Oprah Winfrey - Wikipedia. Not to be confused with Orpah.

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Oprah Winfrey. Oprah Winfrey in 2. Born. Orpah Gail Winfrey[1](1. January 2. 9, 1. 95.

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Kosciusko, Mississippi, U. S. Residence. Montecito, California. Lavallette, New Jersey. Telluride, Colorado. Maui, Hawaii. Chicago, Illinois. Fisher Island, Florida. Alma mater. Tennessee State University.

Oprah Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. She is best known.

Occupation. Years active. Salary$7. 5 million(2. Net worth. US$ 3 billion (September 2. Political party. Democratic. Partner(s)Stedman Graham (1. Children. Canaan (born c.

Websiteoprah. com. Signature. Oprah Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 2. American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist.[1] She is best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was the highest- rated television program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1. Chicago, Illinois.[6] Dubbed the "Queen of All Media",[7] she has been ranked the richest African- American,[8] the greatest black philanthropist in American history,[9][1. North America's first multi- billionaire black person.[1. Several assessments rank her as the most influential woman in the world.[1. In 2. 01. 3, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama[1.

Duke and Harvard.[1. Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner- city Milwaukee neighborhood. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teens and became pregnant at 1. 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 1. 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,[1. Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication,[1. Phil Donahue,[1. 9] which a Yale study says broke 2.

LGBT people to enter the mainstream.[2. By the mid- 1. 99. Though criticized for unleashing a confession culture, promoting controversial self- help ideas,[2. From 2. 00. 6 to 2. Obama, by one estimate, delivered over a million votes in the close 2.

Democratic primary race.[2. Early life. Winfrey was named "Orpah" on her birth certificate after the biblical figure in the Book of Ruth, but people mispronounced it regularly and "Oprah" stuck.[1]Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to an unmarried teenage mother. She later said that her conception was due to a single sexual encounter and the couple broke up not long after.[2. Her mother, Vernita Lee (born c. Winfrey's biological father is usually noted as Vernon Winfrey (born 1.

Armed Forces when she was born. However, Mississippi farmer and World War II veteran Noah Robinson, Sr. A genetic test in 2.

Kpelle ethnic group, in the area that today is Liberia. Her genetic makeup was determined to be 8. Watch The Company Streaming more.

Sub- Saharan African, 8% Native American, and 3% East Asian. However, the East Asian may, given the imprecision of genetic testing, actually be Native American markers.[2. After Winfrey's birth, her mother traveled north and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her maternal grandmother, Hattie Mae (Presley) Lee (April 1. February 2. 7, 1. Winfrey often wore dresses made of potato sacks, for which the local children made fun of her.[3. Her grandmother 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.

When Winfrey was a child, her grandmother would hit her with a stick when she did not do chores or if she misbehaved in any way.[3. At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner- city neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her mother Vernita Lee, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother had been, largely as a result of the long hours she worked as a maid.[3. Around this time, Lee had given birth to another daughter, Winfrey's younger half- sister, Patricia[3. February 2. 00. 3, at age 4.

By 1. 96. 2, Lee was having difficulty raising both daughters so Winfrey was temporarily sent to live with Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee.[3. While Winfrey was in Nashville, Lee gave birth to a third daughter[3. Lee's being on welfare) and later also named Patricia.[3. Winfrey did not learn she had a second half- sister until 2. By the time Winfrey moved back in with Lee, Lee had also given birth to a boy named Jeffrey, Winfrey's half- brother, who died of AIDS- related causes in 1.

Winfrey has stated she was molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was nine years old, something she first announced to her viewers on a 1. TV show regarding sexual abuse.[3. When Winfrey discussed the alleged abuse with family members at age 2. Winfrey once commented that she had chosen not to be a mother because she had not been mothered well.[4.

At 1. 3, after suffering years of abuse, Winfrey ran away from home.[1] When she was 1. Winfrey later stated she felt betrayed by the family member who had sold the story of her son to the National Enquirer in 1.

She began going to Lincoln High School; but after early success in the Upward Bound program, was transferred to the affluent suburban Nicolet High School, where she says her poverty was constantly rubbed in her face as she rode the bus to school with fellow African- Americans, some of whom were servants of her classmates' families. She began to steal money from her mother in an effort to keep up with her free- spending peers, to lie to and argue with her mother, and to go out with older boys.[4. Her frustrated mother once again sent her to live with Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee, though this time she did not take her back. 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, placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation.[4. Watch Open Windows 4Shared more. She won an oratory contest, which secured her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black institution, where she studied communication. Her first job as a teenager was working at a local grocery store.[4.

At the age of 1. 7, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.[4. She also attracted the attention of the local black radio station, WVOL, which hired her to do the news part- time.[3. She worked there during her senior year of high school, and again while in her first two years of college. Winfrey's career choice in media would not have surprised her grandmother, who once said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was on stage.

As a child, she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property. Winfrey later acknowledged her grandmother's influence, saying it was Hattie Mae who had encouraged her to speak in public and "gave me a positive sense of myself".[4.

Television. Working in local media, she was both the youngest news anchor and the first black female news anchor at Nashville's WLAC- TV. She moved to Baltimore's WJZ- TV in 1. In 1. 97. 7, she was removed as co- anchor and worked lower profile positions at the station. She was then recruited to join Richard Sher as co- host of WJZ's local talk show People Are Talking, which premiered on August 1. She also hosted the local version of Dialing for Dollars there.[5. In 1. 98. 3, Winfrey relocated to Chicago to host WLS- TV's low- rated half- hour morning talk show, AM Chicago.

The first episode aired on January 2, 1. Within months after Winfrey took over, the show went from last place in the ratings to overtaking Donahue as the highest- rated talk show in Chicago. The movie critic Roger Ebert persuaded her to sign a syndication deal with King World. Ebert predicted that she would generate 4. At the Movies.[5.