television talk show host; broadcasting and media executive; actress
Personal Information
Born Orpah Gail Winfrey (given name changed to Oprah as an infant), January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, MS; daughter of Vernon Winfrey (a barber, grocery store owner, and city councilman) and Vernita Lee (a housecleaner); engaged to Stedman Graham; children: one son (deceased).
Education: Received B.A. from Tennessee State University.
Career
WVOL (radio station), Nashville, TN, part-time radio newscaster, 1971; WTVF-TV, Nashville, reporter and anchor, beginning 1973; WJZ-TV, Baltimore, MD, news anchor, 1976-77, cohost of morning show People Are Talking, 1977-83; host of WLS-TV talk show AM Chicago, beginning 1984, nationally syndicated as the Oprah Winfrey Show, ABC-TV, 1986--; host of Oprah After the Show, Oxygen, 2002--. Appeared in films The Color Purple, 1985, Native Son, 1987, There Are No Children Here, 1993. Founder of Harpo Productions, Inc., 1988. Coexecutive producer and actress in television miniseries The Women of Brewster Place, ABC, 1989, and in weekly television series based on the miniseries, 1990. Owns the screen rights to Toni Morrison's novel Beloved and Mark Mathabane's novel Kaffir Boy. Part-owner of three network affiliated stations; Co-author of "Make the Connection: Ten Steps to a Better Body-And a Better Life," 1996; Actress on television sitcom Ellen, 1997; publisher of O. The Oprah Magazine, a magazine for women, 2000--.
Life's Work
Oprah Winfrey, a multi-millionaire businesswoman with her own national top-rated talk show and Chicago-based movie production company called Harpo Productions, Inc., is one of the most affluent and powerful black women in America. Deemed the undisputed "Queen of Talk" since the mid-1980s, she is the first black woman to host a nationally syndicated weekday talk show.
Winfrey was born January 29, 1954, on a farm in Kosciusko, Mississippi, the product of a fleeting tryst between 20-year-old Vernon Winfrey and 18-year-old Vernita Lee. Since her father was in the service when she was born and her mother was eager to leave Mississippi, Winfrey lived on the farm with her maternal grandparents until the age of six. Her father apparently learned of her birth when he received a printed baby announcement in the mail with a scribbled note: "Send clothes!" Originally named "Orpah," from the book of Ruth in the Bible, Winfrey came to be known as "Oprah" shortly after her birth because of the difficulty most people had spelling and pronouncing "Orpah" properly.
By the age of three, Winfrey was reciting in church on holidays, and the locals quickly perceived her as "gifted." While in kindergarten, she reportedly wrote to her teacher requesting that she be moved to the first grade. The next day she was skipped ahead a grade.
Winfrey formed her spiritual values and learned both discipline and drama in the southern Baptist church. As a young child, she was raised in the rural tradition, receiving whippings and harsh chastisement as punishment for wrongdoing. At the age of six, she moved to Milwaukee to live with her mother, who was working as a housecleaner. Rarely at home because of work demands, Vernita Winfrey had a difficult time providing for the emotional needs of the intelligent, high-spirited Oprah. Several sources have documented the imaginative stories Winfrey apparently concocted to capture her mother's attention. Once, when her mother refused to buy her a new pair of eyeglasses--claiming that she couldn't afford them--Winfrey staged a fake burglary at her home, alleging that she had been knocked unconscious, and during the ordeal her glasses had broken. Another time, she ran away from home, approached Aretha Franklin's limousine, and convinced the singer that she was an abandoned child. Franklin is said to have given her one hundred dollars. Winfrey's last antic involved her frantic attempt to keep an un-housebroken puppy: she invented a tale about the courageous puppy fending off robbers and even added a bit of realism to the "scene" by tossing her mother's jewelry out of the window.
