See Also: Winfrey, Oprah(encyclopedia)

Winfrey, Oprah (sh)




born Jan. 29, 1954, Kosciusko, Miss., U.S.

U.S. television talk-show host and actress.

After enduring an impoverished and troubled childhood, she became a news anchor for a local CBS television station in Tennessee at age 19. After graduating from Tennessee State University, she worked as a television reporter and anchor in Baltimore, Md., where she cohosted her first talk show (1977-83), and moved to Chicago to host A.M. Chicago (1984), which became that city's highest-rated morning show. The renamed Oprah Winfrey Show was syndicated in 1986, making her the first African American woman to host a successful national daytime talk show. Initially sensationalist, the enormously popular show gradually took on an uplifting and therapeutic tone. In 1986 she also formed her own television production company, Harpo Productions. In 1996 she introduced "Oprah's Book Club" to foster reading by endorsing certain books. She appeared in the movies The Color Purple (1985) and Beloved (1998).