Winfrey

"Oprah Winfrey." //Authors and Artists for Young Adults//. Vol. 32. Detroit: Gale, 2000. //Gale Biography In Context//. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. Her parents, Vernita Lee and Vernon Winfrey, were both under twenty-one and had separated by the time she was born. Oprah--her name was misspelled on her birth certificate from the biblical name "Orpah" her parents had intended--spent her first years with her paternal grandmother.

She early on showed signs of the talent for speaking that would make her career, for as a toddler she gave speeches in front of her church congregation. By the age of three she had learned to read, and on her first day of kindergarten she wrote a note to her teacher explaining why she should be in first grade. She was immediately promoted, and at the end of that school year skipped yet another grade.

At the age of six, Oprah left her grandmother's farm to live with her mother and two half-brothers in Milwaukee. Although she still excelled in school, life in a housing project was difficult; deprived of the farm animals she had once befriended, the young girl kept cockroaches as pets, according to one account. Because her mother was often working to make ends meet, Oprah was sometimes left in the care of friends and family members. It was one such trusted male who first abused her at the age of nine, leaving the young girl with a guilty secret she was afraid to report. Unfortunately this was not a lone occurrence, and by her teens Oprah was acting out her anger by concocting various rebellious adventures. She faked a robbery of her home in order to destroy a pair of unfashionable glasses her mother had refused to replace, and reportedly received one hundred dollars from Aretha Franklin after she had convinced the singer she had been abandoned.

At fourteen, out of control and on the verge of entering a detention center, Oprah was sent to Nashville to live with her father and his wife. Oprah credits her father with changing her life, for his strict discipline and emphasis on education soon had her achieving both in the classroom and out. "My father turned my life around by insisting that I be more than I was and by believing I could be more," she told Alan Ebert in Good Housekeeping. "His love of learning showed me the way." She became president of her high school's student government, a member of the drama club, and excelled at debating and oratory. At sixteen her debating skill earned her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, and at seventeen she earned an invitation to the White House Conference on Youth.

As a high schooler she also won her first beauty and talent competition, earning the title of "Miss Fire Prevention" in a contest sponsored by a local radio station. The win led to her first broadcasting job, reading newscasts on the radio after school each day. She enjoyed similar success while in college, taking the titles of Miss Black Nashville and Miss Black Tennessee as a freshman speech and drama major and competing in the Miss Black America pageant. The following year, as a nineteen-year-old sophomore, she was offered a position with a Nashville television station, and became that city's first female co-anchor.

Although she was earning a good salary at her Nashville job, Oprah was still living in her father's house and under his curfew. In 1976, when she was offered a job at a network affiliate in Baltimore, Maryland, she jumped at the chance. She started out as a street reporter, a job that did not always suit her empathetic, subjective style. Later she moved up to the anchor desk, but the station subjected her to a "makeover" to make her look more like a Latino. In 1977, however, the station moved her into a position as co-host of the morning program People Are Talking.

Oprah's rise to stardom began with a move to Chicago. Her Baltimore producer had submitted an audition tape to Chicago station WLS, which led to a job offer to host the station's morning program, "A.M. Chicago." Oprah took over as host in January, 1984, when the program was last in its time slot. Within three months, her show was first in the ratings, and after eighteen months the newly renamed Oprah Winfrey Show had earned her a nationwide syndication deal. On September 8, 1986, Oprah became the first black woman to host her own nationally syndicated talk show. The success she enjoyed on a local scale was now repeated nationwide, as The Oprah Winfrey Show claimed enough audience share in its first year to make it the largest-grossing program in the history of first-run syndication. Part of its popularity lay in Oprah's ability to ask the questions her viewers would want to ask--and get her subjects to answer and share their feelings. Instead of relying on cue cards or prepared scripts in presenting her program, Oprah used a more spontaneous approach, relying on her natural curiosity and downhome charm to get to the heart of the issues being discussed. Oftentimes this led the hostess to reveal her own personal struggles, such as her up-and-down battles with her weight and her own experiences with sexual abuse.