At the age of nine, and for several years thereafter, Winfrey was sexually abused by a teenage cousin, and then by other male relatives and friends. She spoke openly about this on her talk show in 1991, lending support and showing empathy to guests and viewers who had endured similar painful experiences. In an article for Essence she admitted that she couldn't free herself of the "shame" she felt until 1990, when she finally admitted, "I was not responsible for the abuse." The molestation Winfrey experienced in Milwaukee ended when, at the age of 14, she went to live with her father in Nashville, where she flourished under his care and honed many of her communication skills. Winfrey grew up a Baptist, but left organized religion behind as an adult. As she told Chicago Magazine: "I have church with myself; I have church walking down the street. I believe in one God force that lives inside all of us, and once you tap into that, you can do anything."
Winf rey credits her father, and the time she spent with him and his wife Zelma, for "saving" her. He functioned as a strict and constant presence in her life. She told Jill Nelson in an interview for Washington Post Magazine, "If I hadn't been sent to my father, I would have gone in another direction. I could have made a good criminal. I would have used these same instincts differently."
Winfrey's life under her father's care was purposeful and disciplined. A barber, an elected city councilman, a grocery store owner, and a deacon in his church, Vernon Winfrey was a high achiever who expected responsible behavior from his daughter. Gone were Oprah's days of heavily applied make-up, revealing dresses, and broken curfews. She was expected to maintain top grades. Zelma Winfrey took her to the library every two weeks, where she had to choose five books, read them, and then write book reports for her family. Vernon rightly viewed education as the key to success, and Oprah clearly reaped the benefits of his guidance.
Winfrey joined the drama club in school and became a prizewinning orator, winning a $1,000 college scholarship after a two-and-a-half minute speech titled "The Negro, the Constitution, and the United States," delivered before 10,000 Elks in Philadelphia. She was the first black person to win Nashville's Miss Fire Prevention title. In 1971, she became a part-time radio newscaster on Nashville's WVOL. That same year, she was named Miss Black Tennessee. In 1973, when she was only 19 and still attending Tennessee State University, Winfrey was hired by WTVF-TV, the CBS affiliate in Nashville, as a reporter and anchor. In 1987, she set up a $750,000 fund to provide ten scholarships to her alma mater and followed up with letters to each recipient, challenging a few of them to boost their grades. "My mission is to use this position, power and money to create opportunities for other people," she told Richard Zoglin in Time.
From WTVF-TV, Winfrey moved to Baltimore's WJZ-TV--an ABC affiliate--from 1976 to 1983. She started out as a news anchor but was soon fired. As she told Zoglin, "I had no business anchoring the news in a major market." After being given another chance as co-host of a Baltimore morning show called People Are Talking, Winfrey found her niche in the business. "I said to myself 'This is what I should be doing. It's like breathing,'" she recalled to Zoglin. Although the ratings soared, Winfrey experienced personal problems and began overeating as a result. The station wanted to change both her name and her look. She was apparently told that her eyes were too far apart, her nose was too wide, and her chin was too long. In an attempt to thin out her hair, she underwent what turned out to be a botched French permanent at an expensive hair salon and was rendered temporarily bald.
In spite of Winfrey's perceived "shortcomings," the ratings for People Are Talking continued to increase and so did Winfrey's size. By the time she left Baltimore for WLS-TV's AM Chicago in 1984, she weighed 160 pounds. After her experience with the broadcasting executives in Baltimore, Winfrey resolved not to let anyone manipulate her appearance or personality again.
Winfrey took over the ailing Chicago television talk show AM Chicago in January of 1984 and instantly turned it into a smash hit, besting even the successful Phil Donahue Show in the ratings. When the Chicago-based ABC affiliate WLS-TV put the little-known Winfrey against Phil Donahue in the 9 a.m. slot, the odds against her were formidable. Then standing 5 feet 6 inches and weighing 180 pounds, she seemed an unlikely contender for a television idol, but her earthy, down-home, comfortable style captivated audiences. She even studied improvisation with Chicago's Second City comedy troupe to polish her instinctive flair for entertainment. Where Phil Donahue might have probed the morality of a pornographic actress, Winfrey would simply blurt out "Don't you get sore?" She automatically asks the questions her television viewers want to ask--frequently tossing aside propriety--yet always remains warm and empathetic. Her show was quickly syndicated to television stations in more than 120 American cities. Within a year after she arrived, Phil Donahue relocated to New York City, and his show was switched to an afternoon spot, thus avoiding head-on competition with the Oprah Winfrey Show.
