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Chronicles of Greatness (10) Oprah Winfrey
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OPRAH WINFREY (1954-)
“Surround yourself with people who are going to take you higher”
-Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Gail Winfrey was born January 29, 1954 to Vernita Lee (an unwed teenager). She spent her early years in Kosciusko, Mississippi on her grandmother's farm while her mother went in search for work in the North.
Her grandmother taught her how to read and at age three Oprah had started reciting poems and Bible verses in local churches. She was a gifted child who enjoyed her the church community and her grandmother's loving support. At age six, she was sent to Milwaukee to live with her mother who worked as a housemaid.
Oprah was molested by male relatives and visitors from age 9 to 13 when her mother was absent from their inner city apartment for long days. This experience shattered her emotionally and when she tried to run, she was sent to a juvenile detention home but was denied admission because the beds in the home were filled.
At 14years, she left the house and according to her she became sexually promiscuous as a teenager. She later got pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy who died in infancy. It was after this experience that she went to Nashville, Tennessee to live with her father – Vermon Winfrey.
Despite his disciplinary traits, Vermon gave his daughter the secure home she needed. He made sure she met a curfew, had a book to read and wrote a book report weekly. In Oprah's words “As strict as he was, he had some concerns about me making the best of my life and would not accept anything less than what he thought was my best.” This new life affected Oprah greatly as she flourished effortlessly, became an honour student who won prizes for Oratory and dramatic recitation.
At 17 years, Oprah won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant and was offered an on-air job at WVOL, a radio station that serves the African-American Community in Nashville. She also won a full scholarship to Tennessee State University where she studied Speech Communications and Performing Arts. She continued working at WVOL in her first years of College. At this point, her broadcasting career had started taking off, so she left school and signed on with a local Television Station as a reporter and anchor.
In 1976, she moved to Baltimore to join WJZ-TV News as a co-anchor where she co-hosted her first talk show – People are Talking while she continued as an anchor and news reporter.
In January 1984, she was invited to Chicago to host AM Chicago, a faltering half-hour morning program on WLS-TV and in less than a year, the show became the hottest show in town. It was soon expanded to an hour and in September, 1985, it was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show.
In 1986, The Oprah Winfrey Show was broadcast nationally. It quickly became the number one talk show in national syndication. In the same year, she started Harpo Productions Inc., her production company who's vision is to bring quality entertainment projects into production and also to express her love for acting. Today, Harpo is a formidable force in film and television production, as well as magazine publishing and the Internet.
In 1987, the show received three Daytime Emmy Awards in the categories of Outstanding Host, Outstanding Talk/Service Program and Outstanding Direction. In 1988, the show received its second consecutive Emmy as Outstanding Talk/Service Program and Oprah received the International Radio and Television Society's “Broadcaster of the year” Award. She was the youngest person ever to receive such an honour.
She earned herself nominations for an Oscar and Golden Globe Award as Best Supporting Actress in Steven Spielberg's 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple. She was applauded for her performance in Native Son, a movie adaptation of Richard Wright's Classic 1940 novel.
In 1988, Harpo Productions, Inc. became responsible for all production for The Oprah Winfrey Show from Capitol Cities/ABC. This made Oprah Winfrey the first woman in history to own and produce her own talk show.
In 1989, Harpo produced its first television miniseries, The Women of Brewster Place, with Oprah Winfrey as star and Executive Producer. It was quickly followed by the TV movies There Are No Children Here (1993), and Before Women Had Wings(1997), which she both produced and appeared in.
She initiated a campaign to establish a national database of convicted child abusers, and testified before a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of a National Child Protection Act. This was partly motivated by her own memories of childhood abuse.
In 1993, President Clinton signed the "Oprah Bill" into law establishing the national database Oprah had sought, which is now available to law enforcement agencies and concerned parties across the country.
Oprah's show also continued to attract the top names in the entertainment industry; a 1993 interview with the reclusive entertainer Michael Jackson drew a hundred million viewers, making it the most watched interview in television history afterwhich Oprah Winfrey was named one of the "100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century" by Time magazine.
In 1998, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In the same year, she produced and starred in the feature film Beloved adapted from the book by the Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrisson. Oprah used her TV progran to promote works of her admired authors including Morrisson and late Maya Angelou (who is also her long time friend)
The Oprah Winfrey Show remained as popular as ever, airing in 140 countries around the world. Over the years, she has also used her program to promote the many philanthropic ventures she supports.
After filming a Christmas program in South Africa, she established the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, near Johannesburg. She celebrated the beginning of her 20th season on national television by giving every member of the studio audience a brand new Pontiac automobile.
In the 2008 presidential election, Winfrey publicly endorsed a political candidate for the first time, hosting a fundraiser for Senator Barack Obama and appearing with him at campaign events. She also announced plans for a new broadcasting venture with the Discovery Health Channel, to be renamed Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
In a 2010 interview on the Larry King program at the end of that year, she announced her decision to end her run on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The final broadcast took place on May 25, 2011, after 24 seasons and over 5,000 broadcasts. The end of the syndicated program was not the end of Oprah Winfrey's broadcasting career. She now hosts a nightly program, Oprah's Lifeclass, on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Oprah Winfrey the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Oprah Winfrey makes her principal home on a 42-acre ocean-view estate in Montecito, California, just south of Santa Barbara, but also owns homes in another six states and the island of Antigua.
Awards/Works: Already mentioned in Biography.
Outstanding Attributes: Ability to make a fresh start, Determination, Passion, Diligence.
Supporting Attributes:Resilient Persistence and self – motivation to turn her trials to triumphs.
Oprah Winfrey Biography -- Academy of Achievement. (November 14, 2014). Retrieved April 8, 2015, from http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/win0bio-1
This post was edited by Adebola Ayoade at April 9, 2015 8:11 PM CEST