Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Vernita Lee, her mother, ran a modest family farm. Vernon Winfrey, Oprah’s biological father, was a soldier on temporary duty at a nearby installation.
Her grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee, raised Oprah. According to Oprah, the animals on her family’s farm were her “only friends” as a child.
At the age of three she first performed in front of an audience in a nearby church. She spent her childhood among many caretakers and attended Nashville East High School in Nashville, Tennessee.
Oprah was selected to read the news on a nearby radio station during her senior year. She won the Miss Black Tennessee pageant the same year.
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Who is Oprah Winfrey?
Oprah Winfrey is a self-made wealthy African-American woman with international influence. Oprah lived in abject poverty and was largely raised by her grandmother.
She was the product of an unmarried mother who briefly bonded with a soldier stationed nearby.
Despite being sexually abused and harassed as a young girl, Winfrey overcame the hardships to focus on her elementary and secondary studies.
Winfrey realized she wanted to work in the broadcasting industry after forming a close friendship with a young man and winning a local beauty pageant, which allowed her to star on a local radio station.
She persevered and moved across the country to get a job as a television reporter, despite failing a crucial interview.
Even though she struggled to adjust and was eventually let go, she had gathered enough expertise to get her morning talk show.
Winfrey moved across the country to host a new talk show after generating strong ratings. She was put in charge of her show after ratings skyrocketed, and it quickly became a hugely successful national phenomenon.
Establishing a magazine, television network and radio network, Winfrey quickly grew her media empire and is today regarded as one of the most powerful and influential people in the world.
How has Winfrey Oprah influenced pop culture and politics?
While still a teenager, she was offered a job co-anchor of the neighborhood CBS television station in Nashville, Tennessee.
Three times she refused. Oprah Winfrey accepted the fourth offer when she was 19 years old. She was not given the position, but was instead allowed to work as a full-time reporter for a Baltimore news station.
She performed poorly as a reporter, and by age 22, the news department had let her go. Winfrey got a boost when the station’s executive chose her to host the morning chat show “People are Talking.”
Her chat program received good ratings for the next seven years. She moved to Chicago in 1981 to anchor a talk show called ‘AM Chicago’.
The name has been changed to “The Oprah Winfrey Show” when four years later the ratings rose sharply. Winfrey appeared in the 1985 movie “The Color Purple” as an actress.
The first nationwide broadcast of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” took place on September 8, 1986. In the same year, she founded “Harpo Studios”. Her program won three “Daytime Emmy Awards” in June 1987.
It also received a second “Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show” the following year. She co-starred in and produced the miniseries “Brewster Place” and “The Women of Brewster Place” in 1989.
The Oprah Winfrey Show was first produced the same year by her company, Harpo Productions. Michael Jackson was the subject of an interview she conducted in 1993.
The show went on to become the fourth most-watched event on American television and the most-watched interview of all time. She started hosting ‘Oprah’s Book Club’ in 1996, a talk show dedicated to book discussions.
Winfrey’s book recommendations helped sell millions more copies. She portrayed a therapist in an episode of the 1997 sitcom “Ellen”. She produced and starred in the movie “Beloved” in 1998.
She was sued the same year by Texas ranchers for allegedly making disparaging remarks about burgers. The talk show host launched “Oprah’s Angel Network” that same year, which donated money to nonprofits and charitable groups.
She introduced “O, the Oprah Magazine” in 2002. It was later revealed to be the most prosperous magazine startup ever.
She made a guest appearance on “Late Show with David Letterman” on December 1, 2005, which was called the “television event of the decade” by some critics.
She lent her voice to the animated movie “Charlotte’s Web” in 2006. She created the station “Oprah Radio” on “XM Satellite Radio” that same year.
She voiced Judge Bumbleden in the movie “Bee Movie” in 2007. The gifted artist supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race.
Her popularity was considered a crucial element in Obama’s eventual victory. She voiced Eudora in the 2009 movie ‘The Princess and the Frog’.
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Oprah Winfrey Personal Life
Winfrey has revealed to the world that she was raped by a family member when she was 9 years old. She also revealed that she had a child at the age of 14 who passed away in infancy.
Winfrey has advocated for support groups to help survivors of sexual abuse using her own experience. She lives in California on an estate known as ‘The Promised Land’.
She has dated several famous people such as Roger Ebert and John Tesh, though she never married. Since 1986, she and her old partner Stedman Graham have been formally dating.
Morehouse College has received more than 400 scholarships from the generous talk show host. She has been named one of the 50 Most Giving Americans.
What are 5 facts about Oprah Winfrey?
- In 1972, Oprah was named Miss Black Tennessee. As her career took off, she stopped competing in beauty pageants.
- Harpo Productions is the name of the production company she founded. Oprah is spelled “Harpo” backwards.
- Oprah is known for her weight gain and loss. She has often lost weight before gaining it back.
- Her estimated net worth in 2013 was $2.8 billion.
- The Oprah Winfrey Show aired for 25 years. The last episode of the show aired on May 24, 2011.
- Life magazine called her the most important lady of the generation.
- Since she was a small child, she was afraid of chewing gum.