Oprah's distinct approach touched a chord within her audience. As Joan Barthel described the show in Ms., "Oprah did not so much host the show as immerse herself in it, with a style that blended earthiness, humor, spontaneity, and candor, with a unique personal touch." As a result, the critic noted, Oprah had "turned a conventional talk show into a distinctive hour of laughing, crying, hollering, hugging, sharing." The hostess became known for her intelligence as well as her empathy, however; People Weekly contributor Alan Richman found her to possess "a mind as quick as any in television, yes, [Johnny] Carson and [David] Letterman included." "What she lacks in journalistic toughness," Richard Zoglin wrote in Time, Oprah "makes up in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all, empathy." The result of Oprah's understanding and sympathetic questions, the critic explained, results in "the talk show as group-therapy session." Fellow talk-show host Geraldo Rivera pointed out the key to her success to Time 's Christopher John Farley, noting that "Oprah was the first host of any daytime talk show who looked and sounded like her audience."

It was while Oprah was establishing her talk show in Chicago that she came to the notice of Hollywood as a potential actress. During a brief stay in Chicago, music and film producer Quincy Jones caught her program on television and thought she might be suited to an upcoming film he was co-producing. The film was an adaptation of Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple, to be helmed by noted director Steven Spielberg. Despite her lack of acting experience--she had only a one-woman revue at a black theater festival to her credit--Oprah was cast in the film as Sofia, a self-reliant and assertive woman who pays a terrible price for her pride. Reviews of the film, which deals with the sufferings and triumphs of several oppressed black women, were mixed, but Oprah herself earned outstanding notices. Although Sofia is only a supporting character, "as played by Winfrey, ... she's a brazen delight," David Ansen wrote in Newsweek. Richard A. Blake noted in America that in her role "Oprah Winfrey transforms a comic caricature into a living person," while Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel similarly called her film debut "shockingly good." Hollywood press and peers concurred with these opinions, nominating Oprah for both Golden Globe and Academy Awards as outstanding supporting actress.

Oprah followed up her success in The Color Purple with a supporting role in another film adaptation of a classic African American novel. In 1986's Native Son she played the mother of Bigger Thomas, a young black chauffeur who accidently gets caught up in a murder. Both the actress and the film received mixed notices, but it gave Oprah the confidence to move on to bigger roles. In 1989, she starred in the television miniseries The Women of Brewster Place, adapted from Gloria Naylor's acclaimed novel. The program was also the first major production out of Oprah's studio, Harpo Productions, and was the direct result of her convincing network executives the novel would make good television. This story of several black women trying to cope with life in a poor, urban neighborhood was termed "a powerful tale of love and conflict" by a Jet magazine reviewer. New York reviewer John Leonard noted that "enough of Gloria Naylor's wonderful novel remained in the four-hour mini-series ... to punch a hole in the wall that sealed off the ghetto from the middle-class world," and added that the program's shortcomings were balanced by "some glorious acting." While Marlaine Glicksman found faults with the characterizations and the "episodic" nature of the film, she nonetheless noted that the program served a valuable purpose. As the critic wrote in Film Comment, "Winfrey's achievement in bringing Brewster Place to the screen exists primarily off camera as the effort of a black female producer; on camera it increased exposure to black faces." The miniseries was successful enough to warrant a spin-off half-hour series in 1990; although Oprah returned in her role as Mattie Michael, the series was cancelled in its first season.

Despite these forays into acting, Oprah remained best known for her talk show program, which was increasingly successful. Season after season, it regularly won its time slot in most major markets and topped the ratings among all talk show programs. Her nationwide distribution deal earned her twenty-five percent of the show's gross earnings--and with revenues over $100 million during its first season, this deal made Oprah an instant multi-millionaire. "From the beginning," Laura B. Randolph asserted in Ebony, "her show has captured the American television psyche like nothing the industry has seen before or since. The fact is, since her show went national in 1986, it has remained head and shoulders above the others." Oprah has not limited her activism to merely raising public awareness on important issues. In 1991, the terrible story of a young Chicago girl's murder by a convicted child abuser inspired her to legislative action. Working with former Illinois governor James Thompson, Oprah proposed a federal child protection bill that would keep national records on people convicted of offenses against children. A national database of such information, Oprah hoped, would make it easier for schools, day-care centers, and other children's services to screen potential employees for a history of child abuse. In 1992, she helped spur the debate by hosting a television documentary that broke ground by being aired simultaneously on three national networks. Oprah included her own personal account of abuse in Scared Silent: Exposing and Ending Child Abuse, a series of forthright interviews with both abusers and victims. Her tireless efforts on behalf of this issue paid off; while legislation is rarely drafted outside of Congress, the "Oprah Bill" eventually passed both House and Senate and was signed into law on December 20, 1993.

