Oprah Winfrey is a talk show host, media executive, celebrity and billionaire philanthropist. She is best known for being the host of her own, wildly popular program, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired for 25 seasons, from 1986 to 2011. In 2011, Winfrey launched her own TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
Born in the rural city of Kosciusko, Mississippi, Winfrey moved to Baltimore in 1976, where she hosted People Are Talking. Subsequently, she was recruited by a Chicago TV station to sponsor her own morning show.
Early Life and Education
Winfrey was born in the rural town of Kosciusko, Mississippi, on January 29, 1954. After a troubled adolescence in a small farming community, where she had been sexually abused by several relatives and friends of her mother, Vernita, Winfrey moved to Nashville to live with her father, Vernon, a barber and businessman.
In 1971, Winfrey entered Tennessee State University. She started working in television and radio broadcasting in Nashville.
Early Broadcasting Career
In 1976, Winfrey moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she hosted the TV chat show People Are Talking. The series became a hit and Winfrey remained with it for eight years, and she had been recruited by a Chicago TV station to sponsor her own morning show, A.M. Chicago. Her main competitor at the time slot was Phil Donahue. Within a few months, Winfrey’s open, warm-hearted personal style had won her 100,000 more audiences than Donahue and had taken her show from last place to first in the ratings.
Winfrey launched The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986 as a nationally syndicated program that ran for 25 years, until 2011. With its positioning on 120 stations and an audience of 10 million people, the show grossed $125 million from the end of its first year, of which Winfrey received $30 million.
She soon gained ownership of the program from ABC, drawing it under the charge of her new production company, Harpo Productions (‘Oprah’ spelled backward ) and earning more and more money from syndication.
In 1994, with talk shows getting increasingly trashy and exploitative, Winfrey vowed to maintain her show free of tabloid topics. Although ratings originally dropped, she earned the respect of her audiences and was soon rewarded with an upsurge in popularity.
Projects with Harpo have contained the highly-rated 1989 TV miniseries, The Women of Brewster Place, where Winfrey also starred.
In 2004, Winfrey signed a new contract to keep The Oprah Winfrey Show through the 2010-11 season. At the moment, the syndicated series was seen on almost 212 U.S. channels and in over 100 countries worldwide.
In 2009, Winfrey announced that she would be finishing her schedule when her contract with ABC finished, in 2011.
Oprah’s Book Club
Winfrey contributed hugely to the publishing world by launching her”Oprah’s Book Club,” as a part of her talk show. The program propelled many unknown writers to the peak of the bestseller lists and gave pleasure reading a new type of popular prominence.
Winfrey has lasted her book club. In 2018, she famously interviewed former First Lady Michelle Obama for the release of her memoir, Becoming.
Oprah’s Favorite Things
In 1997, Winfrey introduced”Oprah’s Favorite Things,” an annual list of holiday presents curated from the mogul, on her talk show.
Even after moving onto other projects, Winfrey continued the annual tradition. For the 20th edition in 2017, the record was featured on Amazon. She became the first celebrity voice behind Alexa, the provider’s voice-control system, allowing shoppers to hear Winfrey herself clarify her best picks for this season.
Half-Sister
In the last season of her talk show, Winfrey made ratings soar when she disclosed a family secret: she’s a half-sister called Patricia.
Winfrey’s mother, Lee, gave birth to a baby girl in 1963. At the moment, Winfrey was 9 years old, and living with her dad. Lee set the child up for adoption because she thought she would not have the ability to get off public assistance if she had another child to take care of. Patricia lived in a series of foster homes until she was seven years old.
Patricia tried to associate with her birth mother through her adoption agency after she became an adult, but Lee didn’t want to meet her. After doing some research, she approached a niece of Winfrey’s, and both had DNA tests performed, which proved they were associated.
Winfrey just learned of her sister’s presence a month or two before she made the decision to market the knowledge. “It was among the best surprises of my life,” she said on her show.
Weight Loss
Winfrey has fought with her weight, and her many weight loss attempts have been well-documented. In 1988, she disclosed on her talk show that she lost 67 pounds on a liquid diet and exercise. “I had literally starved myself for four weeks – not a morsel of food,” she later said. From 1992, she had gained most of the weight back.
In 1995, she dropped an estimated 90 pounds (falling to her ideal weight of about 150 pounds). That year, she competed at the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C.
In the aftermath of her highly publicized success, Winfrey’s personal chef, Rosie Daley, and trainer, Bob Greene, both printed best-selling novels. However Winfrey’s weight continued to fluctuate over time.
Weight Watchers
In 2015, Winfrey bought a 10 percent stake in Weight Watchers (WW). She also became and adviser for the organization and secured herself a seat on the board, and she appeared in TV ads as a spokesperson for the business.
