. What was that?

Whoopi Goldberg· Guest1:27

He did.

Kirsty Young· Host1:27

Tell me about that. I'm intrigued.

Whoopi Goldberg· Guest1:29

He asked