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Oprah Winfrey

 

Since 1986, Oprah Winfrey has hosted the highest rated television talk show in history, The Oprah Winfrey Show. The show's greatest attraction has been Oprah herself, as she tends to feel and not just talk about the problems under discussion. Her willingness to empathize with people in distress and even expose her own vulnerability has endeared her to million of viewers.

 

Born Oprah Gail Winfrey in 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi, her parents had intended to name her Orpah, after Ruth's sister-in-law in the Bible, but on her birth certificate the second and third letters were mistakenly transposed, making the name Oprah.

 

Her first public speech was at the tender age of two when she addressed a church congregation on the topic "Jesus Rose on Easter Day." Growing up she was known as "the little speaker" often reciting poetry for Black social clubs and church teas. At 12, while visiting her father in Nashville, TN, she earned $500 for delivering a speech at church. Afterward she announced that her career goal was to be "paid to talk."

 

In high school, local Nashville station WVOL, impressed by her voice, hired her to read newscasts during her senior year. After graduating from high school in 1971, Oprah entered Tennessee State University, where during her freshman year she won the Miss Black Nashville and Miss Black Tennessee titles.

 

While still a sophomore in college, Oprah accepted an offer from WTVF-TV in Nashville to co-anchor the evening news, becoming the city's youngest and first Black female newscaster. When she graduated college in 1976, she accepted a co-anchor position at WJZ-TV in Baltimore. The following year she became co-host with Richard Sher of the station's "People Are Talking," a morning talk show. Citing the first day after her assignment, "this is what I was born to do."

 

In 1984 Oprah moved to Chicago and joined WLS-TV where she was hired to host a slumping half-hour morning show, A.M. Chicago. Oprah immediately changed the show's subject matter from lightweight fare to topical and controversial issues. Three months after she took over, A.M. Chicago's ratings overtook Phil Donahue's show, which had dominated the local talk show scene for more than 16 years. By 1985 Oprah's morning show had expanded to a full hour and was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show. In September 1986 the show went national and premiered on the largest number of stations of any syndicated program ever! That same year she founded HARPO Productions (HARPO is Oprah spelled backwards) to produce her talk show and other programs. In creating HARPO, Oprah became the first African American woman in television to own her own television and film production company.

 

By the late 1990s The Oprah Winfrey Show was still number one and her show continued to be highly influential. She formed Oprah's Book Club in 1996 and her selections always skyrocketed to the top of the bestseller lists. The Oprah Winfrey show has won numerous Emmy Awards and Oprah herself has won numerous awards and accolades.

 

Aside from television, in 1985 she was cast in the role of Sofia in the film adaptation of Alice Walker's" The Color Purple." A performance, that earned her an Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination. More than just an entertainer, Oprah Winfrey has used her immense personal success to promote social progress. She established ten scholarships in her father's name at Tennessee State University and gave two million dollars to Morehouse College in Atlanta. In September 1997, she launched Oprah's Angel Network, a campaign to encourage people to help those in need. By 1998, the campaign had raised over $3.5 million for college tuition for needy students.

 

Oprah Winfrey, despite her enormous success as the "queen of talk shows," an accomplished actress, an award-winning executive producer and social activist… she remains "a real person."

 



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