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Talk Show Host Oprah
Winfrey
 Most
of us know Oprah for her awesome talk show, her monthly book
club, or her generous contributions. Recently she even donated
a whopping $40 million to build an all-girls school in Africa.
Why would someone rich and famous be so concerned with young
girls, especially those on another continent?
Well, her own early experience explains a lot. Although Oprah
didn't grow up in Africa, she could definitely relate to growing up poor. For the first six years of
her life she lived with her grandma on a farm in Mississippi
with no running water or electricity. Still, this talented
talk show queen learned to read at just two years old and would
often recite scripture in church.
She continued to stun others with her intelligence. In fact, on her first day
of kindergarten she wrote her teacher an impressive note and was immediately
placed in first grade.
But despite her intellectual gifts, Oprah struggled--especially when she left the farm to live with her mother in the Milwaukee ghetto. Being in the inner city was hard. Oprah
missed the farm animals, and relatives she trusted abused
her. As a result, this bright little girl became a troubled,
unhappy child.
Later at 12, when
her mother couldn't control her any longer, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee
with her father. Now in
a safe home, with a strict curfew, and a solid
educational structure, Oprah blossomed into a straight "A"
student. She joined the drama club, debate club, and student council.
At church, where
her father was a deacon, she was asked to give a speech and
earned $500 cash. That's when she knew she wanted to be paid
to talk.
Queen of Chat
After high school
Oprah entered a speech contest at the Elks Club and won a full
scholarship to Tennessee State University. The next year she
was invited to the White House Conference on Youth, crowned
Miss Fire Prevention by WVOL, and began her first job--reading
the afternoon newscasts on the radio.
During her freshman
year of college, Oprah was offered a job by the Nashville
CBS news, twice. She turned them down, because she thought
she should keep her focus on her education, as her father
had taught her. But one of her teachers finally convinced
her to give it a shot. At only 19, Oprah became Nashville's
first African American female co-anchor of the evening news!
After
graduating college with a speech and arts degree, she moved
to Baltimore. It was there that she got her first break in
the morning talk show business. She did news cut-ins during
commercials for Good Morning America, and soon was moved to
the morning talk show "Baltimore Is Talking".
But it was also
during this time she was told she had big hair and was ordered
to get a perm to “relax” her look. Unfortunately,
the perm fried her hair and she wound up totally bald! For
the next several months she wore a scarf to cover her head.
Even so , her ratings
were better than the famous Phil Donahue, and seven years
later, she was offered a job in Chicago where she started
her own morning talk show: the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Oprah’s
Quote:
Oprah says she's where she is today because of her father. "For everyone
of us that succeeds, it's because there's somebody there to
show us the way out," she says.
 Fun
Facts:
- Oprah's name
was really Orpah at birth, a name given from the book of
Ruth in the Bible. It was changed because no one knew how
to spell it.
- When she moved
in with her mother, she missed the animals on her grandmother’s
farm so much, she collected cockroaches and put them in
a jar
- Her father
made her read five books every week and do reports on them
- She gave a
two-minute speech in front of 10,000 people and won a full
college scholarship for this effort
- She became
the first African American woman to have her own production
company, Harpo, Inc., which is actually
“Oprah” spelled backwards
- At the same
time she got the perm, television execs wanted her to have
plastic surgeries on her eyes and nose. Thankfully, Oprah
refused.
- She is labeled
"queen of daytime talk shows" and known as the
wealthiest African American woman in U.S. histor.
- She started
her own magazine, “O”, in 2000, and is photographed for every cover
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