Powerful. Inspirational. A legend. These were just some of the many words used to describe talk show queen Oprah Winfrey. She was arguably the most influential person on TV as well as one of the richest. Yet, with all her success, money and multiple honors, the Academy Award-nominated actress was always remembered for her kind heart and desire for change. She rose out of poverty, racism and abuse to become a leading advocate for eradicating the evils of society and history, made evident by the 2007 opening of The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Johannesburg, South Africa. She made great strides to defend and support women, children and minorities, but even she knew at the height of her career, that there was much left to be done. And to think her philanthropic empire all started with a daytime TV talk show.
“Orpah” Gail Winfrey was born on Jan. 19, 1954 in Kosciusko, MS to unmarried parents Vernita Lee – a housemaid, and Vernon Winfrey – a coal miner. During a 1991 interview with the Academy of Achievement, Winfrey said that people could not pronounce her name “Orpah” correctly, so it was eventually changed to Oprah. Her grandmother Hattie Mae raised the future talk show host on a Mississippi farm with no indoor plumbing and, at times, barely anything to eat. What they lacked in basic necessities, however, was filled with spirituality. Winfrey was able to read the Bible and recite in church by the time she was three. Three years later, the young media queen moved to Milwaukee, WI with her mother. It was while living in this inner city ghetto that Winfrey was on the receiving end of horrifying experiences with molestation and rape from a cousin, an uncle and a family friend. It started when she was just nine and continued through most of her teen years. This abuse would inform her life – not only in her personal relationships and behavior, but in her later quest to channel her genuine empathy to help the have-nots, the abused and the forgotten.
Even though her home life was extraordinarily difficult and scarring, Winfrey excelled in school. She even received a scholarship to Nicolet High School in Glendale, WI at the age of 13. There was also a rebellious side to the teen Winfrey. She ran away from home and got pregnant a year after she was accepted to the school, but she lost the baby shortly after birth. Unable to control or provide for her daughter, Lee sent Winfrey to live with her father in Nashville, TN. Her studies became a priority and not long after, the girl who was raised on a farm and abused in the ghetto, won a full scholarship to attend Tennessee State University where she studied Communication. Winfrey even won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant at age 18 – one of the first of many honors awarded to her.
Winfrey always dreamed big, even as a young lady fresh out of college. She wanted to be a movie star, at a time when the idea of segregation was still fresh in the minds of many Americans. The adversity did everything but weaken Winfrey’s fighting spirit. Despite the odds stacked against her – being black and female in the South – at the age of 19, she became Nashville’s first female and first black TV news anchor for WTVF–TV. Life imitated art for Winfrey, as her idol at the time was Mary Tyler Moore of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (CBS, 1970-77), whose character also pursued a career in broadcast journalism.
After WTVF–TV, Winfrey then relocated to Baltimore, MD’s WJZ–TV to co–anchor the evening news. Smart, charming and personable, Winfrey was a natural onscreen, but even she had a rocky start to her career. After being taken off the air in Baltimore – the reason cited, being that she could not anchor the news because she might get emotional on air – she made the jump to big market Chicago, IL in 1984, hosting the half–hour morning show “A.M. Chicago.” Within a year, it had been expanded to a one–hour format and was renamed “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” It would prove to be the beginning of Winfrey’s media domination as well. In September 1986, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was distributed in national syndication and became the highest–rated talk show in TV history. It remained the number one talk show for 20 consecutive seasons (according to a 1999 Nielsen Cassandra Ranking Report). Three years after debuting “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the media mogul established Harpo Productions, Inc., Winfrey’s own production company and a milestone in her legendary career.
“The Oprah Winfrey Show” (syndicated, 1986- ) made millions of fans feel Winfrey was one icon to whom they could relate; a “girlfriend” to the nation. Fellow daytime host Phil Donahue may have invented the participatory approach to TV talk, but Winfrey brought a woman–to–woman empathy and a flair for self–revelation. She combined compassion, vulnerability and an unashamed expression of emotion to not only become the nation's most popular talk show host, but a cultural taste maker, a force to be reckoned with in her time and medium as Walter Winchell, Ed Sullivan and Walter Cronkite were in theirs. In the words of one television industry analyst, “The rest of the talk shows are just tissue. ‘Oprah’ is Kleenex.”
Always the go–for–her–dreams kind of gal, Winfrey expanded her career into acting, receiving an Academy Award nomination for her screen debut as the bossy, abused Sofia in Steven Spielberg’s heart wrenching and historical epic “The Color Purple” (1985), based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. She quickly followed up this extraordinary film debut as the mother of an accused murderer in “Native Son” (1986) and executive produced and starred in the highly acclaimed TV miniseries, “The Women of Brewster Place” (ABC, 1989) and its subsequent short–lived spin–off “Brewster Place” (1990). Both were filmed at her Chicago–based movie studio and TV production complex. She again leant her forceful presence to the role of a Chicago housing project resident determined that her offspring would receive an education in the TV movie “There Are No Children Here” (ABC, 1993). One unifying element in Winfrey’s acting and producing projects was that it always came from a deeply personal place; it always related to her own terrible experiences, whether it was from poverty, prejudice or abuse.
