Oprah Winfrey

Founder of Harpo Productions Inc.

Founded: 1986

"I don't think of myself as a poor, deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as
somebody who from an early age knew she was responsible for herself-and I had to make
good."-Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is living proof that the American dream is alive and well. The illegitimate
daughter of a Mississippi sharecropper, she overcame poverty, parental neglect, sexual abuse and
racism to become one of the richest and most powerful women in the entertainment industry.
Through sheer force of her personality and by simply being herself, she reinvented the talk show
and still reigns as the undisputed champ of daytime television.

Winfrey was born in 1954 on a farm in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Her unmarried parents drifted
apart and moved elsewhere shortly after her birth, leaving her in the care of her maternal
grandmother, a harsh but loving disciplinarian whom Winfrey credits with fostering her outgoing
personality and precociousness. Under her grandmother's tutelage, she learned to read by the age
of 2, and by the time she was 3, her speaking talents had already begun to emerge. She was often
invited to recite poetry at social clubs and church teas, where they referred to her as "the little
speaker."

At age 6, Winfrey moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to live with her mother, who was working
as a domestic. Adjusting to life in the urban ghetto after enjoying the peace of a Mississippi farm
proved to be a difficult challenge for Winfrey. To make matters worse, her mother was so
preoccupied with her own problems that she had little time for Winfrey. This lack of parental
supervision left her vulnerable, and beginning when she was 9 and continuing for several years
thereafter, Winfrey was sexually abused by several different men, including a teenage cousin and
her mother's boyfriend. (Years later, during a show she was doing on incest, Winfrey burst into
tears and shared with her audience the story of her ordeal.)

Confused, ashamed, guilt-ridden and afraid to tell anyone what was being done to her, Winfrey
began to act out. Her increasing belligerence and delinquency proved too much for her mother to
handle. She tried to put Winfrey in a detention center, but the institution didn't have enough beds,
so instead she sent her to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee. A strict disciplinarian,
Winfrey's father changed the course of her life. "My father turned my life around by insisting
that I be more than I was and by believing I could be more," Winfrey told Good Housekeeping
magazine. "His love of learning showed me the way."

Under her father's guidance, Winfrey became an honor student and rediscovered her flair for
public speaking, emerging as a standout orator. Her speaking skills earned her a scholarship to
Tennessee State University, where she majored in speech and drama. In 1973, while only a
sophomore, the 19-year-old Winfrey was offered a job as co-news anchor at Nashville's CBS
affiliate, WTVF-TV, and became not only Nashville's first female co-anchor but the first black
co-anchor as well.

Inspired by her success at WTVF-TV, Oprah left college during her senior year to accept a
position in Baltimore with WJZ-TV as co-anchor of the evening news. But she soon found that
hard news wasn't truly her forte. Deeply empathetic, she had difficulty distancing herself from
her work, often having to fight back tears while reporting stories that touched her. Unable to get
past this emotional connection to her subjects, she was fired.

Fortunately, a new manager at the station saw a way to make a virtue of Winfrey's reporting
shortcomings. Phil Donahue's nationally syndicated talk show had won a large following in Baltimore,
and the manager wanted to tap the market with a local version. In 1977, "People Are Talking" aired with
Winfrey as co-host. Oprah had found her niche. Her uncommon ability to connect intellectually and
emotionally with a wide variety of topics made the show an instant success. "I came off the air," she says
of her first show, "and said to myself, 'This is what I should be doing. It's like breathing.' "

"People Are Talking" rocketed up the ratings chart, eventually becoming the top show of its genre in the
Baltimore market. Winfrey's success attracted the attention of Chicago-based WLS-TV, which offered her
a chance to anchor the station's floundering talk show "AM Chicago." Winfrey's earthy, down-home,
comfortable style captivated audiences, and the show became an instant smash hit. It bested even
hometown-boy Phil Donahue in the ratings, and was quickly syndicated in 120 cities.

But Winfrey's biggest break came in 1985, when producer Quincy Jones offered her a role in the screen
adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Winfrey's acting debut garnered rave reviews, won her
nominations for both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award, and catapulted her to national stardom.
Riding this wave of publicity, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" made its national debut in 1986, and within five
months became the third-highest rated show in syndication and the No. 1 talk show, reaching upwards
of 10 million people daily in 192 cities.

