OPRAH WINFREY FAN PAGE

Common Misspelling: Oprah Winfry, Oprah Winfrie

Full Name	Date of Birth	Birth Place
Oprah Gail Winfrey	January 29, 1954	Kosciusko, Mississippi

OPRAH WINFREY BIOGRAPHY

Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi to Vernita Lee and Vernon Winfrey (never married) and was raised on a farm by her grandmother. Her name came from the misspelling of the biblical name Orpah.
At a very young age she liked to be in front of people, and would recite stories to people at the age of three. She moved to Milwaukee to live with her mother in 1960. However, in 1967, after repeated abuse and molestation, she ran away. When the police caught her, they tried to place her in a home for juvenile delinquents, but it was full, so they sent her off to live with her father Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a strict disciplinarian, but also made her do extra schoolwork, which helper her later in life. [Note: Oprah gave birth to a baby boy when she was only 14, but the baby died when it was only two weeks old.]
She was a beautiful young woman an in 1970 won her first beauty pageant (Miss Fire Prevention) in Nashville. In 1972 she was crowned Miss Black Tennessee.
Her first real job in entertainment came in 1971, as a broadcaster for a local radio station, WVOL in Nashville. Two years later, she became the reporter/anchorwoman for WTVF-TV News. She continued to broadcast while she went to college. She won a college scholarship majored in Speech Communications and Performing Arts at Tennessee State University. In 1976, after graduating, she moved to Baltimore and co-anchored on WJZ-TV news. This lead to co-hosting a talk show called People Are Talking, and the makings of a career as a talk show host had begun.
Once again, she moved to a different city, but this time it was the big windy city of Chicago. She took over as the host of a talk show called AM Chicago on WLS-TV which was not doing very well in its rating. It only took the dynamic young Oprah to turn it into one of the most talked about shows on daytime TV.
In 1985, the still unknown Oprah tried her hand at acting. Like everything else she had done, she was excellent and was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for her role in the big screen adaption of The Color Purple.
In 1985, the show was expanded to one hour and given a new name – The Oprah Winfrey Show. It was doing so well that it was nationally syndicated in 1986 and made a big splash around the country. In 1986, she also formed her own production company, HARPO Productions, which was the first cog in what later became HARPO Entertainment.
The show was so good it won three Daytime Emmy Awards in 1987 and the show has continued to accumulate awards ever since. This includes an Emmy for Outstanding Informational Special when she interviewed Michael Jackson in 1993. 1998, she won the lifetime achievement award for talk-show host and has withdrawn her name from the list of nominees ever since. HARPO Productions took over ownership interest in 1988, and Oprah had creative power to forge an entertainment empire. She became the first woman to ever own and produce her own talk show.
Beginning in 1989, HARPO Productions (with Oprah as Executive Producer), began to produce its own made for TV movies, including The Women of Brewster Place (1989) which won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Mini Series, There Are No Children Here (1993), Before Women Had Wings (1997), Beloved (1998) where she also appeared in the movie and was nominated for the Image Award for Outstanding Lead Actess in a Motion Picture andthe APFF Black Film Award for Best Actress, Tuesdays With Morrie (1999) which won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for TV Movie, and more recently There Eyes Were Watching God with Halle Berry (2005).
In 1992, Oprah was became to former Basketball player Stedman Graham. They had been together since 1986.
In 1993, President Clinton signed into law the “Oprah Bill,” which Oprah spent a great deal of time and energy fighting for. It created a national database of convicted child abusers – something she was passionate about due to her own abuses as a child.
In 1998, Oprah was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People of the 20^th Century. Later that year, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television and Sciences. That year she also began he Oprah Book Club, which prompted an increase in reading worldwide and was awarded Gold Medal by the National Book Foundation the following year. Although in 1998 she was sued by cattle owners saying that she defamed meat, and had her relocate to Amarillo, Texas for a few months. She wound up winning that case.
Oprah brought her know-how to Cable in 2000 and became co-owners of Oxygen Media which is focused on the improvement of women.
Forbes listed Oprah as a billionaire in 2003. She was the first African-American to ever appear on this list.

*Some other Awards won by Oprah include: the 1986 Woman Achievement Award by the National Organization of Women, 1987 Golden Apple Female Star of the Year; 1991 Image Awards Entertainer of the Year; 1996 Peabody Award; and the 2002 Emmy Awards’ Bob Hope Humanitarian Award.

Biography by Ian Ripley, PopStarsPlus.com, Sr. Staff Writer

This biography may be copied in part or in whole for non commercial purposes online or in hard copy and must contain: (1) the name of the author, (2) the text "copied with permission from PopStarsPlus.com" and (3) a link to the page that contains the original biography.