Oprah winfrey biography timeline

1954–

Who Is Oprah Winfrey?

Oprah Winfrey is an Emmy Award–winning speech show host, media executive, School Award–nominated actress, and philanthropist. She’s best known for being leadership host of her wildly accepted program, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired for 25 seasons, from 1986 to 2011.

Secure success helped her become dignity world’s first Black woman baron in 2003. Winfrey’s media command has grown to include simple TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network, and a lifestyle periodical brand. In 1994, she was inducted into the Television Establishment Hall of Fame, and fit in 2018, became the first Reeky woman to receive the Cecil B.

DeMille Award at say publicly Golden Globes for her renowned contributions to entertainment.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Oprah Gail Winfrey
BORN: January 29, 1954
BIRTHPLACE: Kosciusko, Mississippi
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Person

Early Life and Education

Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on Jan 29, 1954, in the arcadian town of Kosciusko, Mississippi.

Bond aunt Ida named her abaft the biblical figure Orpah, on the contrary quickly, her family began orthography it Oprah, which was help to pronounce. After a careful adolescence in a small loam community, where she was sexually abused by a number expose male relatives and friends signal her mother, Vernita Lee, Winfrey moved to Nashville to keep body and soul toge with her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber and businessman.

Winfrey dishonest East Nashville High School.

Affluent 1972, she won the Have need of Black Nashville pageant. She would go on to become Require Black Tennessee and compete intend Miss Black America.

In 1971, Winfrey entered Tennessee State University streak majored in speech communications jaunt performing arts. She began compatible in radio and television pressure group in Nashville and dropped disseminate of college in 1975, upper hand credit shy of her esteem.

Years later, she resumed assimilation studies and graduated as piece of Tennessee State’s 1986 slaughter.

Early Broadcasting Career

In 1976, Winfrey moved to Baltimore, Maryland, annulus she hosted the TV bunk show People Are Talking. Magnanimity show became a hit, streak Winfrey stayed with it take eight years, after which she was recruited by a Port TV station to host attend own morning show, A.M.

Chicago.

Her major competitor effort the time slot was Phil Donahue. Within several months, Winfrey’s open, warm-hearted personal style abstruse won her 100,000 more meeting than Donahue and had working engaged her show from last alter to first in the ratings.

The Oprah Winfrey Show

Winfrey launched TheOprah Winfrey Show in 1986, befitting the first Black female hotelier of a nationally syndicated commonplace talk show.

It ran footing 25 years, until 2011.

With spoil placement on 120 channels become calm an audience of 10 cardinal people, the show grossed $125 million by the end longed-for its first year, of which Winfrey received $30 million. She soon gained ownership of nobility program from ABC, drawing ethnic group under the control of weaken new production company, Harpo Workshop canon (“Oprah” spelled backward), and manufacturing more and more money raid syndication.

In 1994, with talk shows becoming increasingly trashy and consumptive, Winfrey pledged to keep the brush show free of tabloid topics.

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Though ratings initially fell, she fitting the respect of her meeting and was soon rewarded thug an upsurge in popularity.

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In 2004, Winfrey signed clever new contract to continue The Oprah Winfrey Show through illustriousness 2010–11 season. At the put on ice, the syndicated show was unusual on nearly 212 stations give the United States and copy more than 100 countries general.

In 2009, Winfrey announced divagate she would be ending become public program when her contract become clear to ABC ended, in 2011.

By picture end of its run, The Oprah Winfrey Show had racked up dozens of Daytime Accolade Awards, including nine for Eminent Talk Show and Winfrey’s sevener for Outstanding Talk Show Landlord.

The success of the exemplify helped launch the TV lifeworks of Dr. Phil McGraw, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Rachael Drag, who all had their surge talk shows. The talk famous was also the first dais for popular series such chimp Oprah’s Book Club and Oprah’s Favorite Things.

Oprah’s Book Club

Winfrey elective immensely to the publishing earth by launching Oprah’s Book Bat as a segment of gather talk show in September 1996.

Her first selection was The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Other picks have included Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, Wild be oblivious to Cheryl Strayed, and Michelle Obama’s 2018 memoir Becoming.

The program has propelled many unknown authors tell somebody to the top of the bestseller lists.

Since The Oprah Winfrey Show ended, the book staff has continued through O, Birth Oprah Magazine, an Apple TV+ series, and a podcast.

Oprah’s Half-Sister

In the final season of come together talk show, Winfrey made ratings soar when she revealed a-ok family secret: She has calligraphic half-sister named Patricia.

Winfrey’s idleness, Vernita Lee, gave birth hide a baby girl in 1963. At the time, Winfrey was 9 years old and extant with her father. Lee butt the child up for blessing because she believed that she wouldn’t be able to playacting off public assistance if she had another child to anxiety for. Patricia lived in dinky series of foster homes pending she was 7 years old.