To further capitalize on her success, in 1986, Oprah formed Harpo ("Oprah" spelled backwards)
Productions Inc. In 1988, she purchased a state-of-the-art production studio in Chicago and took over
ownership and production of "The Oprah Winfrey Show." The move made Winfrey only the third
woman in history-behind Mary Pickford and Lucille Ball-to own and produce her own show as well as the
first African-American, male or female, to own her own entertainment production company.

During the 1990s, the airwaves became flooded with talk shows, but Winfrey's ratings continued to soar
despite the increased competition. Part of the reason for her success is that she has avoided the tabloid
"nuts and sluts" approach many of her competitors adopted. Choosing to take the high road, she
empathized with people in trouble and emphasized solutions to the problems her show revealed,
instead of wallowing in the mire of sensationalism. Even more so, she went beyond being merely a talk-
show host to become a shaper of American culture. The books she likes invariably become bestsellers.
The records of musicians she invites on her show shoot up the charts. And diets concocted by her
personal cook have influenced the eating habits of millions.
By the end of the 1990s, Winfrey's $415 million talk empire had made her the wealthiest woman in
show business and one of the most powerful figures in the television industry. Her recipe for success is
simple: "Follow your instincts," she says in a Ladies Home Journal magazine article. "That's where true
wisdom manifests itself."

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey

born January 29, 1954, Kosciusko, Mississippi
US-American Media Figure, Producer, Actress, Business Woman ... etc etc etc.

Biography • Quotes • Literature & Sources

Biography
Oprah Winfrey is best known, perhaps, for her unique, compelling style and personal revelations
as talk show host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, seen by 21 million viewers a week, in 105
countries. A shrewd and responsible businesswoman, Oprah has parlayed her initial success in
television into numerous other ventures, including the creation of her own production company
which now owns and produces her talk show. Despite her now legendary Midas touch – fame,
power, and wealth virtually spring from all of her projects – Oprah has a different view of her
status; for her, success is “getting to the point where you are absolutely comfortable with
yourself ... to have the kind of internal strength and internal courage it takes to say, ‘No, I will
not let you treat me this way’ is what success is all about.”

Her journey to this self-realization has not been easy.

For her first six years, Oprah was raised on a farm in rural Mississippi by her grandmother who
taught her to read at a young age. Reading was her “outlet to the world,” which she credits with
saving her life by opening “the door to all kinds of possibilities.” A born talker, Oprah’s practice
of reciting in church, starting at age three, earned her the nickname “the Preacher” among her
peers. The security and discipline of this early life changed dramatically when Oprah went to live
with her mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was sexually molested first by an older cousin
when she was nine years old, and then suffered repeated molestation by others throughout her
youth. When Oprah began to misbehave and ran away from home, she was sent to live with her
father in Nashville, Tennessee. A strict disciplinarian who demanded a great deal more from
Oprah than she was accustomed, he helped to inspire her self-confidence and self-discipline. She
became an honors student, joined the drama club, student council, and was chosen as one of two
students in the state to go to the White House Conference on Youth.

Discovered for the quality and strength of her voice during a beauty contest, Oprah began her
career as a radio newscaster while in high school. She began to work for a local TV station as a
reporter and co-anchor while majoring in speech and performing arts college at Tennessee State
University. She was the first African-American woman newscaster in Nashville. Yet she didn’t
last long as a reporter because of her lack of emotional detachment from the stories she covered.
While working in Baltimore, Oprah was moved from the news to an early morning talk show. In
this format, Oprah found with relief she was able to be herself for the first time: “It was like
breathing to me. Like breathing. You just talk.”

Oprah’s meteoric rise to fame began when she took over a local Chicago talk show in 1984,
which soon became The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 1985 she realized her dream of becoming an
actress, earning critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for her supporting role as Sophia in the
film The Color Purple. A year later her show became the number one talk show after going
national.

