Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi to an unmarried teenage mother, Vernita Lee. Her conception was due to a single sexual encounter and the couple broke up not long after. Lee was a housemaid and Oprah’s biological father, Vernon Winfrey, was a coal miner turned barber turned city councilman who was in the military when she was born. She was named "Orpah" after the biblical figure in the Book of Ruth, but people mispronounced it regularly and "Oprah" stuck. A genetic test in 2006 determined that her matrilineal line originated among the Kpelle ethnic group, in the area that today is Liberia. Her genetic makeup was determined to be 89% Sub-Saharan African, 8% Native American, and 3% East Asian.

After Oprah’s birth, Lee moved north and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her maternal grandmother. They were so poor that Oprah often wore dresses made of potato sacks, for which the local children often made fun of her. Her grandmother taught her to read before the age of three and took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed "The Preacher" for her ability to recite Bible verses.

At age six, Oprah moved to an inner-city neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her mother, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother had been. Around this time, Lee had given birth to another daughter, Patricia. By 1962, she was having difficulty raising both daughters so Oprah was temporarily sent to live with her father, Vernon, in Nashville, Tennessee. While she was in Nashville, Lee gave birth to a third daughter, who was put up for adoption in the hope of easing the financial straits that had led to Lee's being on welfare. (Oprah did not learn she had a second half-sister until 2010.) By the time Oprah moved back in with her mother, Lee had also given birth to a boy named Jeffrey.

At 13, after suffering years of sexual abuse by a number of male relatives and friends of her mother, Oprah ran away from home. When she was 14, she became pregnant but her son was born prematurely and he died shortly after birth. Oprah began going to Lincoln High School; but after early success in the Upward Bound program, was transferred to the wealthy suburban Nicolet High School, where she says her poverty was constantly rubbed in her face as she rode the bus to school with fellow African Americans, some of whom were servants of her classmates' families. She began to steal money from her mother in an effort to keep up with her free-spending peers, lie to and argue with her mother, and go out with older boys.

Frustrated, Lee once again sent her to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee, though this time she did not take her back. Vernon was strict, but encouraging, and made her education a priority. Oprah became an honors student, was voted Most Popular Girl, and joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School, placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation. At the age of 17, Oprah won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant. She also attracted the attention of the local black radio station, WVOL, which hired her to do the news part-time. Oprah won a debate contest, which secured her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, where she studied communication. She worked at WVOL during her senior year of high school and while in her first two years of college.

Oprah’s career choice in media would not have surprised her grandmother, who once said that ever since she could talk, she was on stage. As a child, she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property. Oprah later acknowledged her grandmother's influence, saying it was she who had encouraged her to speak in public and "gave me a positive sense of myself". Working in local media, she was both the youngest news anchor and the first black female news anchor at Nashville's WLAC-TV. She moved to Baltimore's WJZ-TV in 1976 to co-anchor the six o'clock news.

While in Baltimore, Oprah was recruited to join Richard Sher as co-host of WJZ's local talk show “People Are Talking”, which premiered on August 14, 1978. The show became a hit and Oprah stayed with it for eight years, after which she was recruited by a Chicago TV station to host her own morning show, “A.M. Chicago”. Her major competitor in the time slot was Phil Donahue. Within several months, Oprah's open, warm-hearted personal style had won her 100,000 more viewers than Donahue and had taken her show from last place to first in the ratings. Her success led to nationwide fame and a role in Steven Spielberg's 1985 film “The Color Purple”, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Oprah launched the “Oprah Winfrey Show” in 1986 as a nationally syndicated program. With its placement on 120 channels and an audience of 10 million people, the show grossed $125 million by the end of its first year, of which Oprah received $30 million. She soon gained ownership of the program from ABC, drawing it under the control of her new production company, Harpo Productions. At the age of 41, Oprah had a net worth of $340 million and replaced Bill Cosby as the only African American on the Forbes 400.

Oprah bought her mother a new house in Milwaukee and insisted that she retire from her job as a hospital dietician, offering to double her salary for life. Not soon after, her longtime assistant, Billy, died of AIDS in 1988. Her brother Jeffrey died from AIDS in the following year. Oprah had provided Jeffrey with some financial assistance before his was diagnosed with AIDS, but the two had a falling out over his unwillingness to keep a job. Jeffrey gave a scathing interview saying Oprah was unsympathetic to his troubles and refused to help him. Although Oprah would not help her brother directly, she did increase the money she gave her mother so she could support him. Oprah also supplied money to help raise her sister’s two daughters. Her sister would die in 2003 due to causes related to her cocaine addiction.

