Oprah Winfrey facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Oprah Winfrey
Winfrey in 2023
Born	Orpah Gail Winfrey (1954-01-29) January 29, 1954 (age 71) Kosciusko, Mississippi, U.S.
Alma mater	Tennessee State University (BA)
Occupation	Television presenter actress television producer media proprietor philanthropist author
Years active	1973–present
Works	Media projects
Title	Chairwoman and CEO of Harpo Productions (1986–present) Chairwoman, CEO and CCO of the Oprah Winfrey Network (2011–present)
Partner(s)	Stedman Graham (1986–present)
Children	1
Awards	Full list
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Oprah Gail Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which ran for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Nicknamed the "Queen of All Media," she was the richest African American of the 20th century. She was once the world's only black billionaire. By 2007, she was often ranked as the most influential woman in the world.

Early life

Orpah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Her mother, Vernita Lee (1935–2018), was a housemaid. Two men have claimed to be her father: Vernon Winfrey (c. 1933–2022) and World War II Veteran Noah Robinson Sr. (born c. 1925).

Winfrey lived with her maternal grandmother, Hattie Mae (Presley) Lee (April 15, 1900 – February 27, 1963) for the first six years of her life. Hattie Mae was so poor that Winfrey often wore dresses made of potato sacks.

At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner-city neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her mother. More than once, she was sent to live with her father Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee.

Winfrey attended Lincoln High School in Milwaukee. She became successful in the Upward Bound program and was transferred to Nicolet High School. At this time, Winfrey was continually reminded of her poverty as she rode the bus to school with fellow African-Americans, some of whom were servants of her classmates' families.

She began to rebel and steal money from her mother, who sent her to live with Vernon in Nashville again. Vernon was strict but encouraging and made her education a priority. Winfrey became an honors student, was voted Most Popular Girl, and joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School, where she placed second in the nation in dramatic interpretation.

Winfrey won an oratory contest and got a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black institution. She studied communication. However, she did not receive her degree until 1987, after she had become a successful television personality.

Career

The Oprah Winfrey Show

Winfrey in 1997

The first episode The Oprah Winfrey Show was broadcast nationwide on September 8, 1986. She modeled her show after the popular Phil Donahue Show and quickly became America's number-one daytime talk show host.

In the early years of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the program was classified as a celebrity gossip talk show. In the mid-1990s, Winfrey began to host shows on broader topics such as health, geopolitics, and spirituality. She interviewed celebrities on social issues and hosted televised giveaways.

In 2008, Winfrey's show was airing in 140 countries and seen by an estimated 46 million people in the U.S. Oprah was especially popular among women, Democrats, political moderates, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Southern Americans, and East Coast Americans.

The series finale of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired on May 25, 2011.

Other ventures

In addition to her talk show, Winfrey also produced and co-starred in the drama miniseries The Women of Brewster Place (1989) and its short-lived spin-off, Brewster Place. She co-founded the women's cable television network Oxygen. She is also the president of Harpo Productions (Oprah spelled backward), a film and TV production company behind The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil, Rachael Ray, The Dr. Oz Show and many others. The Discovery Health Channel changed to a new channel called OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network in 2011.

Oprah joined 60 Minutes as a special contributor in September 2017 and left by the end of 2018. She began creating original content for Apple TV+ in June 2018.

"The Oprah Effect"

Audiences became so influenced by Oprah's opinions that when she suggested something, whether it be a book to read, products to purchase, or a political candidate to support, people would do what she suggested without putting much of their own thought into it. This power became known as "The Oprah Effect."

Personal life

Aerial view of Oprah's Montecito estate

At 13, Winfrey ran away from home. When she was 14, she became pregnant, but her son was born prematurely and died shortly after birth.

In the 1970s, Winfrey had a romantic relationship with John Tesh. In the mid-1980s, Winfrey briefly dated movie critic Roger Ebert.

Winfrey and her partner Stedman Graham have been together since 1986. They were engaged to be married in November 1992, but the ceremony never took place.

Close friends

Winfrey celebrating her 50th birthday among friends at her Santa Barbara estate, 2004

Winfrey's best friend since their early twenties is Gayle King. King was formerly the host of The Gayle King Show and is currently an editor of O, the Oprah Magazine.

Winfrey considered Maya Angelou, author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, her mentor and close friend; she called Angelou her "mother-sister-friend." Winfrey hosted a week-long Caribbean cruise for Angelou and 150 guests for Angelou's 70th birthday in 1998, and in 2008, threw her "an extravagant 80th birthday celebration" at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Personal wealth

In 1986, when she was 32, Oprah became a millionaire, and her wealth continued to grow. According to Forbes' list ofThe World's Billionaires, she became the first black woman billionaire in the world in 2003 at age 49. Winfrey is believed to be the richest African American of the 20th century.

Religious views

Oprah was raised a Baptist. Oprah has stated that she is a Christian and her favorite Bible verse is Acts 17:28. Oprah has attended The Potter's House Church in Dallas.

Philanthropy

Winfrey visits evacuees from New Orleans temporarily sheltered at the Reliant center in Houston following Hurricane Katrina

Winfrey created the Oprah's Angel Network, a charity that supported charitable projects and provided grants to nonprofit organizations around the world. It operated from 1998 to 2010. One of the projects it underook was to raise money for relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

To celebrate two decades on national TV, and to thank her employees for their hard work, Winfrey took her staff and their families (1,065 people in total) on vacation to Hawaii in the summer of 2006.

