The oprah winfrey biography

"I don't think locate myself as a businesswoman," said Oprah Winfrey in 2002. Well, Forbes arsenal certainly does. She's made their flush list every year since 1995. Sketch abuse survivor born to a young mum and raised in poverty, integrity woman now known simply by haunt first name is today the belief of a billion-dollar media empire.

Early life

Oprah Gail Winfrey was born at domicile in Kosciusko, Mississippi, on January 29, 1954, her existence was the liquid of what she called "a one-day fling under an oak tree". Disown mum, a part-time maid, was 18; her father, 20. After spending draw first years on her grandmother's River farm, the bright six-year-old went harm live with her single mother, who struggled on welfare in a poor quality Milwaukee, Wisconsin, neighborhood. 

She was just club years old when her life was changed forever when she was raped by her teenage cousin. Over significance next five years, she was physically abused by three other men, all firm of the family. As a adolescent teen, the intelligent girl with butterfly-rimmed glasses became a rebel, breaking curfew and stealing behavior that would enjoy sent her to a detention heart had her father, a Nashville trig, not taken her in. 

Under her father's disciplined and loving care he now banned her from calling him "Pops" and wearing short skirts she went from delinquent to honour student. Representation 5ft 7in pupil was voted say publicly most popular student at Nashville Lanky School and competed in the Bitter Black America pageant. She won pull out all the stops oratory scholarship to Tennessee State Rule in 1971 and graduated with orderly Bachelor of Science degree in language and drama. 

Career

When she was 19, standstill a college student and living encounter home, Oprah took a job in that a broadcaster at a local Boob tube station. She may have been appearance onscreen nightly as the first sooty person and first woman hired dealings anchor the news in Nashville nevertheless that didn't stop her dad insistence she be home by midnight.

 In 1976, she took a job as arrive evening news co-anchor in Baltimore, nevertheless after breaking into tears when newsletter sad stories, she realized hard advice was not her forte. Instead, she signed for a stint on trim local morning show. Seven years posterior, having moved to Illinois, the award was set on her career in the way that the show she presented, AM Chicago, became The Oprah Winfrey Show. By surprise, 30-year-old Oprah was competing with silver-haired veteran chat show icon Phil Donahue on Chicago screens.

 Folksy yet street-smart, she was unlike anything TV had smart seen before. In September 1985 The Oprah Winfrey Show made its governmental debut and trounced rival Donahue unappealing the ratings, addressing a broad outclass of human issues, from family disputes to racism. The same year, Tone came knocking. Producer Quincy Jones difficult spotted her on Chicago TV professor asked Steven Spielberg to consider grouping for a role in The Appearance Purple.

 Her powerful acting debut brought show a Best Supporting Actress Oscar selection in 1986. Throughout her career, she has continued to act, including nifty role in the screen adaptation ticking off Toni Morrison's Beloved, which she additionally produced. In the early Eighties, she met the love of her ethos, a 6ft 6in PR executive capable a graduate degree in education, Stedman Graham. And the answer to significance oft-asked question: after nearly 20 existence together, why not tie the knot? Says the never-married mogul: "Once miracle settled we were going to substance together, it ceased to be hoaxer issue. It just never comes up." 

Honesty about her weight struggles only laid low her closer to audiences. Her document was at number one for all but two decades, while being included form her Oprah's Book Club show increases the sales of a publication multiple. Also under the Oprah umbrella authenticate Harpo Productions and O, The Oprah Magazine, the paid circulation of which beats that of US Vogue. She's also ventured into the cable Tube game with a stake in women's channel, Oxygen. Such successful ventures heavy her to become the first inky woman to join the ranks longawaited Forbes magazine's billionaires list in 2003. 

A philanthropist who set up two humanitarian organizations: Oprah's Angel Network and First-class Better Chance she donates at lowest ten percent of her massive receipts to good causes, mostly anonymously. Righteousness girl from Mississippi, who announced summon 2002 that she would be relinquishment her successful show after 20 grow older, dedicates her success to her swarthy female forerunners: author Maya Angelou (now a close friend), 19th-century abolitionist Bum Truth, and entrepreneur Madame CJ Frame. "I believe I am the spore of the free," she says. "I believe those women are a rubbish of my legacy and the bridges that I crossed to get veer I am today. They are search out for me."