While her work outside of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” explored the issues she faced growing up, as well as current events that needed attention – from Hurricane Katrina to childhood obesity – it was her own talk show where Winfrey developed a way to reach out to millions and really make a difference. It was also because of a two–year ratings slide that encouraged Winfrey to reconstruct her show’s format that once strayed into the same trashy realms as her dubious competitors. “I won't have people yelling and screaming and trying to humiliate one another,” Winfrey said, recalling the time when a husband announced his infidelity to his unsuspecting wife – and to the unsuspecting talk show host – “That was one hard moment. I wouldn't do that (intentionally) to anybody,” she added. In fact, at the start of her 13th season in 1998, Winfrey launched “change your life television,” featuring self–help segments led by John Gray, Suze Ormond and others, as well as a daily piece on getting in touch with one's spirit – however an individual defined it. Her new style with substance won even more fans and several awards. That same year, Winfrey picked up her seventh Emmy Award for “Outstanding Talk Show Host.”
Another one of Winfrey’s major goals through her TV show was to get America reading again – a surprising move coming from someone whose career was largely owed to the TV medium. She championed literacy and book sales by starting “Oprah's Book Club,” a popular once–a–month feature of her talk show that debuted in 1996. New books and classics became instant bestsellers, thanks to Winfrey’s influence. When she chose John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel East of Eden as the book of the month, it went up to the top of the book charts. Winfrey’s program was not without its controversies, however, when her selection of James Frey’s supposed memoir A Million Little Pieces was exposed by The Smoking Gun as a work of pure fiction. In 2006, an angered and disappointed Winfrey brought Frey to her talk show to apologize to the American public for his “novel” lies and leveled him with her admonishments of betrayal.
Another very popular segment was Winfrey’s annual “Oprah’s Favorite Things” episodes, which often aired around Thanksgiving and always garnered the show’s best ratings. In past seasons, the host went a step beyond generous, gifting her entire audience with appliances, computers, diamonds, even cars. For the 2005 episode, the lucky audience members were all Hurricane Katrina volunteers. Winfrey added a new twist in gift giving in 2006 when a “Pay It Forward” challenge was given to the audience instead of extravagant presents. Each member of the audience received $1,000 worth of gift cards to donate to their charity of choice. “I can honestly say that every gift I’ve ever given has brought at least as much happiness to me as it has to the person I’ve given it to,” Winfrey said. “That’s the feeling I want to pass on to you.”
The tabloids loved Winfrey as well. She was a constant target for several issues affecting a large population of the country – from weight to alleged homosexuality. Leaving no stone unturned, Winfrey faced each social issue with intelligence and candor. When she was touted as a celebrity who lost “the battle of the bulge,” the host got in shape through personal training and proper nutrition – even bringing onstage a wheelbarrow filled with 60 pounds of animal fat to visualize how much weight she had lost. A popular rumor never to die also swirled around that Winfrey was in a relationship with her best friend (and editor of Winfrey’s O: The Oprah Magazine) Gayle King. Both women claimed theirs was simply a special bond between two straight women. In turn, Winfrey focused on serious issues affecting homosexuals, from the AIDS crisis of the 1980s to teens who struggled with “coming out of the closet.” Her appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ show “Ellen” (ABC, 1994–98) as her therapist in “The Puppy Episode: Part 1 and Part 2” – better known for being the show where DeGeneres’ character and, in a way, herself, came out as a lesbian – was widely praised by audiences both gay and straight.
Winfrey increased her commitment to production, signing deals with ABC and Disney. The first fruits of the ABC deal – under the banner “Oprah Winfrey Presents” – were “Before Women Had Wings” (1997), a well–received TV–movie starring Winfrey as a woman who gives refuge to a child fleeing an alcoholic home, and the 1998 miniseries “The Wedding,” based on Dorothy West’s novel about an affluent black family living on Martha's Vineyard. For the 1998–99 season, Winfrey executive produced a small screen remake of “David and Lisa,” featuring Sidney Poitier, and “Tuesdays with Morrie,” from the acclaimed memoir by Mitch Albom. As part of her deal with Disney, she also finally realized a long–held dream of starring in a film adaptation of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer–winning novel “Beloved” (1998). Under the sensitive guidance of director Jonathan Demme, Winfrey portrayed an escaped slave haunted by the ghost of the child she murdered.
