Oprah Winfrey Biography:

Commanding. Motivating. Compassionate. A true prodigy. These are just a few of the many words that can be used to describe talk show celebrity Oprah Winfrey. She is certainly the most prominent person on television as well as one of the wealthiest. With all her success, money and awards and honors, the Academy Award nominated actress is known for her sympathetic heart and wish for change. She grew out of poverty, discrimination and abuse to become a leading campaigner for removing the evils of society and history, made clear by the 2007 opening of The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Johannesburg, South Africa. She made great inroads in defending and supporting women, children and minorities. Her philanthropic kingdom all started with a daytime television talk show.

Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on Jan. 19, 1954 in Kosciusko, MS to unwed parents Vernita Lee – a housemaid, and Vernon Winfrey – a coal miner. During a 1991 discussion with the Academy of Achievement, Winfrey said that people could not say her real name “Orpah” correctly, so it was changed to Oprah. Her grandmother Hattie Mae reared the forthcoming talk show host on a Mississippi farm with no indoor plumbing and, at times, almost nothing to eat. What they missed in basic provisions was filled with spirituality. Winfrey was able to read the Bible and recite in church by the time she was four. 

Four years later, the young entertainment queen relocated to Milwaukee, WI with her mother. It was while living in this inner city ghetto that Winfrey was on the receiving end of horrible experiences with molestation and rape from a cousin, an uncle and a family friend. It began when she was only nine years old and continued through most of her teen years. This abuse would change her life – not only in her personal relationships and deeds, but in her quest to help those less fortunate, the abused and the forgotten.

Winfrey received a scholarship to Nicolet High School in Glendale, WI at the age of thirteen, and there was definitely a rebellious side to the young teen. She ran away from home and became pregnant a year after she was accepted to the school, but she lost the baby shortly after birth. Not able to keep in check or provide for her daughter, Lee sent Winfrey to live with her father in Nashville, TN. Oprah's  studies were a priority and soon after, she was raised on a farm and abused in the ghetto, received a full scholarship to attend Tennessee State University where she studied Communication. 

Winfrey always had big dreams, even as a young lady fresh out of college. She wanted to be a movie star and celebrity, at a time when segregation was fresh in the thoughts of many Americans. The adversity did everything but weaken Winfrey’s struggling spirit. Despite the odds against her – being African American and female in the South – at the age of 19, she became Nashville’s first female and first black television news anchor for WTVF–TV. 

After WTVF–TV, Winfrey moved to Baltimore, MD’s WJZ–TV to co–anchor the evening news. Intelligent, charismatic and friendly, Winfrey was a natural on television. After being taken off the air in Baltimore she made the leap to the bigger market in Chicago, IL in 1984, hosting the half–hour morning show “A.M. Chicago.” Within a year, it had been extended to a one–hour talk format and was renamed “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” It would be the start of Winfrey’s media and entertainment dominance as well. In September 1986, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was circulated in national syndication and became the highest–rated talk show in television history. It stayed the number one talk show for 20 consecutive seasons. Three years after the introduction of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the media entrepreneur created "Harpo Productions, Inc.", Winfrey’s own production company and a highlight in her celebrated career.

Always looking for new adventures, Winfrey extended her career into acting, receiving an Academy Award nomination for her movie-screen debut as the dominant, abused Sofia in Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple” (1985), based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning book. Oprah soon followed up this exceptional film debut as the mother of an accused murderer in “Native Son” starring Matt Dillon (1986) and executive produced and starred in the much-admired television miniseries, “The Women of Brewster Place” (ABC, 1989) and its later spin–off “Brewster Place” (1990). Both movies were produced at her Chicago movie studio and television production complex. Winfrey again gave her poise to the role of a Chicago housing project resident resolute that her children would receive an education in the television movie “There Are No Children Here” (ABC, 1993). 

Even as her projects outside of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” explored the troubles she faced growing up, as well as current events that needed awareness – from Hurricane Katrina to childhood obesity – it was her own talk show where Winfrey developed a method to reach out to millions of people and make a difference. At the start of her 13th season in 1998, Winfrey started “change your life television,” featuring self–help segments led by John Gray, Suze Ormond and others, as well as a daily segment on getting in touch with one's spirit – however an individual defined it. That year, Winfrey picked up her seventh Emmy Award for “Outstanding Talk Show Host.”

One of Winfrey’s goals through her television show was to get America reading again – a amazing effort 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 trendy segment of her talk show that debuted in 1996. New books and classics became instantaneous bestsellers, thanks to Winfrey’s sway. When she chose John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel "East of Eden" as the book of the month, it shot to the top of the charts. Winfrey’s show was not without its controversies, however, when her selection of James Frey’s supposed memoir "A Million Little Pieces" was exposed as a work of total fiction. In 2006, an irritated and upset Winfrey had Frey on her show to apologize to the American public for his “novel” lies and berated him with her claims of betrayal.

