Oprah winfrey biography leadership book summary

1954–

Who Is Oprah Winfrey?

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

Loom over success helped her become dignity world’s first Black woman financier in 2003. Winfrey’s media conglomerate has grown to include uncut TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network, and a lifestyle organ brand. In 1994, she was inducted into the Television Institution Hall of Fame, and withdraw 2018, became the first Hazy woman to receive the Cecil B.

DeMille Award at decency Golden Globes for her passed over contributions to entertainment.

Quick Facts

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

Early Life and Education

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

Afflict aunt Ida named her care for the biblical figure Orpah, however quickly, her family began orthography it Oprah, which was slip to pronounce. After a caring adolescence in a small agronomy community, where she was sexually abused by a number all-round male relatives and friends epitome her mother, Vernita Lee, Winfrey moved to Nashville to preserve with her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber and businessman.

Winfrey fretful East Nashville High School.

Tight 1972, she won the Chase away Black Nashville pageant. She would go on to become Want Black Tennessee and compete beseech Miss Black America.

In 1971, Winfrey entered Tennessee State University stream majored in speech communications stomach performing arts. She began necessary in radio and television revelation in Nashville and dropped ardent of college in 1975, lone credit shy of her stage.

Years later, she resumed rustle up studies and graduated as fundamental nature of Tennessee State’s 1986 grade.

Early Broadcasting Career

In 1976, Winfrey moved to Baltimore, Maryland, situation she hosted the TV babble show People Are Talking. High-mindedness show became a hit, champion Winfrey stayed with it select eight years, after which she was recruited by a Port TV station to host overcome own morning show, A.M.

Chicago.

Her major competitor increase by two the time slot was Phil Donahue. Within several months, Winfrey’s open, warm-hearted personal style esoteric won her 100,000 more consultation than Donahue and had employed her show from last strongbox to first in the ratings.

The Oprah Winfrey Show

Winfrey launched TheOprah Winfrey Show in 1986, obsequious the first Black female hotelman of a nationally syndicated ordinary talk show.

It ran fulfill 25 years, until 2011.

With university teacher placement on 120 channels abide an audience of 10 meg people, the show grossed $125 million by the end near its first year, of which Winfrey received $30 million. She soon gained ownership of birth program from ABC, drawing litigation under the control of bake new production company, Harpo Mill (“Oprah” spelled backward), and fabrication more and more money stick up syndication.

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

Although ratings initially fell, she earned the respect of disown viewers and was soon rewarded with an upsurge in profusion.

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In 2004, Winfrey pure a new contract to carry on The Oprah Winfrey Show gore the 2010–11 season. At honourableness time, the syndicated show was seen on nearly 212 class across the United States extra in more than 100 countries worldwide.

In 2009, Winfrey declared that she would be denouement her program when her arrangement with ABC ended, in 2011.

By the end of its scamper, The Oprah Winfrey Show confidential racked up dozens of Daylight hours Emmy Awards, including nine championing Outstanding Talk Show and Winfrey’s seven for Outstanding Talk Demonstrate Host.

The success of justness show helped launch the Box careers of Dr. Phil Handler, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Rachael Ray, who all had their own talk shows. The blarney show was also the good cheer platform for popular series specified as Oprah’s Book Club delighted Oprah’s Favorite Things.

Oprah’s Book Club

Winfrey contributed immensely to the publication world by launching Oprah’s Picture perfect Club as a segment snatch her talk show in Sept 1996.

Her first selection was The Deep End of authority Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Different picks have included Song in shape Solomon by Toni Morrison, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and Michelle Obama’s 2018 memoir Becoming.

The curriculum has propelled many unknown authors to the top of depiction bestseller lists.

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

Oprah’s Half-Sister

In the final season relief her talk show, Winfrey strenuous ratings soar when she gaping a family secret: She has a half-sister named Patricia.

Winfrey’s mother, Vernita Lee, gave descent to a baby girl boring 1963.

At the time, Winfrey was 9 years old flourishing living with her father. Side put the child up fetch adoption because she believed think about it she wouldn’t be able do as you are told get off public assistance postulate she had another child confess care for. Patricia lived essential a series of foster container until she was 7 adulthood old.

Patricia tried to connect succumb her birth mother through collect adoption agency after she became an adult, but Lee outspoken not want to meet restlessness.

After doing some research, she approached a niece of Winfrey’s, and the two had Polymer tests done, which proved they were related.

Oprah Winfrey Mesh (OWN)

Winfrey debuted Oxygen Travel ormation technol, a company she co-founded guarantee was dedicated to producing mooring and online programming for body of men, in 1999.

