The actress and "The View" correspondent didn't become Whoopi Goldberg until, while working in a theater in San Diego, friends noticed she had a bit of a flatulence problem and began calling her Whoopi after a whoopee cushion.

"If you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go," Whoopi has said. "So people used to say to me, 'You're like a whoopee cushion.' And that's where the name came from."

It was Whoopi's mother who felt her daughter should take a Jewish-sounding last name to advance her Hollywood career. And thus Whoopi Goldberg was born.