In 1985, producer Quincy Jones was in Chicago to testify in a lawsuit and watched Winfrey's show from his hotel room. He immediately arranged an audition for her for the role of Sophia in the screen adaptation of Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple. His faith in her acting abilities proved well placed, as Winfrey's acting debut merited her nominations for both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for best supporting actress. In addition to The Color Purple, Winfrey's other movie credits include the 1986 film Native Son, and the 1993 made-for-TV movie There Are No Children Here, in which Winfrey played the role of a single mother struggling to raise her family in a tough Chicago housing project.
In September of 1986, the Oprah Winfrey Show made its national debut, entering the talk show wars in earnest. Within five months it was the third highest rated show in syndication--after the gameshows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!--and the number one talk show, reaching between 9 and 10 million people daily in 192 cities at that time. Winfrey and her show have received numerous Daytime Emmy awards for excellence in the talk/service broadcasting field.
In addition to owning and producing the Oprah Winfrey Show, the broadcasting executive spins grand ventures from her Chicago-based company, Harpo Productions, Inc. (Harpo is Oprah spelled backwards.) Harpo Productions, which reaped at least $50 million during the 1988-89 season, took over the ownership and production of the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1988 from Chicago's WLS-TV. Having let ABC know that she was considering discontinuing her show at the end of her original contract so she could pursue other interests, Winfrey ended up gaining the control she wanted and went on to become the first black woman to own her own television and film production complex. By 1991, Winfrey was earning a whopping $80 million and came in third on Forbes magazine's 1990-91 list of the richest entertainers in the business. She told Ms. magazine that making a difference in the lives of others is key to her master plan and noted, "I'm starting a minority training program ... specifically to bring more people of color into the film and television industry as producers."
Jeffrey Jacobs, Winfrey's lawyer-manager and chief adviser, told Ms.: "Because of our economic status, and because of Oprah's other talents, we're going to bring things to the screen that no one else will be able to do.... She can develop or buy something that no one else will think is commercially viable--because she thinks the message is important and people should see it.... If we can make money, great. And if we don't, well, there are other reasons to do projects besides making money".
In 1989 Winfrey coproduced and starred in the Harpo endeavor The Women of Brewster Place, a miniseries based upon Gloria Naylor's award-winning novel about a group of ghetto-based women. The strong female cast and solid script earned the show considerable acclaim, and Winfrey decided to follow it up the next year with a weekly television show based on the same characters. But the series was canceled in its first season. "I could hear my inner voice telling me it wasn't time, don't do it," she revealed in Essence. "People around me whom I love and trust advised me to wait until I was sure everything was ready, but I thought I could make it all right because I wanted it to be all right.... I thought I could make it happen on the strength of my own will. I was doing two Oprah Winfrey shows a day and then taping Brewster Place at night.... I was physically and emotionally exhausted. When Brewster Place was canceled, I felt disappointed for everyone else. But for myself? I felt relief."
Around the same time, Winfrey, who has battled a weight problem since 1977, began to gain back most of the 67 pounds she had lost on a much celebrated medically supervised liquid diet. "When I started gaining the weight back, I felt I had let people down, and that triggered my greatest fear in life: the fear of not being liked, of not being good enough," she explained in an article for Essence. Winfrey's weight difficulties seem to have stemmed from her continued use of food as a stress reliever. "My greatest failure was in believing that the weight issue just about weight," she later admitted in People.
