It all began with a one-letter typo. The story of Oprah Winfrey

Oprah w The Cable Show, 2011 [fot. INTX/CC2.0/Wikimedia]
[UPDATE June 19th 2025]

From her first day on Earth, the daughter of Vernita Lee and Vernon Winfrey - born in Kosciuszko, Mississippi - bent the rules. Her parents chose the Bible name Orpah. A clerk swapped two letters. Friends misread the sound. That slip turned Orpah into Oprah - Oprah Gail Winfrey.

Prayer for justice

At age three, Oprah recited Bible verses and herded chickens with equal fire. Her grandmother kept strict order: rise at dawn, draw water, feed the animals, wear overalls cut from an old potato sack. Children mocked her clothes, yet when she quoted the Book of Ruth they fell silent. "The little preacher" had arrived.

Oprah tasted applause early. Each recitation drew neighbors’ claps, and she soaked up that energy. At six she left the quiet farm. Her mother Vernita worked in Milwaukee as a maid and took her daughter to the city, though she seldom had time to talk. Long hours alone in a cramped flat bred dark secrets. Men visited Vernita, and sometimes they peered into Oprah’s room.

Prefet to listen? Tune in our podcast:
At nine, Oprah wrote her first prayer for justice in a notebook. Few heard it. Fear ruled the home, and silence felt like the only shield. As a teen she tried to steal new shoes. A policeman treated her as an adult. Hours in a cell hurt more than her mother’s belt.

At thirteen she ran away and landed in detention. One year later she was pregnant; the baby died at birth. Oprah turned to drink to dull the pain. She no longer expected rescue. Yet something watched over her and had other plans.

Father, a microphone, and a beauty crown

In a Nashville suburb, Oprah’s father - barber Vernon Winfrey - was lining up razors when a call came: "Take her at once". He asked no questions. When Oprah crossed his small doorstep she met three clear rules: read every day, write your goals, win a scholarship. Tough and simple worked better than punishment.

She dived into school books like fresh water. Back on the speech-team stage, teachers heard her ringing voice and saw the crowd lean toward her. She graduated East Nashville High with honors and bagged groceries after class for pocket money.

In 1971 she walked onto the Miss Black Tennessee stage wearing a cousin’s borrowed dress, sure the whole world could fit in one sentence. Judges gave her the crown, and station WVOL asked the "new miss" for a five-minute chat. The mic scorched her palms at first, yet her own laugh rang in the headphones. Before the closing song, the director offered her a job.

Radio became a school with no bell. Oprah learned tone, pace, and how to ditch the script when a guest burst into tears. Three years later WTVF-TV showed her behind a news desk. Nashville now had its youngest, first Black anchor.

Honesty against the rules. Viewers loved it

TV brought style but stole sleep. Oprah rose before dawn to write the news, then drove to Tennessee State University where a scholarship covered drama classes. Weekends she still bagged groceries; she had promised her dad she would buy her own gas. The timetable bulged, yet she dropped no hour.

In 1977 she moved to Baltimore. WJZ-TV hired her as the 6 p.m. anchor, but Oprah mixed fact with feeling. She cried on air, framed tragedies, ignored dry numbers. Critics talked about lost craft; bosses about lost distance. Viewers phoned to thank her for being real.

Instead of a firing she got a shift to morning TV. There she met Richard Sher, hunting a partner for a new talk show. On 14 August 1978 they launched "People Are Talking". Oprah proved she could pull from a guest the story they had never voiced.

Baltimore was only a layover. When someone in the hallway said, "A Black woman anchor has hit her ceiling", Oprah boxed her demo tapes and sent them to WLS-TV in Chicago. This time she did not beg for a chance. She knew what she wanted and how to seize it.

