Color Green: Whoopi to Sell

WHOOPI GOLDBERG, whose talk show premiered last Monday on KCAL in Los Angeles and whose newest movie “Sarafina!” opened Friday, has put her Malibu beachfront home on the market at $3.25 million.

Since she made her film debut as a mistreated wife in “The Color Purple” (1985), Goldberg won an Oscar for her part as a medium in “Ghost” (1990) and has appeared in a number of movies, including “The Player” and “Sister Act,” both released earlier this year.

She has a recurring TV role on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” playing Guinan, the alien humanoid hostess, and she will appear in the show’s first episode of the new fall season Monday.

The comedian/actor--who plays a Soweto schoolteacher in the musical drama “Sarafina!”--also hosted this year’s Grammy Awards and Comic Relief V, and she wrote the children’s book “Alice,” which was just published by Bantam Books.

She has owned the Malibu home since 1987. It was built in 1968, and Goldberg remodeled it.

The ranch-style home has a small main house, separate apartment with kitchen and bath, and guest house. The house is situated on a bluff about 100 feet above the rocks on the beach and has 180-degree ocean views.

Goldberg is selling the home because “she divides her time between the East and West Coasts . . . she doesn’t spend all of her time in L.A.,” said her publicist, Brad Cafarelli, who confirmed that she has another home here. Goldberg is divorced and has a daughter.

A native of Manhattan, Goldberg, 42, started her theatrical career in New York as a child and later worked in improvisational theater and performed in the chorus of “Pippen,” “Hair” and “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”

Between these early jobs, she supported herself by being a bricklayer, bank teller and cosmetician in a morgue. Her big break came when producer/director Mike Nichols helped introduce her one-woman sketches to Broadway in 1984.

Katie Ribnick of Fred Sands’ Malibu office shares the listing with Richard Sterns of Sands’ office in Brentwood.

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ANDY GALLIN--personal manager to such superstars as Michael Jackson, Neil Diamond and Dolly Parton--has sold the Beverly Hills home he has had on and off the market for the past four years, at one point for $18 million.

Gallin was also executive producer of “Father of the Bride” (1991), “Shining Through” (1992), “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1992) and the Academy Award-winning “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt” (1989).

He built the 14,000-square-foot house in 1988. The home has six bedrooms and 11 baths plus maid’s quarters. It also has a long, private drive, stream and waterfall.

He once had 2,000 pounds of snow trucked there for a Christmas party, attended by his celeb clients and about 700 other guests.

The home was sold to a Swiss couple in the shipping business who own houses in a number of countries but reside mainly in Spain. The sale, including the art and furniture, is said to be the first for a Westside residence in the double digits this year.

Escrow closed last Monday on the all-cash deal. The buyers were represented by Bob Hurwitz of Hurwitz James Co., Brentwood. Gallin, who has a home that he also built himself in Malibu, was represented by June Scott of June Scott Estates, a Jon Douglas company.

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One of the most frequently filmed homes in Southern California, a Pasadena mansion that was known as TV’s “Dynasty” home, has been put on the market at $4.95 million.

The 12,000-square-foot estate, on 2.45 acres, has starred in large and small screen productions for nearly six decades, starting with the Marx Brothers’ “Duck Soup” in 1933.

It has appeared in such films as “Terms of Endearment” and National Lampoon’s “Vacation,” both released in 1983. Eddie Murphy’s “The Distinguished Gentleman,” which is expected to be released in December, is the most recent movie to be shot there.

The owners, Coleman and Jane Morton, have made the 77-year-old home their residence for 35 years. “They want to travel to see their far-flung families, and they have been looking at properties in Santa Barbara,” said listing agent Carol Thomson of Podley Caughey & Doan in Pasadena. The Mortons’ son, Charlie, has handled the family’s location business.

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PAULA STEWART--who co-starred on Broadway with Lucille Ball, Ed Asner, Steve Lawrence and Art Lund and is a former wife of composer Burt Bacharach and comedian Jack Carter--has opened an auction/consignment house in West Hollywood.

Stewart became an interior designer about 10 years ago and since then has designed homes for the Pointer Sisters, Lucille Ball, Telly Savalas, Woody Allen, Roger Moore, Gene Wilder, Michael Douglas and Rex Harrison.

The economic downturn prompted her to realize a longtime dream and open the auction house. As many West Side shops were closing, she collected items from designer close-outs, dealer overstock, unclaimed freight, wholesaler items, show-room samples and estate sales.

“We’re stocked with everything from antiques to giant house plants,” she said. She has such household items as rugs, lamps, furniture, appliances--”even a kitchen sink.”

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ROBERT HURST, the bassist in Branford Marsalis’ trio and “Tonight Show” band, and his wife, Jill, have leased a townhouse in Calabasas for a year.

The musician, who is working on a solo album that is due for release this fall, and his wife still have a home in New Jersey, where they lived previously. They leased the 2,400-square-foot townhouse at $1,700 a month, sources said.

Valerie Fedi, who just moved to White House Properties in Woodland Hills, and Ron Green of Fred Sands Realtors, Woodland Hills, represented the Hursts through the Sands office.