Another fashionable segment was Winfrey’s once a year “Oprah’s Favorite Things” shows, which regularly aired around Thanksgiving and always received the show’s best ratings. In past seasons, the Oprah went a step beyond charitable, gifting her entire audience with appliances, computers, diamonds, even cars. For the 2005 episode, the fortunate audience members were all Hurricane Katrina volunteers. Winfrey gave a new twist to gift giving in 2006 when a “Pay It Forward” challenge was given to the audience as a substitute for extravagant gifts. Each member of the audience received $1,000 worth of gift cards to donate to their charity of choice. 

The tabloids aand Hollywood press loved Oprah Winfrey also. She was a relentless target on several issues affecting a large population of the country – from weight to alleged homosexuality. When she was termed a celebrity who lost “the battle of being overweight,” the host dropped pounds and got in shape through personal training and proper nutrition – even bringing onstage a wheelbarrow filled with 60 pounds of animal fat to show how much weight she had lost. Another popular rumor was that Winfrey was in a lesbian relationship with her best friend Gayle King. Both women claimed their relationship was simply a special bond between two straight women. Winfrey then focused on vital issues touching homosexuals, from the AIDS crisis of the 1980s to teens who struggled with coming out of the closet. 

Oprah Winfrey augmented her television projects by signing deals with ABC and Disney. The first project of the ABC deal – under the title “Oprah Winfrey Presents” – were “Before Women Had Wings” (1997), a television movie starring Winfrey as a woman who gives sanctuary to a child running from an alcoholic home, and the 1998 miniseries “The Wedding” starring Halle Berry and based on Dorothy West’s novel about an rich black family living on Martha's Vineyard. For the 1998–99 season, Winfrey executive produced a television rework of “David and Lisa,” featuring Sidney Poitier, and “Tuesdays with Morrie,” from the much-admired chronicle by Mitch Albom. Winfrey then had a starring role in the film adaptation of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer prize winning novel “Beloved” with Danny Glover (1998). Winfrey portrayed an escaped slave haunted by the ghost of the child she murdered.

A celebration of Black history and women was the focal point of Winfrey’s “Legends Weekend” television special (ABC, 2005). Held at her home in Montecito, CA, the television celebrity 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 guests. 

Oprah Winfrey's charitable work is astonishing. She started "Oprah’s Angel Network" in 1988 to assist underprivileged families and raised over $60 million to date, as well as raising 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.

Oprah’s empire kept growing. In 2002, she branched out into publishing with "O, The Oprah Magazine". She described the periodical as being “the women's personal growth guide for the new century".  She also helped start the television careers of self–help guru Dr. Phil McGraw, whose in style appearances on her show starting in 1998 led to McGraw's own highly rated syndicated daytime series “Dr. Phil” (2002– ), and served as the producer of fashionable chef Rachael Ray’s talk show (Syndicated, 2006– ).

As a producer of television movies, Winfrey time and again added A–list celebrities to her projects, with Elizabeth Shue headlining the coming of age drama “Amy & Isabelle” (2001) and Academy Award winner Halle Berry starring in the over-the-top production of “Their Eyes Were Watching God” (2005), based on the novel by Zora Neale Hurston. In 2006, Winfrey lent her voice talents to the animated comedy "Charlottes Web" with Julia Roberts, the classic tale of Wilbur the pig who is scared of the end of the season, because he knows that come that time, he will end up on the dinner table. He hatches a plan with Charlotte, a spider that lives in his pen, to ensure that this will never happen.

Building on her voice recognition, Oprah worked in the Jerry Seinfeld animated comedy "Bee Movie" (2007) with Renee Zellweger about a bee who has just graduated from college, and is disillusioned at his lone career choice: making honey. On a special trip outside the hive, Barry's life is saved by Vanessa, a florist in New York City. As their relationship blossoms, he discovers humans actually eat honey, and subsequently decides to sue them.

Winfrey's latest television venture was the 2008 "makeover" series "Your Money Or Your Life" (2008). A television series in which a family facing a crisis is aided by an "action team" who movee in and provide the family with a total makeover.

Oprah Winfrey will always be best known for her television show. In the July 23, 2007 issue of "TV Guide", Winfrey was named the highest–paid TV star in the United States with an estimated $260 million a year paycheck. 

• Also Credited As:
  Oprah Gail Winfrey
• Born:
  Oprah Gail Winfrey on 01/29/1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi
• Job Titles:
  Actor, Talk show host, Producer, Anchorperson, Reporter

Family

• Father: Vernon Winfrey. Was never married to Winfrey's mother
• Mother: Vernita Lee. Was never married to Winfrey's father
• Step-mother: Zelma Winfrey. Died in 1996

Significant Others

• Companion: Roger Ebert. Briefly dated; Winfrey credits him with advising her to take her show into syndication
• Companion: Stedman Graham. together since 1986; announced engagement in November 1992

Education

• East Nashville High School, Nashville, TN, 1971

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