INTRODUCTION

HER STORY

QUOTES

The management of the small Baltimore television station, where she had landed her first job as a newscaster, asked her to have her hair straightened.

Whenever she is feeling down, Oprah reaches for the Bible and cues up Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace on the stereo.

In the Kitchen with Rosie: Oprah's Favorite Recipes became the fastest selling hardcover book in the history of American publishing.

The February 10, 1993, Oprah special interview with Michael Jackson earned one of the highest ratings of any television show in history with an average of 62 million viewers at any given moment.

In 1991 she spent $3 million for an 85-acre ranch and ski getaway in Telluride, Colorado, plus $1.3 million for a log-and-stone cabin, adding to her real estate holdings of an $800,000 Chicago Condo and a 160-acre farm near Michigan City, Indiana.

Oprah is the first black woman to own a major studio facility and the third woman, after Mary Pickford and Lucille Ball.

The word Oprah has entered the lexicon of teenagers as a verb meaning to engage in persistent, intimate questioning with the intention of obtaining a confession; usually used by men of women, as in "I wasn't going to tell her, but after a few drinks, she oprah'd it out of me."

In her classic November 15, 1988 weight-loss program, Diet Dreams Come True, she paraded the 67 pounds of fat she had lost around the stage in a little red wagon. To achieve her weight loss, Oprah didn't eat any solid food from July 6 to October 17, and sustained herself on liquid protein drinks totaling 400 calories.

Owned a restaurant, The Eccentric, at 159 West Erie Street, Chicago - an American brasserie emphasizing moderately priced French, English, Italian and American food in a comfortable atmosphere.

Many blacks criticize Oprah despite her success as a role model.  They call her Aunt Jemina for playing the lovable, happy black mammy to please whites and avoid racial controversy.

In 1989, Entertainment Tonight broadcast a rumor claiming that Oprah had discovered her boyfriend Stedman having sex with her hairdresser and had shot him.

In most of the stories she tells of her life, her mother, half brother, and half sister are ignored.

Her best friend is Gayle King Bumpas, whom she met in Baltimore while working in the WJZ-TV newsroom in 1976. Their friendship continues to the present, and they talk and share everything that happens to them several times every day on the phone.

It was Oprah who asked Sally Field if Burt Reynolds wore his toupee while they made love and Michael Jackson if he was still a virgin. Who else would have the nerve but Oprah?

Remembers her first day in Chicago, September fourth, 1983, as follows, "Walking down the street, it was like roots, like the motherland. I knew I belonged here."

When she heard that Steven Spielberg had chosen her for the part of Sofia in The Color Purple she called it "the single happiest day in my life."

When she feels really exhausted, she goes to her farm in Indiana that she calls her restoration acres.

Every year on her birthday, she goes in for an annual checkup- a clean bill of health is her gift to herself.

Teamed up with boyfriend Stedman Graham to teach a leadership course at Northwestern University. Famous guest speakers included Henry Kissinger and Jerry Yang.

With a circulation of 2 million after just seven issues O, The Oprah Magazine is the most successful magazine start-up in publishing history. 

The Oprah Winfrey Show reaches 22 million viewers every week and has received every daytime TV accolade and award.

A philanthropist with a personal fortune estimated at $800 million, she has donated millions through her Angel Network, through personal donations and through her book club.

She is CEO of the Harpo Entertainment Group, the parent company of her multimedia ventures - which include Harpo Productions, Inc., Harpo Films, Oprah Winfrey Presents and Harpo Studios.

When she blurted that hearing about the threat of mad-cow disease "just stopped me cold from eating another burger!", the perceived threat to the beef industry was enough to trigger a multimillion-dollar lawsuit (which she won).

Was listed as one of twelve Promising New Actors of 1985 in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 37.

In 1997 she was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World.

Recalls receiving her first compliment at age 10 when the wife of a man running for Tennessee governor noticed her beautiful bee-stung lips.

Her fiancé Stedman Graham is a former basketball player and public relations executive. They've been together since 1986 and were engaged November 1992.

Was named after Orpah from the Book of Ruth in the bible; the name was misspelled as Oprah on her birth certificate.