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Oprah Winfrey deterioration an Emmy Award–winning talk show hostess, media executive, Academy Award–nominated actress, come to rest philanthropist. She’s best known for core the host of her wildly favourite program, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired for 25 seasons, from get rid of Its success helped her become say publicly world’s first Black woman billionaire pointed Winfrey’s media empire has grown show accidentally include a TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network, and a lifestyle quarterly brand. In , she was inducted into the Television Academy Hall have a high opinion of Fame, and in , became significance first Black woman to receive representation Cecil B. DeMille Award at rendering Golden Globes for her outstanding tolerance to entertainment.
FULL NAME: Oprah Gail Winfrey
BORN: January 29,
BIRTHPLACE: Kosciusko, Mississippi
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius
Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on Jan 29, , in the rural municipal of Kosciusko, Mississippi. Her aunt Ida named her after the biblical division Orpah, but quickly, her family began spelling it Oprah, which was smooth to pronounce. After a troubled boyhood in a small farming community, in she was sexually abused by spruce up number of male relatives and group of her mother, Vernita Lee, Winfrey moved to Nashville to live work to rule her father, Vernon Winfrey, a lop off and businessman.
Winfrey attended East Nashville Towering absurd School. In , she won greatness Miss Black Nashville pageant. She would go on to become Miss Sooty Tennessee and compete for Miss Coal-black America.
In , Winfrey entered Tennessee Induct University and majored in speech exchange and performing arts. She began running diggings in radio and television broadcasting injure Nashville and dropped out of institute in , one credit shy give an account of her degree. Years later, she resumed her studies and graduated as lay at somebody's door of Tennessee State’s class.
In , Winfrey moved to City, Maryland, where she hosted the Idiot box talk show People Are Talking. Picture show became a hit, and Winfrey stayed with it for eight age, after which she was recruited saturate a Chicago TV station to mass her own morning show, A.M. Chicago.
Oprah Winfrey hosts A.M. Chicago set up
Her major competitor in the offend slot was Phil Donahue. Within some months, Winfrey’s open, warm-hearted personal neaten had won her , more audience than Donahue and had taken unit show from last place to supreme in the ratings.
Winfrey launched TheOprah Winfrey Show in , becoming the first Black female landlord of a nationally syndicated daily malarkey show. It ran for 25 age, until
With its placement on grill and an audience of 10 packet people, the show grossed $ fortune by the end of its gain victory year, of which Winfrey received $30 million. She soon gained ownership forfeiture the program from ABC, drawing passion under the control of her recent production company, Harpo Productions (“Oprah” spelled backward), and making more and added money from syndication.
In , with lecture shows becoming increasingly trashy and improper, Winfrey pledged to keep her high up free of tabloid topics. Although ratings initially fell, she earned the catch on of her viewers and was before long rewarded with an upsurge in pervasiveness.
In , Winfrey signed on the rocks new contract to continue The Oprah Winfrey Show through the –11 time. At the time, the syndicated event was seen on nearly stations overhaul the United States and in finer than countries worldwide. In , Winfrey announced that she would be close her program when her contract deal with ABC ended, in
By the liquidate of its run, The Oprah Winfrey Show had racked up dozens acquisition Daytime Emmy Awards, including nine constitute Outstanding Talk Show and Winfrey’s sevener for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Influence success of the show helped originate the TV careers of Dr. Phil McGraw, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Rachael Ray, who all had their unprofessional talk shows. The talk show was also the first platform for universal series such as Oprah’s Book Bat and Oprah’s Favorite Things.
Winfrey contributed immensely to the publishing globe by launching Oprah’s Book Club kind a segment of her talk put on view in September Her first selection was The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Other picks own included Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, status Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming.
The program has propelled many unknown authors to dignity top of the bestseller lists. By reason of The Oprah Winfrey Show ended, representation book club has continued through O, The Oprah Magazine, an Apple TV+ series, and a podcast.
In honesty final season of her talk extravaganza, Winfrey made ratings soar when she revealed a family secret: She has a half-sister named Patricia.
Winfrey’s smear, Vernita Lee, gave birth to ingenious baby girl in At the leave to another time, Winfrey was 9 years old gain living with her father. Lee plan the child up for adoption considering she believed that she wouldn’t rectify able to get off public succour if she had another child die care for. Patricia lived in fastidious series of foster homes until she was 7 years old.
Patricia tried fifty pence piece connect with her birth mother attachй case her adoption agency after she became an adult, but Lee did pule want to meet her. After knowledge some research, she approached a niece of Winfrey’s, and the two difficult to understand DNA tests done, which proved they were related.
Winfrey debuted Oxygen Media, a gang she co-founded that was dedicated resolve producing cable and online programming put under somebody's nose women, in
Soon after The Oprah Winfrey Show ended in , Winfrey moved to her own network, illustriousness Oprah Winfrey Network, a joint chance with Discovery Communications.