In January, 1995, Oprah once again opened her own personal life to public scrutiny. On a show covering women who used drugs, the host admitted that she herself had smoked crack cocaine with a boyfriend in the 1970s. Although her producers worried about the negative effect this disclosure might have on Oprah's image, the entertainer herself found the experience liberating. Not only could she provide her viewers with an important lesson she had learned--not to let the "need" for a partner drive you into doing something you know is wrong--but she herself felt easier for having shared the secret. As she told Laura B. Randolph in Ebony magazine, "What I learned ... is the thing that you fear the most truly has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. But the thing itself cannot touch you. What I learned that day is that the truth really will set you free."

As The Oprah Winfrey Show passed its first decade in national syndication, its host started re-evaluating what she wanted it to achieve--and whether she even wanted to continue it at all. Her talk-show success had spawned dozens of imitators, such as Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake, who had turned the format into a type of confrontational circus, and Oprah seriously considered quitting. Although some critics blamed her for the "tabloid TV" trend, Oprah felt that her show had always been different. "From the beginning, my philosophy has been that people deserve to come and to leave [my show] with their dignity," she told Laura B. Randolph in Ebony. "I never did what you see on the air today--nowhere close to it--because I never wanted people to be humiliated and embarrassed." She eventually decided, as Jet magazine reported, that "I had no right to quit coming from a history of people who had no voice, who had no power, and that I have been given this ... blessed opportunity to speak to people, to influence them in ways that can make a difference in their lives." She made a deliberate change in her format, leaving the more sensational topics to her competitors and focusing on positive ways for people to help themselves. "I wanted to be able to use the show to enlighten as well as entertain, to have people think differently about themselves and their lives," she explained.

One particularly notable way Oprah has tried to enlighten her audience has been with the establishment of "Oprah's Book Club" in 1996. A life-long reader, Oprah began devoting one show every one or two months to discussing a single literary work with her audience--and the book's author, when available. "I feel strongly that, no matter who you are, reading opens doors and provides, in your own personal sanctuary, an opportunity to explore and feel things, the way other forms of media cannot," she told Bridget Kinsella of Publishers Weekly. "I want books to become part of my audience's lifestyle, for reading to become a natural phenomenon with them, so that it is no longer a big deal." The Book Club has been a "big deal" for publishers and book stores, however, since the titles Oprah hand picks for her audience become instant bestsellers. Booksellers have called this phenomenon "the Oprah Effect," and have observed that not only has Oprah increased the audience for her recommended titles, the new readers she brings into book stores end up coming back for more. In 2001 Winfrey was cited by Book magazine among the ten most influential people in publsihing, along with John Grisham and J. K. Rowling.

As one of entertainment's most highly paid figures, Oprah has added the title of philanthropist to her resume. She is noted for her generosity to friends and staff, and regularly contributes to such causes as the United Negro College Fund, the Harold Washington Library, and Morehouse and Spelman Colleges. Not only has she established several scholarships at her alma mater, Tennessee State University, but she helps select the recipients and corresponds with them to monitor their progress. She has also been involved with several self-help projects which work with families to raise them out of crime-ridden, poor neighborhoods. Other charitable projects included distributing $1.25 million through her Angel Network from 2002-2004 to help Afghan children and donating money to build over 80 homes for Hurricane Katrina victims in 2006. In 2007, she opened the doors of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls-South Africa, a boarding school outside Johannesburg for impoverished girls. "My mission is to use this position, power, and money to create opportunities for other people," she told Richard Zoglin in Time.

As the entertainment industry's most powerful woman--most powerful person, according to Entertainment Weekly 's 1998 survey--Oprah continues to expand the ways she can reach people. In late 1998, for instance, she signed a deal to become a partner in the Oxygen Channel, a new cable network designed for women, and in 2000 she introduced a lifestyle magazine, called O. Another venture, called Oprah & Friends, was launched as a new channel on XM Satellite Radio in September of 2006. She continues to look for ways to raise people's consciousness, inspire people, and show them how to give their own lives meaning. It is this purpose, rather than any desire for wealth or power, that drives Oprah. "I'm always looking for truth and its value in my life," the entertainer told Pearl Cleadge in Essence. "Material success is rewarding and a lot of fun, but it's not the most important thing in my life because I know when this is all over, the Master isn't going to ask me how many things I owned or how many television shows I did. I think the questions will be: What did I do to make a difference? Did I learn to live with love in my heart?"

