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Business
Oprah Winfrey
"Talk show host" is the simplest but wholly inadequate description of Oprah Winfrey, who rose from humble origins to reach the highest tier of media success -- she is now a "brand." Her Chicago-based talk show, in national syndication since 1986, brushed aside veterans like Phil Donohue to become the top-rated in the country. Winfrey leveraged that success into an acting career, earning an Academy Award nomination for her first role in "The Color Purple." Every selection for her talk show's "book club" has become an instant bestseller. She's also launched "O, the Oprah Magazine," and the cable network Oxygen. It all adds up to a personal fortune that Forbes estimates at $900 million, and a media influence that no other woman, and few other people, can match.
FULL NAME
Oprah Gail Winfrey
BORN
January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi
EDUCATION
BA in Speech and drama, Tennessee State University
CAREER
A radio broadcaster while still in high school, Winfrey became an anchor at Nashville's WTVF-TV at the age of 19, the youngest person and first African-American woman anchor in the station's history. An anchor job in Baltimore followed, then a move to Chicago in 1984 to host "AM Chicago." Success in the local ratings led to a name change, and "The Oprah Winfrey Show" went into national syndication in 1986. Meanwhile, Winfrey launched her acting career with an Oscar-nominated turn in 1985's "The Color Purple." While one-time ratings champ Phil Donohue moved his show to New York, Winfrey remained in Chicago and soon topped the ratings. While critics blasted daytime talk shows as "trash TV," in 1994, Winfrey refocused her show on "uplifting, meaningful subjects," according to her Web site biography. In 1996, she launched "Oprah's Book Club" on her talk show, and almost overnight became a major force in publishing. Every book club selection leapt to the top of the bestseller lists, including books that had been in print for decades. In 1998, Winfrey joined veteran television executives to launch Oxygen, a cable network and Web site for women. "O, The Oprah Magazine" debuted in April 2000. In 1998, Time magazine named Winfrey one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
AWARDS
Miss Black Tennessee (1971), Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress (1985), George Foster Peabody Award (1996), TV Guide's Television Performer of the Year (1997) National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award (1998), one of Time magazine's "100 most influential people of the 20th century" (1998), National Book Foundation's 50th anniversary Gold Medal (1999), Newsweek magazine's "Woman of the Century" (2001), seven Emmy awards for Outstanding Talk Show Host and nine for Outstanding Talk Show.
PERSONAL
The daughter of Vernon and Vernita Lee Winfrey, Oprah is single, but has had a longtime (and well-publicized) relationship with sports marketing executive Stedman Graham.