Winfrey intended for her films to entertain while engaging the heart, lifting the spirit and stimulating the mind, a mission that was in keeping with her talk show. She occupied the high ground, exhorting her viewers to improve their lives and the world. Winfrey's genius (and her legacy) was that she made people care because she cared. A celebration of Black history and women was the focus of Winfrey’s “Legends Weekend” TV special (ABC, 2005). Held at her estate in Montecito, CA, the TV icon invited 25 living legends of history, literature and the arts, to honor their contributions to society. Poet and writer Maya Angelou, novelist Alice Walker, and the late Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King were among the honorees. A white–tie ball and Sunday brunch followed, with celebrities ranging from Chaka Khan to Halle Berry joining Winfrey in toasting the achievements and influence made by the 25 legends.
Even with so much gratitude for those who came before her, Winfrey was also always looking towards the future. Her philanthropic work was astounding. She began Oprah’s Angel Network in 1988 to help underprivileged families and raised over $51 million to date, as well as raised money for victims of natural (and manmade) disasters – from the families of 9/11 to those who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina (she gave $10 million of her own money to the hurricane victims). In 2005, Business Week listed her as one of the Top 50 Most Generous Philanthropists, the first African-American ever.
But Winfrey set her sights on even loftier goals – helping the world. In order to inspire a new generation of legends, Winfrey invested $40 million to create The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Aside from a few controversies surrounding the school’s opening – some complained that Winfrey’s demands for high thread count sheets for dormitories and two theaters were too extravagant – the project was a success. World–renowned leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela praised Winfrey for rising above the difficulties of her youth and investing in the future of others. When asked whether she planned to have children one day with longtime partner Steadman Graham, Winfrey responded by saying the students of her Leadership Academy were her daughters.
While Winfrey kept most of her personal life away from the spotlight – only inviting press and TV cameras to her home for special episodes or to host star–studded parties – she still made headlines as a pop culture icon. Winfrey went under attack by the beef industry for a show that aired on April 16, 1996 titled “Dangerous Foods.” The host said she would stop eating hamburgers because of fears over mad–cow disease, after hearing reports from expert Howard Lyman. Beef industry representatives who claimed Winfrey’s remarks were false and that it cost them millions of dollars in sales, sued her in Texas court. After a two–month courtroom trial, the jury said Winfrey and Lyman were not liable for damages.
A further controversy stemmed from the Hip Hop industry feeling Winfrey looked down her nose at them as bad influences in the African-American community. In 2006, hardcore rappers such as Ludacris, 50 Cent and Ice Cube joined together to say Winfrey had an anti hip–hop bias on her show, after Ludacris’ air time promoting the movie “Crash” (2004) was edited because the host was not a fan of his misogynistic lyrics. Winfrey responded by saying she was opposed to rap that marginalized women but enjoyed hip–hop as an art form.
Political issues also found an arena in the hit talk show. When Winfrey posed the question “Is war the only answer?” during a series of episodes in 2003 dedicated to discussion of America’s involvement in the Middle East crisis, she received backlash from even her most loyal fans. The woman who for many years was described by so many as a shoe–in for the U.S. Presidential seat was instantly called “un–American” just for asking a simple question. It was with such power and influence over the cultural zeitgeist that proved Winfrey was more than just a TV personality or a tabloid favorite. She embodied the everyday American.
Yet unlike the everyday American, Oprah’s empire kept growing and growing. In 2002, she branched out into publishing with O, The Oprah Magazine. She described the publication as being “the women's personal growth guide for the new century,” but that did not stop some critics from taking potshots; even jeering at the fact that Winfrey was featured on every cover of the magazine. She also helped jumpstart the TV career of self–help guru Dr. Phil McGraw, whose popular appearances on her talk show beginning in 1998 led to McGraw's own highly rated syndicated daytime chat fest “Dr. Phil” (2002– ), and served as the producer of popular chef Rachael Ray’s talk show (Syndicated, 2006– ).
As a producer of TV movies, Winfrey consistently lured A–list talent to her projects, with Elizabeth Shue headlining the coming of age drama “Amy & Isabelle” (2001) and Academy Award winner Halle Berry anchoring the lavish production of “Their Eyes Were Watching God” (2005), based on the novel by Zora Neale Hurston. The subject matters were different, but the central characters in all of Winfrey’s projects were all women who rose out of adversity and fought for change, using courage and strong will.
In 2006, Winfrey added Broadway producer to her resume, bringing a stage version of the film “The Color Purple” to the Great White Way. Still, she was always best known for her TV show. In the July 23, 2007 issue of TV Guide, Winfrey was named the highest–paid TV star in the U.S. with an estimated $260 million a year paycheck. Perhaps even more significant than Winfrey’s money and fame, however, was that she was able to hold a mirror up to the society that raised, abused, discriminated against, watched and ultimately, celebrated her. And the message she sent was echoed in her 1997 Commencement Address at Wellesley College: “Hold the highest vision possible for your life and it can come true.”