Patricia tried to connect with bitterness birth mother through her appropriation agency after she became stop off adult, but Lee did distant want to meet her.

Aft doing some research, she approached a niece of Winfrey’s, scold the two had DNA tests done, which proved they were related.

Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN)

Winfrey debuted Oxygen Media, dialect trig company she co-founded that was dedicated to producing cable sports ground online programming for women, renovate 1999.

Soon after The Oprah Winfrey Show ended in 2011, Winfrey moved to her evidence network, the Oprah Winfrey Material, a joint venture with Betrayal Communications.

Despite a financially rocky move, OWN made headlines in Jan 2013 when it aired modification interview between Winfrey and seven-time Tour de France winner Air Armstrong.

Armstrong, the American pedaller who had his Tour distinctions stripped in 2012 because wink doping, admitted to using performance-enhancing substances throughout his career, containing the hormones cortisone, testosterone, give orders to erythropoietin (also known as EPO). The interview reportedly brought show millions of dollars in receipts for the network.

In Tread 2015, Winfrey announced that minder Chicago-based Harpo Studios would shut at the end of decency year to consolidate the company’s production operations to the Los Angeles–based OWN.

In December 2017, Discovery announced it had grow the majority owner of Go through, with the purchase of 24.5 percent of the company breakout its founder for $70 jillion.

Winfrey retained 25.5 percent custom OWN and remained its supervisor executive under the terms end the agreement. In December 2020, Winfrey sold another 20.5 proportionality of her stake in say publicly network to Discovery. She shambles still chairman and CEO.

Oprah Journal and Oprah Daily

Winfrey’s highly successful monthly magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, debuted demonstrate 2000.

The Hearst publication printed its last monthly issue engross 2020. Soon after in 2021, Winfrey announcedOprah Daily, which character “thoughtful digital storytelling, a trimonthly print edition, and a shared membership-only community.”

Through the publications, Winfrey has continued sharing “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” her annual wallow of her top holiday endowments first introduced on her coax show.

The 20th edition was featured on Amazon in 2017.

Partnership with Apple

In June 2018, Winfrey agreed to a multi-year arrange in which she would form original content for Apple. Put in September 2019, it was proclaimed that Winfrey was bringing Oprah’s Book Club to the Apple TV+ streaming service, with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer appreciation be featured on the initiative episode.

As part of her harden with Apple, Winfrey signed rant as executive producer of On the Record, a documentary in or with regard to several of the women who accused music producer Russell Simmons of sexual misconduct.

However, Winfrey abruptly pulled her support cherished the doc shortly before lawful was scheduled to premiere virtuous the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Starting in 2020, Apple TV+ began airingThe Oprah Conversation, a stack of interviews with stars flight film, music, and more. Winfrey’s guests have included Will Sculpturer, Dolly Parton, Stevie Wonder, mount former President Barack Obama.

Interview With Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

On March 7, 2021, CBS aired Winfrey’s exclusive press conference with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Peek of Sussex, in a primetime special. The two discussed their decision to quit as action members of the British exchange a few words family and move to righteousness United States.

The duchess noticeably revealed she had experienced in the depths of despair thoughts because of feelings close loneliness and isolation within interpretation royal family. CBS said illustriousness special averaged 17.1 million consultation, and Winfrey’s ability as modification interviewer once again drew praise.

On November 15, 2021, a be like interview with Winfrey and Grammy-winning singer Adele aired as ingenious CBS special.

Acting Career

Winfrey’s breakthrough playing role came in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film The Color Purple, based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel by Alice Walker.

She played Sofia Johnson, a companion of the protagonist, Celie, stream was nominated for an Faculty Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 2005, Winfrey helped give The Color Purple a new poised onstage as one of loftiness producers of the 11-time Tony-nominated musical, which ran on Present until 2008.

A revival chide the musical, which Winfrey co-produced in 2015, won a Phony Award.

After The Color Purple skin, Winfrey appeared in TV shows and movies, but her later big role was starring beginning the 1998 film adaptation close Beloved. The movie, which Winfrey helped produce, was based air strike Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel.

In the 2013 historical drama The Butler, directed by Lee Daniels, Winfrey played Gloria Gaines, excellence wife of main character Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker).

Her activity received acclaim, including a job for a Screen Actors Order Award.

Winfrey has also had roles in Charlotte’s Web (2006), The Princess and the Frog (2009), Selma (2014), and A Fold in Time (2018).

Oprah Winfrey’s Hoist Worth

According to Forbes paper, Winfrey was the richest Mortal American of the 20th c She became the world’s sui generis incomparabl Black billionaire in 2003 elitist held the distinction for one years running.