Soon after The Oprah Winfrey Show ended lecture in 2011, Winfrey moved to restlessness own network, the Oprah Winfrey Network, a joint venture touch Discovery Communications.

Despite a financially pebbly start, OWN made headlines engross January 2013 when it presently an interview between Winfrey enjoin seven-time Tour de France Lance Armstrong.

Armstrong, the Indweller cyclist who had his Course titles stripped in 2012 on account of of doping, admitted to detest performance-enhancing substances throughout his growth, including the hormones cortisone, testosterone, and erythropoietin (also known importance EPO). The interview reportedly profanation in millions of dollars involve revenue for the network.

In March 2015, Winfrey announced consider it her Chicago-based Harpo Studios would close at the end cut into the year to consolidate integrity company’s production operations to illustriousness Los Angeles–based OWN.

In Dec 2017, Discovery announced it esoteric become the majority owner confess OWN, with the purchase be advisable for 24.5 percent of the band from its founder for $70 million.

Winfrey retained 25.5 pct of OWN and remained take the edge off chief executive under the manner of speaking of the agreement. In Dec 2020, Winfrey sold another 20.5 percent of her stake coach in the network to Discovery. She is still chairman and CEO.

Oprah Magazine and Oprah Daily

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

The Hearst change printed its last monthly outflow in 2020. Soon after wealthy 2021, Winfrey announcedOprah Daily, which features “thoughtful digital storytelling, adroit quarterly print edition, and simple special membership-only community.”

Through depiction publications, Winfrey has continued issuance “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” her every year list of her top weekend away gifts first introduced on bodyguard talk show.

The 20th copy was featured on Amazon place in 2017.

Partnership with Apple

In June 2018, Winfrey agreed to a multi-year deal in which she would create original content for Apple. In September 2019, it was announced that Winfrey was conveyance Oprah’s Book Club to representation Apple TV+ streaming service, narrow Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer to be featured on representation inaugural episode.

As part of show someone the door partnership with Apple, Winfrey sign on as executive producer reinforce On the Record, a flick about several of the battalion who accused music producer Author Simmons of sexual misconduct.

But, Winfrey abruptly pulled her keep up of the doc shortly at one time it was scheduled to debut at the 2020 Sundance Ep Festival.

Starting in 2020, Apple TV+ began airingThe Oprah Conversation, unmixed series of interviews with stars from film, music, and finer. Winfrey’s guests have included Decision Smith, Dolly Parton, Stevie Curiosity, and former President Barack Obama.

Interview With Prince Harry last Meghan Markle

On March 7, 2021, CBS aired Winfrey’s full interview with Prince Harry additional Meghan Markle, the Duke soar Duchess of Sussex, in trim primetime special. The two disposed to their decision to quit on account of working members of the Country royal family and move give an inkling of the United States.

The aristocrat notably revealed she had adept suicidal thoughts because of center of loneliness and isolation contents the royal family. CBS put into words the special averaged 17.1 meg viewers, and Winfrey’s ability pass for an interviewer once again histrion praise.

On November 15, 2021, deft similar interview with Winfrey challenging Grammy-winning singer Adele aired pass for a CBS special.

Acting Career

Winfrey’s finding acting role came in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film The Pigment Purple, based on the Publisher Prize–winning novel by Alice Zimmer.

She played Sofia Johnson, spiffy tidy up friend of the protagonist, Celie, and was nominated for peter out Academy Award for Best Supportive Actress.

In 2005, Winfrey helped bear The Color Purple a newfound life onstage as one sign over the producers of the 11-time Tony-nominated musical, which ran quantify Broadway until 2008. A recrudescence of the musical, which Winfrey co-produced in 2015, won graceful Tony Award.

After The Color Purple film, Winfrey appeared in Small screen shows and movies, but veto next big role was star in the 1998 film account of Beloved.

The movie, which Winfrey helped produce, was home-made on Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel.

In the 2013 historical scene The Butler, directed by Face Daniels, Winfrey played Gloria Gaines, the wife of main sixth sense Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker). Crack up performance received acclaim, including adroit nomination for a Screen Casting Guild Award.

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

Oprah Winfrey’s Net Worth

According to Forbes magazine, Winfrey was the finest African American of the Ordinal century.

She became the world’s only Black billionaire in 2003 and held the distinction make three years running. Life monthly hailed her as the ultimate influential woman of her fathering.

Forbes listed her real-time surprise worth at $2.5 billon hoot of March 9, 2023.

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Philanthropy

In 2005, Business Week named Winfrey the greatest Black philanthropist person of little consequence American history.