As of 2012, Oprah had given away about $400 million to educational causes, including over 400 scholarships to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 2013, Winfrey donated $12 million to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom later that same year.

Oprah Winfrey quotes

• “Turn your wounds into wisdom.”
• “Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.”
• “The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”
• “Surround yourself only with people who are going to take you higher.”
• “You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.”
• “You don't become what you want, you become what you believe.”

Interesting facts about Oprah Winfrey

Winfrey at the White House for the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors

• Her first name was spelled Orpah on her birth certificate after the biblical figure in the Book of Ruth, but people mispronounced it regularly and "Oprah" stuck.
• Winfrey's grandmother, Hattie Mae, taught her to read before the age of three and took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed "The Preacher" for her ability to recite Bible verses.
• Winfrey says it was Hattie Mae who had encouraged her to speak in public and "gave me a positive sense of myself."
• As a child, she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property.
• A genetic test in 2006 determined that her matrilineal line originated among the Kpelle ethnic group, in the area that today is Liberia. Her genetic makeup was determined to be 89% Sub-Saharan African, 8% Native American, and 3% East Asian.
• Winfrey had three younger half-siblings: half-sister Patricia (died in February 2003 at age 43), another half-sister named Patricia (she was put up for adoption) and half-brother Jeffrey, who died of AIDS-related causes in 1989.
• Winfrey's first job as a teenager was working at a local grocery store.
• At the age of 17, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.
• Winfrey started her career in media as a newscaster at a local black radio station, WVOL, in Nashville, Tennessee.
• Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple (1985), as distraught housewife Sofia. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
• In the 2008 presidential race, Winfrey supported Barack Obama.
• The National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2018 opened a special exhibit showing how much Winfrey influenced the culture through television.
• In 2021, she conducted an interview with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and her husband Prince Harry, which was broadcast globally and received international media attention.
• Winfrey has co-authored five books.
• She publishes the magazine: O, The Oprah Magazine and from 2004 to 2008 also published a magazine called O At Home.
• Winfrey's company created the Oprah.com website to provide resources and interactive content related to her shows, magazines, book club, and public charity.
• The Wall Street Journal coined the term "Oprahfication," meaning public confession as a form of therapy.

Awards

• In 1989, she was accepted into the NAACP Image Award Hall of Fame.
• In 1994, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
• Winfrey has won 18 Daytime Emmy Awards (including the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Chairman's Award).
• She has two Primetime Emmy Awards (including the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award), a Tony Award, a Peabody Award, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award awarded by the Academy Awards, in addition to two competitive Academy Award nominations.
• Winfrey was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021.

Images for kids

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  Winfrey joins Barack and Michelle Obama on the campaign trail (December 10, 2007)

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  Winfrey in 2014

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  Winfrey speaking at Moore's inauguration, 2023

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  Winfrey filming in Denmark in 2009

Filmography

As actress

As herself

As producer only

• 1989 – The Oprah Winfrey Show (supervising producer – 8 episodes, 1989–2011)
• 1989 – The Women of Brewster Place (TV miniseries) (executive producer)
• 1992 – Nine (TV documentary) (executive producer)
• 1992 – Overexposed (TV movie) (executive producer)
• 1993 – ABC Afterschool Special (TV series) (producer – 1 episode "Shades of a Single Protein") (producer)
• 1993 – Michael Jackson Talks to... Oprah Live (TV special) (executive producer)
• 1997 – Before Women Had Wings (TV movie) (producer)
• 1998 – The Wedding (TV miniseries) (executive producer)
• 1998 – Beloved (producer)
• 1998 – David and Lisa (TV movie) (executive producer)
• 1999 – Tuesdays with Morrie (TV movie) (executive producer)
• 2001 – Amy & Isabelle (TV movie) (executive producer, producer)
• 2002 – Oprah After the Show (TV series) (executive producer)
• 2005 – Their Eyes Were Watching God (TV movie) (executive producer)
• 2006 – Legends Ball (TV documentary) (executive producer)
• 2007 – Oprah's Big Give (TV series) (executive producer)
• 2007 – The Oprah Winfrey Oscar Special (TV movie) (executive producer)
• 2007 – Building a Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy (TV documentary) (executive producer)
• 2007 – Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day (TV movie) (executive producer)
• 2007 – The Great Debaters (producer)
• 2009 – The Dr. Oz Show (TV series) (executive producer)
• 2009 – Precious (executive producer)
• 2009 – Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special (TV special) (executive producer)
• 2010 – The Oprah Winfrey Oscar Special (TV movie) (executive producer)
• 2011 – Your OWN Show (TV series) (executive producer)
• 2011 – Extraordinary Mom (TV documentary) (executive producer)
• 2011 – Serving Life (TV documentary) (executive producer)
• 2014 – The Hundred-Foot Journey (producer)
• 2014 – Selma (producer)
• 2016–2022 – Queen Sugar (co-creator and executive producer)
• 2016–2020 – Greenleaf (executive producer)
• 2017 – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (TV movie) (executive producer)
• 2018 – Love Is (executive producer)
• 2019 – When They See Us (executive producer)
• 2019 – Oprah Winfrey Presents: After Neverland (executive producer)
• 2019 – David Makes Man (executive producer)
• 2020 – The Water Man (executive producer)
• 2022 – Sidney (documentary film) (producer)
• 2023 – The Color Purple (producer)

See also

In Spanish: Oprah Winfrey para niños

• African Americans in Mississippi