In coming to understand the reasons for her weight problem and in finally coming to grips with the abuse she endured as a child, Winfrey has been able to move forward both personally and professionally with more gusto than ever. She owns the screen rights to Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of slavery, Beloved--she intends to play the title role in the film adaptation--and to Kaffir Boy, the anti-apartheid autobiography of South African writer Mark Mathabane. Her additional endeavors include part-ownership of three network affiliated stations, and she has an interest in a Chicago restaurant called The Eccentric. She has also set up a "Little Sisters" program in Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing projects and attempts to answer many of the two thousand letters that pour into her studio weekly. An active fund-raiser who is notoriously generous with her staff and friends, Winfrey gives dozens of speeches every year, dousing them with her practiced wit, evangelical anecdotal flair, and recognizable fervor.
Winfrey is also politically active. In 1991, the tragic story of a four-year-old Chicago girl's molestation and murder prompted her--as a former abuse victim--"to take a stand for the children of this country," she explained in People. With the help of former Illinois governor James Thompson, she proposed federal child protection legislation designed to keep nationwide records on convicted child abusers. Winfrey's efforts on behalf of abused and neglected children came to fruition on December 20, 1993, when President Bill Clinton signed the national "Oprah Bill" into law. This bill guarantees strict sentencing of individuals convicted of child abuse.
Although Winfrey is one of the wealthiest women in America, she has become noted for her generous contributions to charitable organizations and institutions such as Morehouse College, the Harold Washington Library, The United Negro College Fund, and her alma mater, Tennessee State University. In 1994, Winfrey announced that she would commit $6 million dollars to Families for a Better Life, a program designed to help 100 families get out of Chicago public housing, off welfare rolls, and into their own apartments or homes. Despite this lofty goal, only five families had completed the program by August of 1996 and the project was put on hold.
Oprah shocked many of her viewers in January of 1995 when, during a show about women who used drugs, she admitted that she had smoked crack cocaine with a boyfriend during the 1970s. Although officials at Harpo Productions, her production company, fretted about the negative impact this revelation would have on the ratings of the Oprah Winfrey Show, telling this long-held secret gave Winfrey a sense of peace and closure. "What I learned from it," she remarked to Ebony magazine, "is the thing 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."
In 1995, Winfrey's many fans were distressed to learn that she was considering quitting her successful talk show and moving on to other projects. King World Productions, which syndicates the Oprah Winfrey Show, announced that they had reached a deal with Winfrey that would continue distribution of the show through the 1999-2000 television season. However, the contract also gave Winfrey the option of ending the program with only one year's notice. Winfrey did not quit, but signed other extensions with King World which ensured her show would be on the air through 2011.
On October 2, 1995, America Online launched Winfrey's own on-line site entitled "Oprah Online." The tremendous success of "Oprah Online" was followed in October of 1996 with the debut on the Oprah Winfrey Show of "Oprah's Book Club." Winfrey, an avid reader, created the monthly book club as a way to encourage her viewers to read more often. Each month, she showcased a particular novel on her program and recommends it to her audience. Novels that were featured on "Oprah's Book Club" have become instant bestsellers, dramatically illustrating the tremendous influence Winfrey has with her viewers. The success of her monthly book club also prompted Winfrey to invite four women to her Chicago home to have dinner and discuss books with Toni Morrison, a Nobel Prize-winning author. The dinner with Morrison was taped for a television special entitled Dinner with Oprah, which aired on February 24, 1997 on the Lifetime cable network.
On April 30, 1997, Winfrey appeared on a controversial episode of the sitcom Ellen in which the show's character discloses that she is a lesbian. The controversy deepened when the show's star, comedian Ellen DeGeneres, announced that she herself was a lesbian. Rumors quickly circulated that Winfrey, who portrayed a therapist on the episode, was also gay. Distressed by the rumors, Winfrey issued a statement declaring that she is a heterosexual.
