Oprah Winfrey
(1954-)
Talk Show Host, Actress, Broadcasting Executive

Oprah Winfrey's rise to fame is a tale at once tragic and inspiring. She was born on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Her name was supposed to have been "Orpah," after a biblical figure in the book of Ruth; sources vary as to the origin of the misspelling.

Winfrey was a precocious child who asked her kindergarten teacher to advance her to the first grade; Winfrey also skipped the second grade. Her parents, who were not married, separated when she was very young and sent her to live with her grandparents. At the age of six, Winfrey moved to Milwaukee to live with her mother. From the time she was nine, she was abused sexually by male family members and acquaintances; these events, which she did not discuss publicly until the 1980s, have had a profound effect on her life.

When she was 14, Winfrey went to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee, and it was there that her life was put back on track. Her father insisted on hard work and discipline as a means of self-improvement, and Winfrey complied, winning a college scholarship that allowed her to attend Tennessee State University. In 1971, she began working part-time as a radio announcer for WVOL in Nashville. Two years later, after receiving a B.A. from Tennessee State, she became a reporter at WTVF-TV in Nashville. From 1976 to 1983, she lived in Baltimore, working for the ABC affiliate WJZ-TV, progressing from news anchor to cohost of the popular show, "People Are Talking." In 1984, she moved to Chicago and took over the ailing morning show, "A.M. Chicago." By September of the next year, the show was so successful that it was expanded to an hour format and renamed "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Now in syndication across the country, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" is one of the most popular television programs in history. In 1986, Winfrey founded Harpo, Inc., her own production company ("Harpo" is "Oprah" spelled backwards).

A talented actress, Winfrey has appeared in the motion pictures The Color Purple (1985), Native Son (1986), and in the television movie The Women of Brewster Place (1989).

In 1994, President Clinton signed the "Oprah Bill," a law designed to protect children from abuse.

Winfrey has won numerous awards for her work in television and film. She won the Horatio Alger Award in 1993 and was inducted into the TV Hall of Fame in 1994. At the 1995 Daytime Emmy Awards, the "Oprah Winfrey Show" won its seventh Emmy Award for best talk show and Winfrey won an Emmy as best daytime TV host.