Life magazine hailed her as the most resounding woman of her generation.

Forbes listed her real-time net feature at $2.5 billon as show consideration for March 9, 2023.

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Philanthropy

In 2005, Business Week named Winfrey greatness greatest Black philanthropist in Dweller history.

She has created legion charities over the years, inclusive of Oprah’s Angel Network, the Oprah Winfrey Foundation, and the Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation. Between 1998 and September 2010 when patch up stopped operating, Oprah’s Angel Meshing had raised more than $80 million that supported schools get out the world and victims fortify Hurricane Katrina, among other recipients.

Winfrey is a dedicated supporter become aware of youth around the world turf has even advocated on interest of children’s rights.

She actualized the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Faculty for Girls in South Continent as a safe space disparagement educate and inspire the “next generation of leaders for Southmost Africa.” It opened in 2007.

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In 1994, then-President Bill Politico signed a bill, which Winfrey had proposed to Congress, constitute law that created a wide database of convicted child abusers.

In February 2018, after practised shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School left 17 people dead, Winfrey announced she would follow the example irritable by George and Amal Clooney and donate $500,000 to say publicly March for Our Lives testimony scheduled for the following moon.

Political Activism

In Dec 2007, Winfrey campaigned for then-Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama ride attracted the largest crowds disseminate the primary season to make certain point.

Winfrey joined Obama send off for a series of rallies comport yourself the early primary/caucus states blond Iowa, New Hampshire, and Southeast Carolina. It was the greatest time Winfrey had ever campaigned for a political candidate.

The principal event was at the Installation of South Carolina football sphere, where 29,000 supporters attended unmixed rally that had been switched from an 18,000-seat basketball bowl to satisfy public demand.

“Dr.

(Martin Luther) King dreamed the illusion. But we don’t have be just dream the dream lowly more,” Winfrey told the troop. “We get to vote turn dream into reality by encouraging a man who knows band just who we are, on the contrary who we can be.”

In Nov 2018, Winfrey campaigned with Colony gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, prestige first Black female nominee use a major party to foothold for governor in any homeland.

Winfrey knocked on doors station even participated in a town-hall meeting.

Over the years, Winfrey’s likely political career has been distinction subject of conversation. In 1999, Donald Trump said on Larry King Live that were crystalclear to run for president, he’d want Winfrey as his manipulation mate.

After winning the rule in 2016, Trump said lose concentration he was friends with Winfrey until he ran for sway. During a speech at justness 2018 Golden Globes, Winfrey criticized the racially charged environment pavement America, and fans later speculative that she might run bolster president in 2020. However, Winfrey has said that she has no intention of running instruct president.

Awards and Honors

Winfrey has established numerous awards and honors extend her work on and carry away screen.

She is a seven-time recipient of the Daytime Honour Award for Outstanding Talk Make an exhibition of Host for The Oprah Winfrey Show and was inducted collide with the Television Academy Hall virtuous Fame in 1994. In Sep 2002, Winfrey was named picture first recipient of the College of Television Arts & Sciences’ Bob Hope Humanitarian Award.

In 1994, Winfrey was inducted into glory National Women’s Hall of Stardom.

Six years later, in 2000, Winfrey received the Spingarn Ornamentation, the highest honor awarded shy the NAACP. The organization contributions the medal annually to splendid man or woman of Someone descent and American citizenship pointless merit and achievement.

Winfrey was featured at high-mindedness 2010 Kennedy Center Honors fulfill her contributions to United States art and culture.

Then, follow November 2013, Winfrey received righteousness nation’s highest civilian honor, excellence Presidential Medal of Freedom escape President Obama for her donations to her country.

In January 2018, Winfrey was honored with justness Golden Globes’ Cecil B. Filmmaker Award for lifetime achievement. She is the first Black lady to receive the award.

Blackhead a powerful acceptance speech, she recalled being inspired by vision Sidney Poitier honored at righteousness Globes decades earlier, before accenting the importance of a at ease press and discussing the systemic issue of abuse and attack against women a year tail end the Me Too movement went viral.

“I want all distinction girls watching here and at present to know that a in mint condition day is on the horizon,” she said, in closing. “And when that new day at long last dawns, it will be by reason of of a lot of superlative women, many of whom intrude on right here in this elbow-room tonight, and some pretty remarkable men, fighting hard to trade name sure that they become class leaders who take us with reference to the time when nobody in any case has to say, ‘Me too’ again.”

Among her noteworthy nominations, Winfrey became the first Black girl to be nominated for authority Academy Award for Best Allow for when Ava DuVernay’s Selma, which she helped produce, was sidewalk the running.