January 2, 2007: Winfrey opened a school for disadvantaged girls in Henley-on-Klip, which is south of Johannesburg in South Africa. The $40 million academy aims to give 152 girls from deprived backgrounds a quality education in a country where schools are struggling to overcome the legacy of apartheid. She said she also planned to open a second school for boys and girls in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal. Source: MSNBC, http://www.msnbc.com, February 27, 2007.

December 31, 2008: Through her foundation, Winfrey gifted $365,000 to a private inner city academy in south Atlanta, Georgia. Source: USA Today, @http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-12-31-oprah-school_N.htm, January 3, 2009.

"Oprah Winfrey." //Contemporary Authors Online//. Detroit: Gale, 2011. //Gale Biography In Context//. Web. 15 Feb. 2012.


 * **Born:** January 29, 1954 in United States, Kosciusko, Mississippi
 * **Nationality:** American
 * **Occupation:** Television talk show host

Oprah Winfrey is one of the most famous woman in America, and one of the richest. With her own top-ranked talk show, production company, magazine, and a large interest in the Oxygen cable channel, Winfrey is a one-woman media empire.

Winfrey was born in rural Mississippi and spent her early childhood there, in the care of her maternal grandmother. From an early age she showed a talent for public speaking; she recalled to Leslie Marshall of In Style "being two years old and speaking in church and hearing people say: 'That child sure can talk. That is one talking child.'" Soon she was doing recitals of poems and Bible stories at all sorts of local functions.

After age six Winfrey divided her time between her mother's home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and her father's home in Nashville, Tennessee. Between ages nine and thirteen she lived entirely with her mother, and it was during this time that Winfrey became what is called a "troubled child." She was repeatedly sexually abused by several male relatives and family friends, and in response she rebelled against her mother's authority and started to lie, steal, and run away from home. Finally, her overwhelmed mother tried to sent her to a home for juvenile delinquents, but since it was full she sent Winfrey to her father's house instead.

Under her father and stepmother's strict rule, Winfrey settled down and became a success in school. As soon as she moved in, they started taking her to the library regularly and making her write reports on the books she read. "I don't know if my father has read a book in his entire life," she told Dana Fineman of Life, "nor my stepmother. But they were educated enough to know that reading was important." In high school Winfrey won the Nashville Miss Fire Prevention contest and got a job as a reporter on a local radio station. She stayed in Nashville to attend Tennessee State University, and then moved to Baltimore, Maryland to become a television news reporter, moving to a spot as host of the television station's morning program.

Winfrey stayed in Baltimore until 1983, but was not happy with her job. The station managers did not like her appearance and encouraged her to get plastic surgery and to change her hair. Instead, she took a job with another television station in Chicago. She hosted the A.M. Chicago show, which the station managers decided to run against Phil Donahue's legendary, first-in-the-nation talk show. Donahue's show had been on top of the Chicago morning ratings for ten years, but within a month A.M. Chicago had overtaken him. By 1985, A.M. Chicago had been renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Winfrey hosted it until 2011.

Through her television position, Winfrey has done a great deal to encourage more Americans to read. Oprah's Book Club, a series of segments on her show where everyone read the same book and then discussed it, made instant best-sellers out of several little-known books. Winfrey has also written several books herself, although "I am by no means a writer," she told Marilyn Johnson and Dana Fineman in Life magazine. "I would not dare kid myself. Writers are a class all by themselves. I have the ultimate respect for them, more than respect--reverence. I will tell you this--I feel that I'm a great communicator. That is my gift. I cannot do that with writing."

Winfrey's first book, written in collaboration with her personal trainer Bob Greene, was Make the Connection: Ten Steps to a Better Body--And a Better Life. This volume sprang from Winfrey's long, public battle with her weight. Another writing project that was very personal to Winfrey was Journey to Beloved, a book created from the journals Winfrey kept while working on the film Beloved. Based on Toni Morrison's novel about a former slave mother and her children, Beloved was made into a film because Winfrey was so inspired by the book that bringing it to the screen became a personal mission. The film stars Winfrey in a role she worked hard to prepare for, her preparations including praying to her slave ancestors in front of an antebellum accounting document from a Southern plantation that listed the names and prices of several slaves. Winfrey writes about those strong emotions in Journey to Beloved, "but what's more affecting are her occasional straightforward, less awestruck what-happened-next-was anecdotes," a reviewer commented in Time. Winfrey's most recent literary project, O: The Oprah Magazine, had the most successful launch of any magazine in history: by its seventh issue, it had a circulation of two million.