WW was in a funk for a couple of years, but Winfrey’s involvement revived the company seeing a surge in membership and stock rates.
In early 2017, Winfrey revealed she had lost 42 pounds, which she imputed to WW. More than two decades later, she wrote a letter to WW members stating that she had been diagnosed with pre-diabetes before her latest weight loss journey, but that her blood sugar and pressure were now under control.
Oxygen Media and ‘O Magazine’
In 1999 Winfrey surfaced Oxygen Media, a firm she co-founded that is devoted to generating cable and Internet programming for girls. In doing this, Winfrey ensured her place in the forefront of the media sector as one of the most effective and wealthy people in show business. In 2002, she concluded a deal with the network to broadcast a prime-time match to her syndicated talk show.
Winfrey’s highly successful monthly magazine, published by Hearst, O: The Oprah Magazine, surfaced in 2000.
Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN)
Shortly after The Oprah Winfrey Show finished in 2011, Winfrey moved to her own community, the Oprah Winfrey Network, a joint venture with Discovery Communications.
Despite a financially rocky beginning, the community made headlines in January 2013, when it aired a meeting involving Winfrey and Lance Armstrong, the American fisherman and seven-time Tour de France winner who had been stripped of his Tour names in 2012 because of doping charges.
Throughout the meeting, Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing substances throughout his cycling career, such as the hormones cortisone, testosterone and erythropoietin (also called EPO). “I’m deeply flawed… and I am paying the price for this, and I believe that’s okay. I deserve this,” he said. The interview allegedly earned millions of dollars in earnings for OWN.
Of her meeting with Armstrong, Winfrey said in a statement,”He didn’t come clean in the way I anticipated. It was surprising to me. I’d say that, for myself, my group, most of us in the area, we were mesmerized by a few of his replies. I felt that he was thorough. He was serious. He definitely prepared himself for this moment. I’d say he fulfilled the moment. By the end of it, we were fairly exhausted.”
In March 2015, Winfrey announced that her Chicago-based Harpo Studios would close at the end of the year to combine the business’s production operations into the Los Angeles-based OWN headquarters. Winfrey’s television empire has been launched in the studio and it was home to her daily syndicated talk show through its finale in 2011
“The time had come to downsize this portion of the company and to proceed. It’ll be sad to say goodbye,” said Winfrey,”but I look ahead with this type of knowing what the future holds is even more than that I can see.”
Winfrey returned to acting in Greenleaf, which marked her first recurring scripted television function. The original family play, which revolves around a Memphis megachurch, premiered on OWN in June 2016.
In December 2017, it was announced that Discovery had become the majority owner of OWN, with the purchase of 24.5 percent of the business from its founder for $70 million. Winfrey retained 25.5 percent of OWN and remained its chief executive under the terms of the agreement.
Partnership with Apple
In June 2018, Winfrey agreed to some multi-year deal where she would create initial content for Apple.
In September 2019, it was declared that Winfrey was bringing Oprah’s Book Club into the Apple TV+ streaming subscription service, with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer to be featured on the inaugural November 1 episode.
Within her partnership with Apple, Winfrey signed on as executive producer of On the Record, a documentary about many of the girls who accused audio producer Russell Simmons of sexual misconduct. But, Winfrey abruptly pulled her support of this doc soon before it was scheduled to premiere in the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
Wealth, Charity and Awards
Based on Forbes magazine, Winfrey was the wealthiest African American of the 20th century and the world’s only Black billionaire for three years running. Life magazine hailed her as the most influential woman of her generation.
In September 2002, Winfrey was named the first recipient of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Bob Hope Humanitarian Award.
In 2005, Business Week called Winfrey that the Best Black philanthropist in American history. Oprah’s Angel Network raised more than $50 million for charitable programs, including girls’ education in South Africa and relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Winfrey is a committed activist for children’s rights; in 1994, President Bill Clinton signed a bill into law that Winfrey had proposed to Congress, developing a nationwide database of convicted child abusers.
She also founded the Family for Better Lives base and contributes to her alma mater, Tennessee State University.
In November 2013, Winfrey received the country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Barack Obama gave her this award for her contributions to her nation.
In February 2018, following a shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School left 17 people dead, Winfrey declared she would follow the example set by George and Amal Clooney and contribute $500,000 to the March for Our Lives demonstration scheduled for the next month.
Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama hug it out as they campaign for Barack Obama in Des Moines, Iowa, in 2007.
Campaigning for Barack Obama
Winfrey campaigned for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama in December 2007, attracting the largest crowds of the principal season to there. Winfrey joined Obama for a series of rallies in the first primary/caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. It was the first time Winfrey had campaigned for a political candidate.