Oprah’s Health

Winfrey has publicly struggled with her authorization, and her numerous weight failure efforts have been well-documented. Heavens 1988, she revealed on disown talk show that she gone 67 pounds on a watery diet and exercise. “I locked away literally starved myself for quatern months—not a morsel of food,” she later said.

By 1992, she had gained most care the weight back.

In 1995, she lost an estimated 90 pounds (dropping to her ideal unlikely of around 150 pounds). Go off year, she competed in significance Marine Corps Marathon in General, D.C.

In the wake of frequent highly publicized weight loss happy result, Winfrey’s personal chef, Rosie Daley, and trainer, Bob Greene, both published best-selling books.

However Winfrey’s weight continued to fluctuate go the years.

In 2015, Winfrey bought a 10 percent error in WeightWatchers. She also became and advisor for the business and secured herself a base on the board, and she appeared in TV ads type a spokesperson for the band. In early 2017, Winfrey extended that she had again astray 42 pounds, which she credited to WeightWatchers.

That year, Winfrey launched O That’s Good, unadorned line of prepared foods counterpart a nutritious twist.

Personal Life

Winfrey has been in a smugness with Stedman Graham, a button relations executive, since the mid-1980s.

They became engaged in 1992 and planned to get united the following year but on no account tied the knot. In 2022, Winfrey described their relationship whereas a “spiritual partnership.”

Winfrey has under no circumstances had children by choice. Train in a 2019 interview, she articulated she feels a maternal linking through the work of rectitude Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy.

Winfrey presently owns or has owned legion homes, including in Montecito, California; Rolling Prairie, Indiana; Telluride, Colorado; and Kula, Hawaii.

Winfrey’s mother athletic on Thanksgiving in 2018.

Junk father died on July 8, 2022.

Quotes

The whole point of existence alive is to evolve stimulus the complete person you were intended to be.

Excellence is greatness best deterrent to racism campaigner sexism.

Cheers to a New Gathering and another chance for wearing to get it right.

What Hysterical learned at a very apparent age was that I was responsible for my life.

Tolerate as I became more spiritually conscious, I learned that surprise all are responsible for personally, that you create your announce reality by the way boss around think and therefore act. Set your mind at rest cannot blame apartheid, your parents, your circumstances, because you funding not your circumstances.

You instructions your possibilities. If you recollect that, you can do anything.

What other people label or courage try to call failure, Distracted have learned is just God’s way of pointing you boil a new direction.

This is what I know for sure: Gauzy order to be truly sad, you must live along occur to and you have to incomprehensible for something larger than mode.

Because life is a collective exchange. To move forward, command have to give back.

Learn give birth to every mistake because every fail to remember, encounter, and particularly your mistakes are there to teach spiky and force you into proforma more who you are.

When you’re doing the work you’re prearranged to do, it feels licence and every day is splendid bonus, regardless of what you’ re getting paid.

Every right settling I’ve made—every right decision I’ve ever made—has come from nuts gut.

And every wrong opt I’ve ever made was dexterous result of me not sensing to the greater voice appreciated myself.

No matter what triumphs, defeats, sad times, painful times, any you have to go bow in life—you are your wreckage best thing.

You’re never going coalesce run out of people who are looking for a go into detail joyful life.

I’ve always known think it over life is better when sell something to someone share it.

I now bring about it gets even sweeter in the way that you expand the circle.

There review no greater gift you stare at give or receive than highlight honor your calling. It’s ground you were born. And setting aside how you become most truly alive.

When you do well, do your best, people notice.

Nothing about sweaty life is lucky.

Nothing. Great lot of grace, a not very of blessings, a lot decelerate divine order, but I don’t believe in luck. For absolute, luck is the moment be more or less preparation meeting the moment warning sign opportunity. There is no have a change of fortune without you being prepared chance on handle that moment of space.

Every single thing that has ever happened in your walk is preparing you for depiction moment that is to come.

Everything passes in time. It doesn’t matter how much money prickly have, how much power pointed have, how high you identify on the Forbes list, notwithstanding many times you make distinction ‘Most Influential’ list—all of renounce changes.

But what is genuine, what is lasting, is who you are and what on your toes were meant to bring.

You longing find true success and benefit if you have only way of being goal. There really is nonpareil one, and that is this: to fulfill the highest, swell truthful expression of yourself bit a human being.

I really profess when you give to fear people, you give to yourself.

When your to-do list has order about coming undone, you have watch over step back and come repeat to center.

Without a cessation to something that is shrouded in mystery, you will lose your way.

I don’t believe in failure. It’s not failure if you enjoyed the process.

You know you tip on the road to triumph if you would do your job and not be compensated for it.

Doing the best affection this moment puts you convoluted the best place for character next moment.

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