Oprah Winfrey

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1954 –

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Who is Oprah Winfrey?

Oprah Gail Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. She has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was for a time the world's only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, saying she was raped at age nine and became pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

Famous Quotes:

  • All my life I have always known I was born to greatness.
  • The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.
  • That guy just cut right in front of me. But I'm not going to let it bother me. No. I'm on my way to work and I decided it doesn't matter who wants to cut in front of my lane today. I'm not going to let it bother me one bit. Once I get to work, find myself a parking space, if somebody wants to jump ahead of me and take it, I'm going to let them.
  • Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.
  • Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.
  • Everyone has to learn to think differently, bigger, to open to possibilities.
  • If you want to accomplish the goals of your life, you have to begin with the Spirit.
  • I want to use television not only to entertain, but to help people lead better lives.
  • Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.
  • If all this happened to you what paradigm might you develop? How might that paradigm affect you in terms of your life from that point on? What does this tell you about Abe? There are no failures, only lessons to be learned.

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Born
Jan 29, 1954
Kosciusko
Also known as
  • Oprah
  • Oprah Gail Winfrey
  • O
  • Lady O
  • Deepak Oprah
  • Orpah Gail Winfrey
  • The Preacher
  • The Little Speaker
Parents
Siblings
Spouses
Ethnicity
  • African American
Nationality
  • United States of America
Profession
Education
  • Tennessee State University
  • East Literature Magnet School
  • Nicolet High School
Employment
  • Founder, Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls
    (2007/01 - )
  • Co-Founder, Oxygen
    (1999 - )
  • President, Harpo Productions
  • WLS-TV
    (1984 - 1986)
  • WJZ-TV
    (1976 - )
  • WTVF
  • WVOL
  • O, The Oprah Magazine
    (2000/04 - )
  • O at Home
    (2004 - )
Lived in
  • Kosciusko
  • Milwaukee
  • Nashville
  • Montecito
  • Telluride
  • Streeterville
  • Fisher Island
  • Lavallette
  • Maui
  • Avalon

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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"Oprah Winfrey." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/people/en/oprah_winfrey>.

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