The largest event was at the University of South Carolina football stadium, where 29,000 supporters attended a rally that was changed from an 18,000-seat basketball arena to meet public demand.
“Dr. (Martin Luther) King dreamed the dream. But we do not have to simply dream the dream any more,” Winfrey told the audience. “We get to vote that fantasy into reality by supporting a man who understands not just who we are, but who we could be.”
Campaigning for Stacey Abrams
In November 2018, Winfrey campaigned with Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, the first Black female nominee for a major party to run for governor in any state. Winfrey knocked on doors and even engaged in a town-hall meeting with the Democratic candidate. In the long run, Abrams narrowly lost her election bid to Republican Brian Kemp.
Relationship with Trump
Winfrey and President Donald Trump have a long history together. In 1999, Trump said on Larry King Live that were he to run for president, he would want Winfrey as his running mate.
Trump has also supported Winfrey on Twitter many times, from her decision to launch a television network to praising her meeting with Lance Armstrong.
After becoming president, Trump said he was buddies with Winfrey before he ran for office. For her part, Winfrey didn’t mention Trump by title but did speak about”sound,””vitriol” and”crazy talk” in politics.
In 2018, Trump tweeted that Winfrey seemed”very insecure” appearing as a special correspondent on 60 Minutes and stating that he hoped she would run for president”so that she could be exposed and defeated just like each the others.”
Calls for 2020 Presidency
Since Winfrey’s speech in the 2018 Golden Globes, where she criticized the racially-charged surroundings in the usa, fans supposed that she might run for U.S. president at the 2020 elections. But, Winfrey has said that she doesn’t need to and has no intention of running for president.
Golden Globes Award
In January 2018, Winfrey became the first African American woman to be honored with the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award, for lifetime achievement. In a strong speech, she remembered being motivated by visiting Sidney Poitier honored at the Globes decades before, before highlighting the importance of a free press and the power of speaking the truth in a”culture broken by brutally powerful men.”
“So I need all the women watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon,” she said, in final. “And if that day finally dawns, it is going to be due to a good deal of magnificent women, lots of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty incredible guys, fighting hard to be certain that they become the leaders that take us into the time when nobody has to say,’Me too’ again.”
‘The Color Purple’
Winfrey’s success on television resulted in nationwide fame and a part in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 movie The Color Purple, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2005, Winfrey helped give The Color Purple a new life onstage as among the manufacturers of this 11-time Tony-nominated musical, which ran on Broadway until 2008. A revival of the musical, which Winfrey co-produced in 2015, won a Tony Award.
‘Beloved’
Winfrey signed a multi-picture contract with Disney. The first project, 1998’s Beloved, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Toni Morrison and starring Winfrey and Danny Glover, got mixed reviews and generally failed to live up to expectations.
Food Line: Soups, Pizzas and Sides
In 2017, Winfrey launched O That is very good , a line of prepared foods with a healthy twist. The lineup includes pizzas, soups, and sides like mashed potatoes and pasta.
’60 Minutes’
In January 2017, CBS announced that Winfrey would combine the newsmagazine 60 Minutes as a distinctive contributorin the fall.
In April 2019, Winfrey revealed that she’d abandoned her particular post on the series as it was not”the best format” and that she talked with”too much emotion” for its manufacturers.
Personal Life
Winfrey was in a relationship with Stedman Graham, a public relations officer, since the mid-1980s. They became engaged in 1992 but not tied the knot.
The couple lives in Chicago. Winfrey also has homes in Montecito, California, Rolling Prairie, Indiana, and Telluride, Colorado.
| Oprah Contact Address, Phone Number, Email ID, Website | |
|---|---|
| Whatsapp No. | NA |
| https://twitter.com/Oprah?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor | |
| Youtube Channel | https://www.youtube.com/user/OWN |
| Snapchat | NA |
| Phone Number | (323) 850.3180 |
| Official Website | NA |
| Office Number | NA |
| Office address | The Lot 1041 North Formosa Avenue West Hollywood, CA 90046 U.S |
| Linked In | NA |
| https://www.instagram.com/oprah/?hl=en | |
| House address (residence address) | NA |
| https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ | |
| Email Address | NA |
Harpo Films
The Lot 1041 North Formosa Avenue
West Hollywood, CA 90046 U.S
Oprah Phone Number 2020- This post contains a phone number, house address, Fan mailing address to request autographs, and send fan mail letters to Oprah. If you want to get an autograph from Oprah, you can send your handwritten letter to the above address (with a size of 8.5 x 4 inches.) Please wait up to 3 months. If there is no reply, resend your letter or exchange it with another address.
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