AM Chicago. Oprah hits the top

When her train rolled into Union Station in 1983, Oprah flipped up her coat collar and drew the icy air off Lake Michigan. She carried a few "People Are Talking" tapes and the address of WLS-TV. Chicago needed someone to shake up the stiff show "AM Chicago". Managers thought the new woman from the South could try. Oprah stepped into the studio and, from the first minute, talked to guests as if she had known them since birth. Viewers froze, then could not look away.

On 2 January 1984 the camera rolled, lights flared, and her first episode aired. One month later the ratings tables fell like dominoes: "AM Chicago" jumped to the top slot among morning shows. Oprah waved off the praise and said the run was only a warm-up.


Film critic Roger Ebert met her in a theater box and winked. He said, "Your show will earn more than mine". When he urged her to sign a syndication deal with King World, Oprah did not hesitate. She needed a bigger stage. In 1986 "AM Chicago" became "The Oprah Winfrey Show", and the station’s ledgers gained extra zeros.

That same month Oprah reversed her own name and registered Harpo Productions. She chose to produce her own TV work. Someone asked why she did not just buy a yacht. She answered, "First I want to buy airtime". Chicago saw a woman who would not break her sentence even during an earthquake.

The Color Purple, the color of courage

She walked onto the set of "The Color Purple" with beginner nerves, yet Steven Spielberg did not need to explain the role for long. Oprah had tasted shame and triumph back home. The camera loved her truth, and moviegoers wept just as she had once wept on live TV in Baltimore. A Golden Globe landed in her hands, and an Oscar nod proved television could no longer contain her.

Film drew her into a new circle but did not pull her from the studio on North Carpenter Street. Oprah lugged the trophy back to rehearsal and joked that purple matched her work suit. Chicago audiences felt proud, as if the Oscar already sat on their own coffee table. The talk-show host proved she could climb out of the TV box and return with a fresh topic for next morning’s chat.

Harpo Productions kept gaining power. Oprah poured profits into talent, lights, editing, and promotion. When the accountant asked whether she must spend so much on audience research, Oprah replied, "I must know how the viewer’s heart beats". Each season the creative team tossed more formulas in the trash. The show carried the rush of the street and the hush of a whisper at once.

September 1986 closed the trial period. "The Oprah Winfrey Show" launched nationwide, and distributors began counting expected gains. Soon licenses reached 136 countries, and almost fifty million Americans watched each week. Oprah sat on the couch and joked that she was teaching the world’s biggest class - only no one was taking attendance.

Live group therapy and a wheelbarrow of fat

When "Time" put her on its cover in August 1988, the columnist wrote, "In a field ruled by white males stands a black woman of great size. She lacks hard-nosed skill yet wins with curiosity, humor, and empathy. This talk show is one long group-therapy session". Oprah glanced at the quote and shrugged. "If it’s therapy", she said, "it’s the first where people fight for the front row".

Viewers came for catharsis, not gossip. One week she laughed with comedy stars, the next she held a mother who had lost a son. She hid no scars. Oprah spoke of drink, drugs, and abuse, and the nation listened because it sensed truth. When she told of a brother lost to AIDS or a sister trapped by addiction, studio phones lit up with support.

Her weight confession shook America harder than any health drive. Oprah rolled a red wheelbarrow full of fat onstage to show how many pounds she had shed. That same day stores broke sales records for leggings, and diet gurus thanked heaven for new clients. She joked that in America it was easier to sell chewing gum than hope - yet she would try to sell both.

When mad-cow headlines hit the evening news, Oprah said on air, "I will not eat another burger". A week later beef sales plunged, and ranchers took her to court. The trial dragged on, but the jury cleared her. Papers crowned her "the woman America listens to", and she summed it up: "I say what I think and eat what I choose".

The law that shut the door on monsters

Oprah called congressional offices, wrote letters, and repeated one plea on air: "Know who is knocking on your door". In 1993 she woke the country with stories of children harmed by serial abusers. Asked if she was going too far, she replied in a sharp voice, "I will not hold back". Tension rose. In March Bill Clinton invited her to the White House. She walked in with stacks of petitions and walked out with a vow of reform. That autumn the president signed the National Child Protection Act, opening a public registry of sex offenders.

