Maybe it was Whoopi Goldberg?

I think, all those years ago, when I first thought about turning Quest into a novel (Quest was originally a 100 page poem that was truly awful), I remember seeing The Color Purple and loved the movie! More so, I was captivated by how exotically beautiful I thought Woopi Goldberg was. To me her features and marvelous brow (which is somehow delicate and regal at the same time), appeared to me like the face one might see on a relief wall from ancient Mesopotamia; the portrait of a Queen or Pharoh. I knew, when Noane's image came to me, that perhaps it was Woopi's face that was my influence.