Oprah Winfrey Biography

Oprah Winfrey Biography

Name : Oprah Winfrey

Date of birth : 29 January 1954

Place of birth : Kosciusko, Mississippi, USA

Birth name : Oprah Gail Winfrey

Nickname : O
Deepak Oprah

Height : 5' 6


Oprah Winfrey Trivia
She is permanently withdrawing her name from Daytime Emmy Award consideration because she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement in 1998. "...after you've achieved it for a lifetime, what else is there?"
In addition to being a news anchor on WJZ-TV13 in Baltimore Maryland, she was a co-host with Richard Sher (A reporter) on a local talk show on that station. It was called: People are Talking.
Graduated from East Nashville High School in Nashville, Tennessee (1971); voted most popular
Was sued by Texas cattlemen who claimed that Oprah defamed beef on her talk show. The case went to trial, causing Oprah to have to relocate her show's production to Amarillo, TX for the duration of the trial. She was found not liable.
Ranked #1 in Entertainment Weekly's 1998 list of the most powerful people in industry, but dropped to #6 in 1999 list. Still, the only performer ranked that high, as well as the only woman, and certainly the only African-American.
Graduate of Tennessee State University, with degrees in speech communications and performing arts
Is the first woman in history to own and produce her own talk show.
Her name was intended to be Orpah, but it was misspelled on her birth certificate.
Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1985" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 37.
Announced that Oprah would receive $130,000,000 for continuing her talk show through the 1999-2000 TV season. [15 September 1997]
Chosen by "People" magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World. [1997]
Worked as a news anchor for WJZ Television in Baltimore, Maryland, in the late 1970s
Elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca, NY
She and Stedman Graham are teaching "Dynamics of Leadership" class at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management. [fall 1999]
Given an honorary National Book Award for her "influential contribution to reading and books". [October 1999]
Awarded (lst) 50th anniversary medal by National Book Foundation, NYC, Nov 1999.
Her immensely popular TV talk show is a Harpo Production. Harpo is Oprah spelled backwards. Harpo is also the name of a character in The Color Purple (1985) (Oprah's film debut) played by 'Willard E. Pug' .
Gave birth to a baby boy when she was just 14. The baby died after 2 weeks, from complications of being born 2 months premature.
Was instrumental in the passage of the Oprah Bill, in the early 1990s. The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, and is aimed at stopping child abuse.
Raised in abject poverty, she received her first pair of shoes in 1959 at age 6. She learned to read at age 2�. In fact, when it was time for her to start kindergarten, she wrote a note to her teacher insisting she should be in first grade. The teacher agreed and after finishing that grade she was then skipped to third grade.
Partner is Stedman Graham. [1986 - present]
Born at 7:51 PM EST
In April 2002, she her former personal trainer Bob Greene announce they are buying 7 shoreline lots from Getty Family Trust to build several homes, including one on 102-acre lot for Oprah. They plan to put conservation first and keep site development low key.
Febuary 2003 - She is added to Forbes Billionare list, making her the first African American woman to do so.
Ranked #1 on VH1's list of the "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons" (2003)
Measurements: 36-25-37 (as 18 year-old pageant contestant), 44D-29-40 (in 1990 at 200#+), 36C-25-35 (after 1995 diet), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
Elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY
#1 Pop Culture Icon on VH1's "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons", beating out Superman and Elvis.
As of 2004, her net worth is estimated to be at around 1.1 billion USD
Purchased a house at 3330 Radcliffe Avenue, West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This superb 11,000 sq ft waterfront property was on sale for Cdn $18 million, at the time British Columbia's most expensive house, but she paid $17 million (US $13 million). [June 2004]
Daughter of Vernon Winfrey.
According to Forbes magazine, her 2005 net worth is $1.3 billion.
Was a guest at friends Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger's star-studded wedding
First African-American women to become a billionaire in American history.
2005: After years of publicly criticizing David Letterman's late-night television show, she and Letterman finally settled their differences, when she agreed to appear on the December 1, 2005 episode, during which time she was be in New York to promote her musical of The Color Purple.


Oprah Winfrey Detailed Biography

Oprah Winfrey earned both Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for her feature film acting debut in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple.

The celebrated talk-show host, actress, producer, philanthropist, and businesswoman is the chairman of Harpo Entertainment Group in Chicago. Through Harpo Productions, she produces and hosts The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in television history. Since entering syndication in 1986, The Oprah Winfrey Show has remained the number-one talk show for 12 consecutive seasons, receiving 32 Emmys -- seven of which went to the host. At the end of the 1995/96 television season, Oprah was honored with the most prestigious award in broadcasting, the George Foster Peabody Individual Achievement Award. In June 1998, she was named one of the 100 most influential people of the Twentieth Century by Time. More recently, Oprah was named Most Important Person in Books and Media by Newsweek magazine, and in May of 1998 received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Oprah began her career in broadcasting at age 19, when she became both the youngest news anchor and the first African-American woman news anchor at Nashville's WTVF-TV. She then moved to Baltimore to co-anchor the six o'clock news, until she was recruited to cohost Baltimore's WJZ-TV's local talk show, People Are Talking.

Seven years later, she relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV's morning talk show, AM Chicago, which became the number-one talk show one month after Oprah took over. In less than a year, the show expanded to an hour and was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In addition to her acting debut in The Color Purple, Oprah was lauded by critics for her performances in There Are No Children Here and The Women of Brewster Place, two acclaimed television projects produced by Harpo Films.

Under the Harpo Films banner, Oprah is the executive producer, with Kate Forte, of the Oprah Winfrey franchise Oprah Winfrey Presents, a collection of original television television films for ABC. The first production, Before Women Had Wings, starring Ellen Barkin, Tina Majorino, and Oprah Winfrey, debuted last fall. An adaptation of Dorothy West's The Wedding aired earlier this year.

Source: netglimse.com