The social reaction popped like a champagne cork. Parents printed lists of names and passed them out at schools. Oprah, who had lived that fear, vowed no child should sleep in dread. Politicians thanked her on camera, but she cut the fanfare short. "The law is on the books", she said. "Now we guard its use".


Skeptics fell silent when police reports showed grim numbers sliding down. Oprah did not claim victory. In the next show she sat beside a teen who had escaped an attacker. The camera held them in quiet, hand in hand. The entire country heard that silence louder than trumpets.Backstage Oprah boxed the legal files and handed them to her team with one line: "Watch the amendments". She knew the law had not ended the fight. It had only moved the front line.

The club that shifted shelves

On 17 September 1996 Winfrey carried Jacquelyn Mitchard’s novel "The Deep End of the Ocean". Oprah’s Book Club was born. A show that pushed people to read. Publishers would add up profits months later, yet in the first week bookstores were already ordering reprints.

Winfrey ran each talk like a family circle. Guests sat on the carpet while she tossed out questions and listened. Every episode ended with the line, "Books change the inner voice". Phones rang off the hook with ideas for the next pick.

Queues formed at libraries, and sociologists spoke of a new wave. Oprah kept urging, "Lay down the remote, not the bookmark". Over seventeen years she chose seventy titles, and shops in 132 countries built extra shelves for the print runs. Each pick shot to the top of the bestseller lists, but Winfrey cared less for charts than for the story of a mailman who carried a novel in his pocket until the cover wore away.

The wings of Angel Network

In 1997 the host launched Angel Network and asked viewers to chip in. "You don’t need to fly to have wings", she said, staring straight into the lens. Every Monday she introduced fresh heroes who spent their own savings on care homes or scholarships.

When the first check passed a million dollars, Oprah set part of it aside for arts students. Then she added the Use Your Life Award - one hundred thousand dollars each week for people who turned others’ dreams into fact. Viewers mailed coins, letters, and photos of filled jars. Every parcel went into a clear case in Harpo’s lobby. Studio guests saw mountains of change and understood the message: big sums begin with cents.

Angel Network spread wider after Oprah visited camps raised after Hurricane Katrina. The show switched to crisis mode, and viewers sent food trucks ahead of the federal teams. Winfrey stood in the rain, lifting boxes, and said, "TV cut to ads - we didn’t".

Media that could hold more

In 1998 Oprah and a small crew launched the Oxygen TV channel. Critics asked if she was juggling too many balls. It was only the start. The next season she hosted "Change Your Life TV", urging viewers to reset daily habits. In April 2000 newsstands carried "O! The Oprah Magazine". Circulation kept climbing while other titles struggled. Winfrey turned each cover into a mirror for women who wanted motivation, not sermons.

After the attacks of 11 September 2001 Winfrey staged a "Prayer for America" in New York. Rabbis, imams, and pastors shared the stage, and Oprah held the mic like a belt conveyor between faiths. She said grief feeds on silence, yet a shared voice heals.


The year 2006 brought the Oprah.com portal and the radio channel "Oprah and Friends". She ran the morning slot, reviewed goal lists, and joked that radio let her broadcast in pajamas. Listeners texted back, "Us too". Three years later the station became "Oprah Radio", but the format stayed the same - talk without a teleprompter and without a filter.

170 daughters and one academy

In January 2007, in Henley on Klip, South Africa, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls opened. Seven modern buildings, labs, a library, and a theater stood ready for 170 students who gained a boarding home and "a chance that will wake beauty in you", the founder said, quoting herself.

Not everyone loved the marble hall and beauty salon. Critics called Winfrey lavish, yet Nelson Mandela backed the project. Oprah replied, "A desert of inspiration needs a well", so she gave the girls a whole river.

