Oprah Winfrey, born Oprah Gail Winfrey, is an African American Talk show host, producer, actress, author and philanthropist popularly known for her Talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Broadcast from Chicago.
Dubbed the “Queen of all Media”, Oprah was formerly the wealthiest Black person in America. She was the richest African-American of the 20th century, was once the world’s only black billionaire, and the most outstanding black philanthropist in U.S. history.
Early Life
Oprah’s early life was marked with sexual abuse and poverty. Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954; her first name was spelt Orpah on her birth certificate after the biblical figure in the Book of Ruth, but people mispronounced it regularly, and “Oprah ” stuck.
She was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to an unmarried teenage mother. Her mother, Vernita Lee (1935–2018), was a housemaid. Winfrey’s biological father is usually noted as Vernon Winfrey (born c. 1933), a coal miner turned barber turned city councilman in the Armed Forces when she was born.
However, Mississippi farmer and World War II Veteran Noah Robinson Sr. (born c. 1925) have claimed to be her biological father. A genetic test in 2006 determined that her matrilineal line originated among the Kpelle ethnic group in the area that today is Liberia.
After Winfrey’s birth, her mother travelled north, and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her maternal grandmother, Hattie Mae (Presley) Lee (April 15, 1900 – February 27, 1963). Her grandmother was so poor that Winfrey often wore dresses made of potato sacks, which other children made fun of her for.
Her grandmother taught her to read before the age of three and took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed “The Preacher” for her ability to recite Bible verses. When Winfrey was a child, her grandmother was reportedly abusive.
At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner-city neighbourhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her mother, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother had been, mainly due to the long hours she worked as a maid. 1962, Winfrey was temporarily sent to live with Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee.
Oprah had stated she was molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was nine years old, something she first announced on a 1986 episode of her show regarding sexual abuse. When Oprah discussed the alleged abuse with family members at age 24, they reportedly refused to believe her account.
Oprah once commented that she had chosen not to be a mother because she had not been mothered well. At 13, after suffering what she described as years of abuse, Oprah ran away from home. When she was 14, she became pregnant, but her son was born prematurely and died shortly after birth. Oprah later stated she felt betrayed by the family member who had sold the story of her son to the National Enquirer in 1990.
Oprah attended Lincoln High School in Milwaukee but, after early success in the Upward Bound program, was transferred to the affluent suburban Nicolet High School. Upon moving, she said she was continually reminded of her poverty as she rode the bus to school with fellow African-Americans. Some of them were servants of her classmates’ families. She began to rebel and steal money from her mother to keep up with her free-spending peers.
As a result, her mother once again sent her to live with Vernon in Nashville, although this time, she did not take her back. Vernon was strict but encouraging and made her education a priority. Oprah became an honours student, was voted Most Popular Girl, and joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School, placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation.
Oprah’s first job as a teenager was working at a local grocery store. At 17, She won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant. She also attracted the attention of the local black radio station, WVOL, which hired her to do the news part-time. She worked there during her senior year of high school and her first two college years. She had won an oratory contest, which secured her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black institution, where she studied communication. However, she did not deliver her final paper and receive her degree until 1987, when she was a successful television personality.
Oprah’s career in media would not have surprised her grandmother, who once said that ever since Oprah could talk, she was on stage. As a child, she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family’s property. Winfrey later acknowledged her grandmother’s influence, Hattie Mae, who had encouraged her to speak in public and gave Oprah “a positive sense” of herself”.
Career
In 1984, Oprah moved to Chicago to host the faltering talk show AM Chicago, her honest and engaging personality quickly turned the program into a success, and in 1985, it was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show.
The program became the highest-rated television talk show in the United States and earned several Emmy Awards.
In 1985, Oprah appeared in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel The Color Purple.
Her critically acclaimed performance led to other roles, including a performance in the television miniseries The Women of Brewster Place (1989).
In 1986 and 1990, Oprah formed Harpo Productions, Inc., and film production company, Harpo Films, in 1990. The companies began buying film rights to literary works, including Connie May Fowler’s Before Women Had Wings, which appeared in 1997 with Oprah as both star and producer, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which appeared in 1998, also with Oprah in a starring role.
Oprah voiced multiple animated films, including Charlotte’s Web (2006) and The Princess and the Frog (2009), and appeared in Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013). Selma (2014), a film about Martin Luther King, Jr., that Winfrey produced and appeared in, was nominated for an Academy Award for best picture.
She subsequently starred in the HBO TV movie The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017), portraying the daughter of a woman whose cancerous cells were, unbeknownst to her and her family, used in research that led to numerous scientific advances.
Oprah then appeared as Mrs Which in the 2018 film adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s acclaimed 1962 sci-fi novel, A Wrinkle in Time.
Oprah broke new ground in 1996 by starting an on-air book club. She announced selections two to four weeks in advance and then discussed the book on her show with a select group of people.
Each book chosen quickly rose to the top of the best-seller charts, and she further expanded her presence in the publishing industry with the highly successful launch of O, the Oprah Magazine in 2000 and O at Home in 2004. The latter folded in 2008, and O, the Oprah Magazine, ceased its print publication in 2020 and was rebranded the following year. Oprah Daily became the digital product, and O Quarterly, a print edition published four times a year, was launched
In 1998, Oprah co-founded Oxygen Media, which launched a cable television network for women. In 2006, the Oprah & Friends channel debuted on satellite radio. She partnered with Discovery Communications in 2008, through the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) and replaced the Discovery Health Channel in January 2011.
In 2009, Oprah announced that her television talk show would end in 2011. The last episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired in May 2011, and Oprah’s Next Chapter, a weekly prime-time interview program on OWN, debuted in January 2012.
In 2017, it was announced that Discovery was acquiring a majority share in OWN, though Winfrey would remain involved in the channel. That year she also became a special correspondent for the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which aired on CBS.
In 2018, Oprah announced an agreement to produce content for the Apple TV+ streaming service, and in 2020, she began producing and hosting the streaming talk show Oprah Talks COVID-19.
In 2021, Oprah made headlines with her candid interview of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, the couple’s first since they stopped being working members of the British royal family. The much-hyped TV special aired on CBS.
Oprah engaged in numerous philanthropic activities, including creating Oprah’s Angel Network, which sponsors charitable initiatives worldwide. In 2007, she opened a $40 million school for disadvantaged girls in South Africa, becoming a crusader against child abuse.
In 2010, she was named a Kennedy Center honoree, and the following year she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In 2013, Winfrey was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She won the Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement) in 2018, and her impassioned speech—in which she called for racial and gender equality—was widely seen as one of the ceremony’s most memorable moments.
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