Life’s hard moments are made easier with the support of good friends. Dame Maggie Smith was happy to be there for Whoopi Goldberg in her moment of need. Whoopi revealed in her new memoir, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me, that Maggie comforted her when she found out her mom was dying.
Whoopi and Maggie worked together on the hit movie Sister Act. Whoopi was working on the stage adaptation in London when she got the news that her mom, Emma Harris, was on life support because of an aneurysm. Maggie happened to be visiting.
Maggie sat with Whoopi and just listened to her stories for five hours. “Having Maggie Smith be there, and being able to fall apart and having her say, ‘Listen, my friend. We'll get you through this. We'll get you through this. We'll get you to the hospital so you can get her. Get you back to Berkeley so you can get home,’” Whoopi recalled to People.
Maggie made sure Whoopi was not alone during this difficult time. “We were up all night, just laughing and talking about stuff,” Whoopi went on to say. “And she had met my mom a couple of times. Just having somebody who got it, who understood, it's everything.”
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Emma died in 2010. Whoopi’s brother, Clyde K. Johnson, died five years later. Writing this book was cathartic for Whoopi. She wanted to honor their memory.
"I just thought, 'Wow, if you can't keep how they've been gone together, it's no wonder you can't remember anything,'" she explained. "So just maybe you should just write some stuff down, see what happens if you do that.'"
Whoopi is now in the process of working on Sister Act III and desperately wants Maggie to be a part of it. Watch this video to see her public plea to her old friend.