In 1994, with talk shows becoming increasingly trashy and exploitative, Oprah pledged to keep her show free of tabloid topics. Although ratings initially fell, she earned the respect of her viewers and was soon rewarded with an upsurge in popularity. Oprah, who became well-known for her weight loss efforts, lost an estimated 90 pounds, dropping to her ideal weight of around 150 pounds, and competed in the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C., in 1995. In the wake of her highly publicized success, Oprah's personal chef, Rosie Daley, and trainer, Bob Greene, both published best-selling books. Oprah contributed immensely to the publishing world by launching her "Oprah's Book Club," as part of her talk show. The program propelled many unknown authors to the top of the bestseller lists and gave pleasure reading a new kind of popular prominence.

With the debut in 1999 of Oxygen Media, a company she co-founded that is dedicated to producing cable and internet programming for women, Oprah ensured her place in the forefront of the media industry and as one of the most powerful and wealthy people in show business. In 2002, she concluded a deal with the network to air a prime-time complement to her syndicated talk show. Her highly successful monthly, “O: The Oprah Magazine” debuted in 2000, and in 2004, she signed a new contract to continue “The Oprah Winfrey Show” through the 2010-11 season. In 2002, “Fortune” called the magazine the most successful start-up ever in the industry. Her show was seen on nearly 212 US stations and in more than 100 countries worldwide.

In 2009, Oprah announced that she would be ending her program when her contract with ABC ended, in 2011. In her final season of her talk show, Oprah made ratings soar when she revealed a family secret: she has another sister named Patricia. This was the baby her mother put up for adoption while Oprah was living with her father. Patricia lived in a series of foster homes until she was 7 years old. She tried to connect with her birth mother through her adoption agency after she became an adult, but Lee did not want to meet her. After doing some research, she approached a niece of Oprah’s, and the two had DNA tests done, which proved they were related. Oprah only learned of her sister's existence a few months before she made the decision to publicize the knowledge. "It was one of the greatest surprises of my life."

Soon after, she moved to her own network, the “Oprah Winfrey Network” (OWN), a joint venture with Discovery Communications. Despite a financially rocky start, the network made headlines in January 2013, when it aired an interview between Oprah and Lance Armstong, the American cyclist and seven-time “Tour de France” winner who was stripped of his seven Tour titles in 2012 due to drug charges. During the interview, Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing substances throughout his cycling career. "He did not come clean in the manner I expected. It was surprising to me. I would say that, for myself, my team, all of us in the room, we were mesmerized by some of his answers. I felt he was thorough. He was serious. He certainly prepared himself for this moment. I would say he met the moment. At the end of it, we both were pretty exhausted." The interview reportedly brought in millions of dollars in revenue for OWN.

In March 2015, Oprah announced that her Chicago-based Harpo Studios would close at the end of the year to consolidate the company’s production operations to the Los Angeles-based OWN headquarters. Her television empire was launched at the studio and it had been home to her daily syndicated talk show through its finale in 2011. "The time had come to downsize this part of the business and to move forward. It will be sad to say goodbye but I look ahead with such a knowing that what the future holds is even more than I can see."

Oprah's Angel Network has raised more than $51,000,000 for charitable programs, including girls' education in South Africa and relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Oprah is a dedicated activist for children's rights. In 1994, President Clinton signed a bill into law that Oprah had proposed to Congress, creating a nationwide database of convicted child abusers. She founded the “Family for Better Lives” foundation and also contributes to her alma mater, Tennessee State University. In September 2002, Oprah was named the first recipient of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Bob Hope Humanitarian Award. In November 2013, Oprah received the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Barack Obama gave her this award for her contributions to her country.

According to “Forbes” magazine, Oprah was the richest African American of the 20th century. “Life” magazine called her the most influential woman of her generation. In 2005, “Business Week” named her the greatest Black philanthropist in American history. Forbes' international rich list has listed Oprah as the world's only black billionaire from 2004 to 2006 and as the first black woman billionaire in world history. As of 2014, Oprah Winfrey has a net worth in excess of 2.9 billion dollars and has overtaken former eBay CEO Meg Whitman as the richest self-made woman in America.