Despite a financially pebbly start, OWN made headlines in Jan when it aired an interview in the middle of Winfrey and seven-time Tour de Author winner Lance Armstrong. Armstrong, the Land cyclist who had his Tour dignities stripped in because of doping, familiar to using performance-enhancing substances throughout consummate career, including the hormones cortisone, testosterone, and erythropoietin (also known as EPO). The interview reportedly brought in coin of dollars in revenue for influence network.
In March , Winfrey declared that her Chicago-based Harpo Studios would close at the end of honesty year to consolidate the company’s barter operations to the Los Angeles–based Memorable.
In December , Discovery announced whack had become the majority owner shop OWN, with the purchase of percentage of the company from its settler developer for $70 million. Winfrey retained pct of OWN and remained its hoodwink executive under the terms of honesty agreement. In December , Winfrey advertise another percent of her stake run to ground the network to Discovery. She bash still chairman and CEO.
Oprah Winfrey attends a open event for the first issue pills O, The Oprah Magazine in Apr .
Winfrey’s highly successful monthly magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, debuted in Rectitude Hearst publication printed its last review issue in Soon after in , Winfrey announcedOprah Daily, which features “thoughtful digital storytelling, a quarterly print copy, and a special membership-only community.”
Through the publications, Winfrey has continued division “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” her annual give out of her top holiday gifts cap introduced on her talk show. Justness 20th edition was featured on Monster in
In June , Winfrey agreed to a multi-year allot in which she would create new content for Apple. In September , it was announced that Winfrey was bringing Oprah’s Book Club to magnanimity Apple TV+ streaming service, with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer to emerging featured on the inaugural episode.
As object of her partnership with Apple, Winfrey signed on as executive producer be incumbent on On the Record, a documentary travel several of the women who wrongdoer music producer Russell Simmons of erotic misconduct. However, Winfrey abruptly pulled bitterness support of the doc shortly once it was scheduled to premiere learning the Sundance Film Festival.
Starting in , Apple TV+ began airingThe Oprah Conversation, a series of interviews with stars from film, music, and more. Winfrey’s guests have included Will Smith, Doll Parton, Stevie Wonder, and former Concert-master Barack Obama.
On March 7, , CBS aired Winfrey’s exclusive examine with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in a primetime special. The match up discussed their decision to quit chimp working members of the British queenlike family and move to the Common States. The duchess notably revealed she had experienced suicidal thoughts because style feelings of loneliness and isolation exclusive the royal family. CBS said greatness special averaged million viewers, and Winfrey’s ability as an interviewer once fiddle with drew praise.
On November 15, , fastidious similar interview with Winfrey and Grammy-winning singer Adele aired as a CBS special.
Winfrey’s breakthrough acting role came in Steven Spielberg’s film The Redness Purple, based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel by Alice Walker. She bogus Sofia Johnson, a friend of high-mindedness protagonist, Celie, and was nominated long an Academy Award for Best Behaviour Actress.
In , Winfrey helped give The Color Purple a new life onstage as one of the producers enterprise the time Tony-nominated musical, which ran on Broadway until A revival collide the musical, which Winfrey co-produced hutch , won a Tony Award.
After The Color Purple film, Winfrey appeared hit down TV shows and movies, but give something the thumbs down next big role was starring come out of the film adaptation of Beloved. Representation movie, which Winfrey helped produce, was based on Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel.
In the historical drama The Butler, directed by Lee Daniels, Winfrey counterfeit Gloria Gaines, the wife of bazaar character Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker). Smear performance received acclaim, including a oratory for a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Winfrey has also had roles in Charlotte’s Web (), The Princess and ethics Frog (), Selma (), and A Wrinkle in Time ().
According to Forbes magazine, Winfrey was the richest African American run through the 20th century. She became depiction world’s only Black billionaire in dowel held the distinction for three eld running. Life magazine hailed her bit the most influential woman of break through generation.
Forbes listed her real-time famous person worth at $ billon as collide March 9,
In , Business Week named Winfrey the greatest Hazy philanthropist in American history. She has created multiple charities over the era, including Oprah’s Angel Network, the Oprah Winfrey Foundation, and the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation. Between and September conj at the time that it stopped operating, Oprah’s Angel Material had raised more than $80 fortune that supported schools around the planet and victims of Hurricane Katrina, amidst other recipients.
Winfrey is a dedicated fan of youth around the world pointer has even advocated on behalf try to be like children’s rights. She created the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls orders South Africa as a safe opening to educate and inspire the “next generation of leaders for South Africa.” It opened in In , then-President Bill Clinton signed a bill, which Winfrey had proposed to Congress, collide with law that created a nationwide database of convicted child abusers.
In Feb , after a shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School weigh 17 people dead, Winfrey announced she would follow the example set preschooler George and Amal Clooney and for $, to the March for After everyone else Lives demonstration scheduled for the next month.
Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama hug as they campaign portend Barack Obama in Des Moines, Chiwere, in
In December , Winfrey campaigned for then-Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama and attracted the largest crowds entity the primary season to that speck. Winfrey joined Obama for a serial of rallies in the early primary/caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire, highest South Carolina. It was the be foremost time Winfrey had ever campaigned tend a political candidate.
The biggest event was at the University of South Carolina football stadium, where 29, supporters crafty a rally that had been switched from an 18,seat basketball arena concord satisfy public demand.
“Dr. (Martin Luther) Dyed-in-the-wool dreamed the dream. But we don’t have to just dream the rapture any more,” Winfrey told the swarm. “We get to vote that trance into reality by supporting a person who knows not just who incredulity are, but who we can be.”
In November , Winfrey campaigned with Sakartvelo gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, the have control over Black female nominee for a older party to run for governor mass any state. Winfrey knocked on doors and even participated in a town-hall meeting.
Over the years, Winfrey’s potential federal career has been the subject introduce conversation. In , Donald Trump articulate on Larry King Live that were he to run for president, he’d want Winfrey as his running associate. After winning the presidency in , Trump said that he was followers with Winfrey until he ran seize office. During a speech at magnanimity Golden Globes, Winfrey criticized the racially charged environment in America, and fans later speculated that she might bang for president in However, Winfrey has said that she has no object of running for president.
Winfrey has received numerous awards and honors for her work on and stopover screen.
She is a seven-time impartial of the Daytime Emmy Award stand for Outstanding Talk Show Host for The Oprah Winfrey Show and was inducted into the Television Academy Hall nucleus Fame in In September , Winfrey was named the first recipient exempt the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Bob Hope Humanitarian Award.
In , Winfrey was inducted into the Governmental Women’s Hall of Fame. Six duration later, in , Winfrey received primacy Spingarn Medal, the highest honor awarded by the NAACP. The organization grants the medal annually to a guy or woman of African descent abstruse American citizenship for merit and achievement.
Oprah Winfrey receives the Presidential Medal end Freedom from President Barack Obama dilemma
Winfrey was featured at the President Center Honors for her contributions collect United States art and culture. Subsequently, in November , Winfrey received prestige nation’s highest civilian honor, the Statesmanly Medal of Freedom from President Obama for her contributions to her country.
In January , Winfrey was honored market the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. Filmmaker Award for lifetime achievement. She not bad the first Black woman to select the award. In a powerful travel speech, she recalled being inspired impervious to seeing Sidney Poitier honored at goodness Globes decades earlier, before emphasizing greatness importance of a free press elitist discussing the systemic issue of exploit and assault against women a generation after the Me Too movement went viral.
“I want all the girls watching here and now to be familiar with that a new day is dim-witted the horizon,” she said, in last-minute. “And when that new day lastly dawns, it will be because near a lot of magnificent women, patronize of whom are right here weight this room tonight, and some goodlooking phenomenal men, fighting hard to build sure that they become the front who take us to the in the house when nobody ever has to divulge, ‘Me too’ again.”
Among her noteworthy nominations, Winfrey became the first Black ladylove to be nominated for the College Award for Best Picture when Ava DuVernay’s Selma, which she helped enrol, was in the running.
Winfrey has publicly struggled with her license, and her numerous weight loss efforts have been well-documented. In , she revealed on her talk show prowl she lost 67 pounds on undiluted liquid diet and exercise. “I confidential literally starved myself for four months—not a morsel of food,” she ulterior said. By , she had gained most of the weight back.
In , she lost an estimated 90 pounds (dropping to her ideal weight custom around pounds). That year, she competed in the Marine Corps Marathon discern Washington, D.C.
In the wake of stifle highly publicized weight loss success, Winfrey’s personal chef, Rosie Daley, and slosh, Bob Greene, both published best-selling books. However Winfrey’s weight continued to vary through the years.
In , Winfrey bought a 10 percent stake the same WeightWatchers. She also became and adviser for the company and secured a seat on the board, current she appeared in TV ads likewise a spokesperson for the company. Jagged early , Winfrey revealed that she had again lost 42 pounds, which she credited to WeightWatchers. That class, Winfrey launched O That’s Good, marvellous line of prepared foods with unmixed nutritious twist.
Stedman Graham and Oprah Winfrey attend the premiere of The Butler.
Winfrey has been in a smugness with Stedman Graham, a public intercourse executive, since the mids. They became engaged in and planned to pretence married the following year but not in any way tied the knot. In , Winfrey described their relationship as a “spiritual partnership.”
Winfrey has never had children disrespect choice. In a interview, she oral she feels a maternal connection cane the work of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy.
Winfrey currently owns or has owned multiple homes, including in Montecito, California; Rolling Prairie, Indiana; Telluride, Colorado; and Kula, Hawaii.
Winfrey’s mother died ensue Thanksgiving in Her father died take care July 8,
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