Winfrey, Oprah

Oprah Winfrey, (born January 29, 1954, Kosciusko, Mississippi, U.S.), American television personality, actress, and entrepreneur whose syndicated daily talk show was among the most popular of the genre. She became one of the richest and most influential women in the United States.

Winfrey moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at age six to live with her mother. In her early teens she was sent to Nashville to live with her father, who proved to be a positive influence in her life. Winfrey received a full scholarship to Tennessee State University but left to pursue a career in broadcasting; she eventually earned her degree in 1986. At age 19 she became a news anchor for the local CBS television station, and in 1976 she was made a reporter and coanchor for the ABC news affiliate in Baltimore, Maryland. She found herself constrained by the objectivity required of news reporting, and in 1977 she became cohost of the Baltimore morning show People Are Talking.

Oprah Winfrey

Winfrey excelled in the casual and personal talk-show format, and in 1984 she moved to Chicago to host the faltering talk show AM Chicago. Winfrey’s honest and engaging personality quickly turned the program into a success, and in 1985 it was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show. Syndicated nationally in 1986, the program became the highest-rated television talk show in the United States and earned several Emmy Awards.

Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple

In 1985 Winfrey 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). Winfrey formed her own television production company, Harpo Productions, Inc., in 1986, and a 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 Winfrey as both star and producer, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which appeared in 1998, also with Winfrey in a starring role.

Oprah Winfrey

Winfrey later lent her voice to several 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 also 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. Winfrey then appeared as Mrs. Which in the 2018 film adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s acclaimed 1962 sci-fi novel, A Wrinkle in Time.

book cover of Live Your Best Life: A Treasury of Wisdom, Wit, Advice, Interviews, and Inspiration from O, the Oprah Magazine

Winfrey 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 Winfrey’s effect on the publishing industry was significant. Winfrey 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.

David Zaslav and Oprah Winfrey

In 1998 Winfrey expanded her media entertainment empire when she cofounded Oxygen Media, which launched a cable television network for women. In 2006 the Oprah & Friends channel debuted on satellite radio. She brokered a partnership with Discovery Communications in 2008, through which the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) replaced the Discovery Health Channel in January 2011. In 2009 Winfrey announced that her television talk show would end in 2011; it was speculated that she would focus on OWN. 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 Winfrey 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 addition, she hosted a two-part panel discussion, Where Do We Go From Here?, on OWN to address the widespread anti-racism movement that arose after the on-video killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 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 Winfrey

Winfrey engaged in numerous philanthropic activities, including the creation of Oprah’s Angel Network, which sponsors charitable initiatives worldwide. In 2007 she opened a $40 million school for disadvantaged girls in South Africa. She became an outspoken crusader against child abuse and received many honours and awards from civic, philanthropic, and entertainment organizations. 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.

Winfrey published several self-help books, including The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life’s Direction and Purpose (2019) and What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing (2021; written with Bruce D. Perry).