With 25 years of tears, laughter and soul-baring on her TV talk show, Oprah Winfrey has inspired millions. Survivor, media and business phenomenon, and America's best friend: what's her story?
Oprah bows out of self-made stardom
With 25 years of tears, laughter and soul-baring on her TV talk show, Oprah Winfrey has inspired millions. Survivor, media and business phenomenon, and America's best friend: what's her story?
<h2 class="eplus-eE8S4t wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper"><strong>Love and money</strong></h2>
Her website is called 'Live Your Best Life.' But when Oprah Winfrey was born, the little girl's future looked bleak. Her early years were spent in poverty with her mother in rural Mississippi, before she moved to live with her father, a strict man, in Nashville.
From the age of nine, she was sexually abused by male family members. Then at fourteen she became pregnant but lost the baby. In her late teens she got involved in local radio after winning a beauty pageant. In Baltimore, then Chicago she began to host the daytime television chat shows that would make her famous.
In 1985 she was nominated for an Oscar for a supporting role in The Color Purple. Then, a year later, she hit the big time when her show was renamed 'Oprah' and went nationwide.
After developing a remarkably intimate relationship with audience and fans because of on-air frankness about her own problems, she became America's richest self-madeSomeone who has succeeded without the traditional advantages of family wealth and connections, or a privileged education. woman.
Forbes magazine estimated her earnings last year to be $290m.
And Oprah's influence is enormous: titles picked for her book club shoot instantly into the bestseller lists and, when she backed Barack Obama as Democratic candidate for the presidency, it was seen as a decisive moment.
With her rags-to-riches tale, Oprah is the American Dream made flesh - and that flesh has been part of the story too. Oprah's open discussion of her dieting and battle against weight gain is part of what made her a popular 'best friend' to America.
Author Bonnie Greer, who is from Chicago, explains: 'She has made mainstream that warm but tell-it-like-it-is persona of the African American woman. It has always been there in American culture, but Oprah brought it onto TV in the afternoon. She pioneered "victim" culture in the good and the bad sense.
Oprah was born in 1957, a few years after the US Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in American schools. And her story has become iconic for her black countrymen and women, because she shows you can overcome your background, however, deprived.
For others, there was an undercurrent of excessive materialism to the show - yearly giveaways of products materialism on the show - yearly giveaways of products like cars sat uneasily alongside a homespun philosophy of self-acceptance and spiritual values.
But during her national finale there's little criticism. As Tom Hanks gushed to his tearful hostess: 'Oprah, today you are surrounded by nothing but love!'
Self-made - Someone who has succeeded without the traditional advantages of family wealth and connections, or a privileged education.
Oprah bows out of self-made stardom
Glossary
Self-made - Someone who has succeeded without the traditional advantages of family wealth and connections, or a privileged education.