In addition to her numerous Daytime Emmys, Winfrey has received other awards. She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1994 and at the end of the 1995-96 television season received the George Foster Peabody Individual Achievement Award, one of broadcasting's most coveted awards. She was also the recipient of the IRTS Gold Medal Award, was named one of "America's 25 Most Influential People of 1996" by Time Magazine, and included on Marjabelle Young Stewart's 1996 list of most polite celebrities. In 1997, Winfrey received TV Guide's Television Performer of the Year Award and was named favorite Female Television Performer at the 1997 People's Choice Awards. The seemingly endless parade of awards and citations continued through the turn of the century, as she received a National Book Award in 1999 and was recognized at the (Martin Luther) King Center Salute to Greatness Awards Dinner in 2000. Also in 2000 Winfrey digressed into magazine publishing with the launch of her magazine, O. The Oprah Magazine, for women; and in 2001 her name appeared on the list of the ten most influential people in publishing, as compiled by Book magazine.
O. The Oprah Magazine was a huge success for Winfrey, beyond such accolades. After launching in April 2000 with a circulation of 500,000, O increased its readership to 2.65 million in 2003. The printed word was not Winfrey's only successful venture in the early 2000s. Winfrey and her Harpo Productions began developing syndicated television programming for King World to distribute. One early success was a show featuring Dr. Phil McGraw, which began airing in 2002. King World was impressed with Winfrey's touch and decided to turn over the development of all their syndicated talk shows to Winfrey and her company. The first show under this deal was expected to air in 2006.
By 2003, Winfrey was worth over $1 billion. She used her wealth, position, and popularity for numerous social causes. In 2004, for example, she gave $5 million to Morehouse College to provide college scholarships. Winfrey had already given Morehouse $7 million in previous years. In 2005, Winfrey and other prominent African Americans lent their name and support to raising funds to build the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. The museum was to be part of the Smithsonian and located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Always interested in educational issues, Winfrey built a school in South Africa, The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls South Africa, that was set to open in 2007.
Awards
Nashville's Miss Fire Prevention, 1971; Miss Black Tennessee, 1971; nominated for Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for best supporting actress, 1986, for role as Sophia in The Color Purple; Women of Achievement Award, National Organization for Women, 1986; Broadcaster of the Year Award, International Radio and Television Society, 1988; numerous Daytime Emmy awards for the Oprah Winfrey Show; inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, 1994; George Foster Peabody Individual Achievement Award, 1996; named to Time Magazine's "America's 25 Most Influential People," 1996; received TV Guide's Television Performer of the Year Award, 1997; People's Choice Award, 1997; Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, 2002; People's Choice Award, favorite talk show host, 2004; Candle for Lifetime Achievement in Humanitarian Service, Morehouse College, 2004; Global Leadership Award, United Nations, 2004.
Further Reading
Sources
- Atlanta Constitution, February 24, 1997.
- Black Enterprise, June 2004.
- Boston Globe, December 6, 1996.
- Brandweek, March 1, 2004.
- Broadcasting & Cable, December 13, 2004.
- Chicago Magazine, November 1985.
- Chicago Tribune, September 14, 1994; August 27, 1996.
- Daily News (New York), January 22, 1989.
- Ebony, August 1991; July 1995.
- Essence, June 1991.
- Good Housekeeping, September 1991.
- The Independent (London), January 7, 2005.
- Jet, June 5, 1989; December 18, 1989; September 17, 1990; February 18, 1991; September 30, 1991; October 7, 1991; October 17, 1994; January 29, 1996; January 27, 1997.
- Ladies' Home Journal, May 1990; August 1991.
- McCalls, August 1995.
- Ms., November 1988.
- Multichannel News, June 17, 2002.
- New York Times, July 29, 1991.
- New York Times Magazine, June 11, 1989.
- People, January 4, 1988; June 10, 1988; January 12, 1989; January 14, 1991; January 21, 1991; December 2, 1991; February 2, 2004.
- Philadelphia Inquirer, January 14, 1986.
- Time, September 15, 1986; August 8, 1988.
- Washington Post, October 22, 1994.
- Washington Post Magazine, December 14, 1986.
- US Magazine, March 20, 1989.
- USA Today, October 26, 1994; September 29, 1995.
- Additional information for this profile was obtained from America Online's "Oprah Online" site, last updated in April 1997.
— B. Kimberly Taylor and David Oblender