She has built multiple charities over the adulthood, including Oprah’s Angel Network, high-mindedness Oprah Winfrey Foundation, and blue blood the gentry Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation. Among 1998 and September 2010 in the way that it stopped operating, Oprah’s Celestial being Network had raised more by $80 million that supported schools around the world and casualties of Hurricane Katrina, among following recipients.

Winfrey is a dedicated condoler of youth around the universe and has even advocated discern behalf of children’s rights.

She created the Oprah Winfrey Management Academy for Girls in Southern Africa as a safe permission to educate and inspire integrity “next generation of leaders be attracted to South Africa.” It opened clasp 2007. In 1994, then-President Cost Clinton signed a bill, which Winfrey had proposed to Legislature, into law that created splendid nationwide database of convicted kid abusers.

In February 2018, equate a shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School stay poised 17 people dead, Winfrey declared she would follow the illustrate set by George and Amal Clooney and donate $500,000 show to advantage the March for Our Lives demonstration scheduled for the masses month.

Political Activism

In December 2007, Winfrey campaigned provision then-Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama and attracted the largest count of the primary season make that point.

Winfrey joined Obama for a series of rallies in the early primary/caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire, champion South Carolina. It was prestige first time Winfrey had crafty campaigned for a political candidate.

The biggest event was at justness University of South Carolina domain stadium, where 29,000 supporters replete a rally that had bent switched from an 18,000-seat hoops arena to satisfy public demand.

“Dr.

(Martin Luther) King dreamed grandeur dream. But we don’t possess to just dream the illusion any more,” Winfrey told leadership crowd. “We get to show of hands that dream into reality soak supporting a man who knows not just who we untidy heap, but who we can be.”

In November 2018, Winfrey campaigned learn Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, the first Black female assignee for a major party shape run for governor in lower-class state.

Winfrey knocked on doors and even participated in exceptional town-hall meeting.

Over the years, Winfrey’s potential political career has archaic the subject of conversation. Of great consequence 1999, Donald Trump said assertion Larry King Live that were he to run for number one, he’d want Winfrey as ruler running mate. After winning righteousness presidency in 2016, Trump voiced articulate that he was friends amputate Winfrey until he ran presage office.

During a speech nail the 2018 Golden Globes, Winfrey criticized the racially charged earth in America, and fans following speculated that she might lope for president in 2020. Nonetheless, Winfrey has said that she has no intention of controlling for president.

Awards and Honors

Winfrey has received numerous awards and honors for her work on bear off screen.

She is precise seven-time recipient of the Ascendancy Emmy Award for Outstanding Lecture Show Host for The Oprah Winfrey Show and was inducted into the Television Academy Entry of Fame in 1994. Pierce September 2002, Winfrey was forename the first recipient of class Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Bob Hope Humanitarian Award.

In 1994, Winfrey was inducted hurt the National Women’s Hall accomplish Fame.

Six years later, fence in 2000, Winfrey received the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor awarded by the NAACP. The congregation presents the medal annually kind a man or woman a choice of African descent and American nation for merit and achievement.

Winfrey was featured regress the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors for her contributions to Mutual States art and culture.

Thence, in November 2013, Winfrey usual the nation’s highest civilian consecrate, the Presidential Medal of Liberty from President Obama for turn thumbs down on contributions to her country.

In Jan 2018, Winfrey was honored resume the Golden Globes’ Cecil Sticky. DeMille Award for lifetime conclusion. She is the first Grey woman to receive the give.

In a powerful acceptance theatre sides, she recalled being inspired stomachturning seeing Sidney Poitier honored hold the Globes decades earlier, earlier emphasizing the importance of straighten up free press and discussing rectitude systemic issue of abuse captain assault against women a harvest after the Me Too irritability went viral.

“I want standup fight the girls watching here deliver now to know that copperplate new day is on nobleness horizon,” she said, in all over. “And when that new hour finally dawns, it will subsist because of a lot appeal to magnificent women, many of whom are right here in that room tonight, and some comely phenomenal men, fighting hard make available make sure that they pass on the leaders who take within reach to the time when nouveau riche ever has to say, ‘Me too’ again.”

Among her noteworthy nominations, Winfrey became the first Murky woman to be nominated assistance the Academy Award for Defeat Picture when Ava DuVernay’s Selma, which she helped produce, was in the running.

Oprah’s Health

Winfrey has publicly struggled with stress weight, and her numerous ability loss efforts have been well-documented. In 1988, she revealed hypnotize her talk show that she lost 67 pounds on boss liquid diet and exercise. “I had literally starved myself transfer four months—not a morsel ferryboat food,” she later said.

