Oprah Winfrey
Talk Show Host ("The Oprah Winfrey Show")
Early Life
- “…born in rural Mississippi and spent her early childhood there, in the care of her maternal grandmother… She was repeatedly sexually abused by several male relatives and family friends, and in response she rebelled against her mother's authority and started to lie, steal, and run away from home. Finally, her overwhelmed mother tried to send her to a home for juvenile delinquents, but since it was full she sent Winfrey to her father's house instead.”(Contemporary Authors Online, 11,12)
- "January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi, United States"(Contemporary Authors Online,1)
Getting Involved
- “Oprah Winfrey is investing some of her fortune in a country still recovering from apartheid, the old system of segregation. She is paying for a leadership academy for poor girls.”(Morning Edition,1)
Choices & Results
- "In January 1984, she became anchor of the ailing A.M. Chicago, a morning talk show that consistently placed last in the ratings. Winfrey did a complete overhaul of the show, changing its focus to current and controversial topics. The effect was immediate: one month later the show was ranked even with Donahue's program. Three months later it had inched ahead. In September 1985, it was renamed the Oprah Winfrey Show, and was expanded to one hour. In a matter of months, Winfrey's show was syndicated to television stations in more than 120 American cities. Subsequently, Donahue moved to New York. Just a year after the show was renamed, it made its national debut, and within five months it was rated the third most popular show in syndication--after the game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Moreover, it was the number one talk show, reaching upwards of 10 million people daily in 192 cities."(Business Leader Profiles for Students, 10). In this piece of evidence, Oprah took the job as a TV anchor, but that choice transformed her fame, and even the show.
Her Words
- "This is an evolution of what I've been able to do every day. I will now have the opportunity to do that 24 hours a day on a platform that goes on forever."(Morning Edition,5)
- "I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good."(Contemporary Heroes and Heroines,1)
Legacy
- “Oprah Winfrey is investing some of her fortune in a country still recovering from apartheid, the old system of segregation. She is paying for a leadership academy for poor girls…Young South Africans helping set the "I Feel Good" tone of the day. The ribbon cutting marking the opening of Oprah Winfrey's Leadership Academy for Girls, a $40 million school Winfrey spent the last six years creating.”(Morning Edition, 3)
- "Winfrey has donated over $350 million to various causes, but admits when she first achieved financial success, she had difficulty deciding what to give and to whom."(Variety,2)
Aftermath
- "In addition to her media activities, Winfrey speaks to numerous youth groups and urges her audiences on to higher achievement. She presses them to strive for higher standards and to seek to be all that they can be. She speaks of a goal of helping women in particular to raise their level of confidence and self-esteem and to win self-empowerment in the process."(Notable Black American Women,28)
Words For Her
- ''I think they want her personal help, because they think she has the secret,'' she said about Ms. Winfrey. ''She has a private plane and she came from nothing. If she's lifted herself up from the horrible background she came from, she's got the key. When she gives advice it's sort of like doling out some of that.'' (The New York Times, 14)
Annotated Bibliography
- "Oprah Winfrey." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2015. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016. This source helped me figure out facts and different details of her early life.
- "Oprah Winfrey." Notable Black American Women. Gale, 1992. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016. This source helped me find information for the aftermath section of my smore.
- "Oprah Winfrey to Launch TV Network." Morning Edition 16 Jan. 2008. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016. This source helped me find information for the legacy, getting involved, and her words sections.
- "Oprah Winfrey." Contemporary Heroes and Heroines. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1992. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016. This source helped me find information for the her words section, with Oprah's quotes.
- Birnbaum, Debra. "Oprah Winfrey: education for girls is the key to breaking the poverty cycle." Variety 6 Oct. 2015: 62+. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016. This source showed me information, in which I sited, and used in my legacy section, where it talks about Oprah and her donating money to numerous causes
- "Oprah Winfrey." Business Leader Profiles for Students. Ed. Sheila Dow and Jaime E. Noce. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1999. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016. This source helped me describe her choices and results of becoming an anchor for a morning talk show, which was the begining of her fame, and her own talk show, "The Oprah Winfrey Show".
- "Oprah Opens Leadership Academy in South Africa." Morning Edition 3 Jan. 2007. Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016. This source helps me descibe various sections, legacy, her words, and in getting involved; in where this source talks about her (Oprah) giving funds to making a leadership acadamy for poor girls.
- Grose, Jessica. "Life in the time of Oprah." New York Times 17 Aug. 2008: 1(L). Biography in Context. Web. 5 May 2016. This source helped me find words for (what others had to say for) Oprah for the smore.
- "Oprah Winfrey at Matrix Awards." UPI Photo Collection. 2010. Biography in Context. Web. 6 May 2016. This source provided me a picture for my smore.
- "Poet Maya Angelou Reads a New Poem to Oprah in Chicago." UPI Photo Collection. 2011. Biography in Context. Web. 6 May 2016. This source provided me a picture for my smore.
- "Oprah Winfrey in 1986, the same year The Oprah Winfrey Show went into syndication." American Decades Primary Sources. Ed. Cynthia Rose. Vol. 9: 1980-1989. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Biography in Context. Web. 6 May 2016. This source provided me a picture for my smore.
- "Oprah Winfrey And Oscar De La Renta Arrive For The Metropolitan Museum Of Art's Costume Institute Gala In New York." UPI Photo Collection. 2010. Biography in Context. Web. 6 May 2016. This source provided me a picture for my smore.
- "Oprah Winfrey at the Toronto International Film Festival." UPI Photo Collection. 2010. Biography in Context. Web. 6 May 2016. This source provided me a picture for my smore.
- "Oprah Winfrey." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2015. Biography in Context. Web. 6 May 2016. This source provided me a picture for my smore.
Oprah with Maya Angelou
"Poet Maya Angelou Reads a New Poem to Oprah in Chicago." UPI Photo Collection. 2011. Biography in Context. Web. 6 May 2016.
Oprah in 1986
"Oprah Winfrey in 1986, the same year The Oprah Winfrey Show went into syndication." American Decades Primary Sources. Ed. Cynthia Rose. Vol. 9: 1980-1989. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Biography in Context. Web. 6 May 2016.