Winfrey, Oprah (1954-…), is an American television producer. From 1985 to 2011, she hosted “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” one of the highest-rated television talk shows. Her sympathetic, natural, and sincere style attracted millions of viewers worldwide to her show regularly. Winfrey became one of the few women to head her own TV and film production studio, Harpo Productions.
Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on Jan. 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to a single mother and grew up in poverty. Winfrey later moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to live with her father. At age 19, while attending Tennessee State University, Winfrey became the anchorwoman of a TV news broadcast in Nashville. She was the first African American woman and one of the youngest persons to anchor a newscast in Nashville.
Winfrey had her first major success in 1984 when she became host of “A.M. Chicago,” a local TV talk show. The show was renamed “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 1985 and became syndicated (broadcast nationally) in 1986. In 2000, she cofounded O, The Oprah Magazine, a women’s lifestyle magazine. In 2006, Winfrey launched Oprah & Friends, a talk radio channel on satellite radio. It was renamed Oprah Radio in 2009. The channel went off the air in 2015. Winfrey launched OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, a cable television channel, in 2011. She has appeared as a special contributor on the popular American TV program “60 Minutes.”
Winfrey is also an actress. She received an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actress for her film debut in The Color Purple (1985). In 2005, Winfrey became a theatrical producer when a musical version of the film opened on Broadway. She also acted in Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013) and Selma (2014).
Winfrey has won many awards, including numerous Daytime Emmy Awards as best talk show host. In 2000, Winfrey was awarded the Spingarn Medal for her achievements in television and publishing. She became a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2010. In 2011, she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for her humanitarian contributions.