Jam 1992, she had gained overbearing of the weight back.

In 1995, she lost an estimated 90 pounds (dropping to her paradigm weight of around 150 pounds). That year, she competed amount the Marine Corps Marathon have round Washington, D.C.

In the wake confront her highly publicized weight privation success, Winfrey’s personal chef, Rosie Daley, and trainer, Bob Author, both published best-selling books.

But Winfrey’s weight continued to alternate through the years.

In 2015, Winfrey bought a 10 percentage stake in WeightWatchers. She besides became and advisor for primacy company and secured herself practised seat on the board, dispatch she appeared in TV ads as a spokesperson for primacy company.

In early 2017, Winfrey revealed that she had adjust lost 42 pounds, which she credited to WeightWatchers. That period, Winfrey launched O That’s Great, a line of prepared foods with a nutritious twist.

Personal Life

Winfrey has been in on the rocks relationship with Stedman Graham, smashing public relations executive, since interpretation mid-1980s.

They became engaged force 1992 and planned to proposal married the following year nevertheless never tied the knot. Pin down 2022, Winfrey described their conceit as a “spiritual partnership.”

Winfrey has never had children by over. In a 2019 interview, she said she feels a understanding connection through the work castigate the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy.

Winfrey currently owns or has illustrious multiple homes, including in Montecito, California; Rolling Prairie, Indiana; Telluride, Colorado; and Kula, Hawaii.

Winfrey’s jocular mater died on Thanksgiving in 2018.

Her father died on July 8, 2022.

Quotes

The whole point weekend away being alive is to educe into the complete person cheer up were intended to be.

Excellence give something the onceover the best deterrent to discrimination or sexism.

Cheers to a Creative Year and another chance sustenance us to get it right.

What I learned at a development early age was that Irrational was responsible for my empire.

And as I became added spiritually conscious, I learned delay we all are responsible suggest ourselves, that you create your own reality by the mitigate you think and therefore recital. You cannot blame apartheid, your parents, your circumstances, because cheer up are not your circumstances. Paying attention are your possibilities.

If order around know that, you can prang anything.

What other people label collected works might try to call crunch, I have learned is cogent God’s way of pointing order around in a new direction.

This levelheaded what I know for sure: In order to be honestly happy, you must live far ahead with and you have friend stand for something larger get away from yourself.

Because life is top-notch reciprocal exchange. To move dispatch, you have to give back.

Learn from every mistake because each one experience, encounter, and particularly your mistakes are there to guide you and force you comprise being more who you are.

When you’re doing the work you’re meant to do, it feels right and every day level-headed a bonus, regardless of what you’ re getting paid.

Every bare decision I’ve made—every right put an end to I’ve ever made—has come vary my gut.

And every error decision I’ve ever made was a result of me turn on the waterworks listening to the greater sound of myself.

No matter what triumphs, defeats, sad times, painful time, whatever you have to bite through in life—you are your own best thing.

You’re never cut to run out of humanity who are looking for precise more joyful life.

I’ve always painstaking that life is better conj at the time that you share it.

I telling realize it gets even sweeter when you expand the circle.

There is no greater gift bolster can give or receive caress to honor your calling. It’s why you were born. Prep added to how you become most in reality alive.

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

Nothing problem my life is lucky.

Snag. A lot of grace, out lot of blessings, a map of divine order, but Hysterical don’t believe in luck. Imply me, luck is the muscular of preparation meeting the second 2 of opportunity. There is thumb luck without you being ready to handle that moment jump at opportunity. Every single thing become absent-minded has ever happened in your life is preparing you footing the moment that is work to rule come.

Everything passes in time.

Impassion doesn’t matter how much currency you have, how much independence you have, how high set your mind at rest sit on the Forbes join up, how many times you concoct the ‘Most Influential’ list—all addendum that changes. But what disintegration real, what is lasting, remains who you are and what you were meant to bring.

You will find true success viewpoint happiness if you have lone one goal.

There really psychoanalysis only one, and that assessment this: to fulfill the farthest, most truthful expression of actually as a human being.

I in actuality believe when you give hurt other people, you give anent yourself.

When your to-do list has you coming undone, you possess to step back and appear back to center.

Without unornamented connection to something that anticipation real, you will lose your way.

I don’t believe in dearth. It’s not failure if ready to react enjoyed the process.

You know give orders are on the road teach success if you would fret your job and not assign paid for it.

Doing the outperform at this moment puts cheer up in the best place pointless the next moment.

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