The popularity of the show stems from Oprah’s emotion, vulnerability, and compassion as a host
and interviewer. She was the first to establish a special connection with her audience by sharing
her personal life, ranging from anecdotes about her life-time partner Stedman Graham, to her
emotional revelation of her own childhood sexual abuse. Although there have been the usual
sensational topics on her talk show, Oprah says she views the show as “a teaching tool” and a
platform to help people change their lives.

Phenomenal material success has allowed Oprah to pursue “other things that really matter ...
being able to make a difference ... in other people’s lives.” She has begun several ventures in this
spirit of social consciousness, including an on-air book club to inspire excitement about reading,
O, The Oprah Magazine as “a personal-growth guide,” and Oxygen, a women-centered cable
network and web-site. Many of these projects have been influenced by her fundamental belief
that education is liberation. Through her company Harpo Productions, she has brought to the
small and big screen a variety of substantial literary works that feature the black female
experience, including Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Dorothy West’s The Wedding, and Gloria
Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place.

Oprah has given considerable time and money to her numerous philanthropic ventures as well,
focusing especially on funding and supporting educational initiatives and those who help others
in their communities. Along with many awards for achievements in entertainment, Oprah has
won great recognition for her humanitarian efforts.

Katherine E. Horsley
Quotes
And, you know, part of the process for me as an adult has been recognizing that my inability as
an adult female to say “No,” my disease to please as a female, is the same thing that caused me
to be victimized as a child. Because many times, I would get myself into situations as an adult
where I didn’t want to say “no” because I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I didn’t want to
say “No” because I didn’t want anybody angry with me. I didn’t want to say “No” because I
didn’t want people to think I’m not nice. And that, to me, has been the greatest lesson of my life:
to recognize that I am solely responsible for it, and not trying to please other people, and not
living my life to please other people, but doing what my heart says all the time. That’s the
biggest lesson for me.

It’s very difficult for me to even see myself as successful because I still see myself as in the
process of becoming successful. To me, “successful” is getting to the point where you are
absolutely comfortable with yourself. And it does not matter how many things you have
acquired.

As long as I can be an influence and make a difference, that’s what I want to do. But I also want
to act because I think that it’s very important to create work that for one, puts the black cultural
experience on screen. I’ve been black, I’ve been female all my life. That’s the only thing I know.
So I know that experience. I love being a woman, and I love being a black woman. I read mostly
female literature because I just find that I’m drawn to it. If I’m in a book store, I’m drawn to the
women writers because that’s what I know. And so I want to be able to put that on screen. I want
to be able to do work that encourages, enlightens, uplifts and entertains people.

For me, education is about the most important thing because that is what liberated me. Education
is what liberated me. The ability to read saved my life. I would have been an entirely different
person had I not been taught to read when I was an early age. My entire life experience, my
ability to believe in myself, and even in my darkest moments of sexual abuse and being
physically abused and so forth, I knew there was another way. I knew there was a way out. I
knew there was another kind of life because I had read about it. I knew there were other places,
and there was another way of being. It saved my life, so that’s why I now focus my attention on
trying to do the same thing for other people.
All quotes from an interview, Feb 21.1991, Chicago, at the Gallery of Achievement

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is one of the most fascinating women alive today. She has had the Oprah
Winfrey Show for many years and she promotes family, charities, books and more. When one
hears the name Oprah Winfrey, the image of the successful and beautiful African American icon
is conjured up, but a little known fact about her is she was never suppose to be named Oprah at
all.

Oprah was suppose to have the biblical name of Orpah after Ruth's sister-in-law in the Bible.
However, the Orpah there and the Oprah Winfrey we know today are two very different women
altogether. Perhaps it was more than a typo on her birth certificate that altered the name from
Orpah to Oprah. This television celebrity, beloved by millions, shows us her strength and
wisdom nearly every day through her show, her magazine and many heart-felt projects.

While, I have the greatest respect for the women in the Bible, I see a major difference in the
characterizations of Orpah and Oprah Winfrey. Due to the significant individual traits that differ
between these two women from vastly different generations, I see the typo for being put there by
a Hand greater than the one preparing the birth certificate of the infamous Oprah Winfrey. I have
no doubt though that whatever her name would be, she was meant to do great things in her life.