Teachers came from Johannesburg, Oxford, and Chicago. Oprah taught by video, saying, "A camera can open a classroom door". Soon graduates won U.S. scholarships, and papers wrote of "talent export under the Harpo label". Winfrey called the pupils "my daughters" and said she did not need biological motherhood when she had so many hearts to feed with courage.

Stars and cars

For twenty-five years "The Oprah Winfrey Show" shaped U.S. pop culture. Oprah earned forty-seven Emmys, and viewers saw 4,561 episodes. One legend was her talk with Elizabeth Taylor, who handed over a list of off-limit topics. The live interview with Michael Jackson on 10 February 1993 drew about ninety million viewers. He spoke on skin, surgery, and loneliness without fear.

The show broke ground again in 1997 when Ellen DeGeneres calmly said she loved women. In 2005 Tom Cruise bounced on a studio couch, shouting love for Katie Holmes. Familiar faces kept returning. Reporter Gayle King appeared 141 times. Céline Dion, twenty-eight. Millions found not only star shine but also street-level stories. Kathy Bray told how a gun took her ten-year-old son. Truddi Chase revealed ninety-two selves. Mattie Stepanek read poems while fighting a fatal illness.

Season nineteen opened with peak empathy and marketing. After the first show every one of the 276 audience members drove home in a new Pontiac. The gift dazzled, though some frowned when they learned they owed gift tax.

Last bell and a new stage

On the 13th September 2010 Oprah announced the final season and flew 300 devoted fans to Australia, with John Travolta at the controls. The last episode aired on 25th of May 2011. Two days later reruns began, yet the host was already steering a new venture: on 1 January "OWN - Oprah Winfrey Network" hit the air.

Winfrey shut the North Carpenter Street studio door without tears. Another stage awaited. Chicago, for the first time in twenty-five years, heard silence at four p.m. OWN grabbed the baton without losing breath. Viewers met "Oprah’s Master Class", "Super Soul Sunday", and "Lifeclass", where she shared lessons tested on herself.

Within a year the channel added fresh titles. "Oprah’s Next Chapter" launched on 1 January 2012, and that fall "Where Are They Now?" tracked past guests to see if dreams had come true. Oprah joked that TV is a garden - plants need bigger pots once they grow too large.

On 1 November 2019, now partnered with Apple, Oprah’s Book Club returned in a streaming form. In March 2020 she launched "Oprah Talks COVID-19", and that summer she introduced "The Oprah Conversation", a series with "thought leaders from across the globe".

She moved the club onto phone screens yet kept the ritual. Each episode ended in a live talk, and she reminded viewers, "A book starts with living yet ends in talking". Fans treated the rule like house law, and every pick hit the bestseller lists before couriers could unload the vans.


When guests admitted they read only headlines, Oprah grabbed the book and asked them to read page one out loud. In the hush you could hear pages tremble - and the clang of cash registers about to sell every copy.

Empire and drive

In March 2021 the Winfrey garden turned into a royal box. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry faced the host, and cameras beamed the chat to seventy countries. Oprah cut with surgeon-sharp questions until, "When is the baby due?" - "In summer" - and the world stopped breathing. Two months later Apple TV+ aired the five-part film "The Me You Can’t See", where Oprah and Harry spoke about grief and depression.

She stayed clear of politics, though in 2008 she backed Barack Obama and added hundreds of thousands of votes. In 2013 Obama hung the Presidential Medal of Freedom around her neck. Oprah accepted and joked that the trophy shelf now needed a shelf for fresh stories, because "a badge will not tell itself".

Oprah Winfrey built an empire. Host, author, producer, and actor - public and very, very rich. Today she is a billionaire. She remembers the poverty she tasted at her grandmother’s side, so she stays tender toward others’ pain. She still sets the bar high and has no plan for media retirement. When people ask when she will end the ride, she answers: "A story begins with a question. I still have thousands".

Oprah Winfrey timeline

• 1954, January 29 - Oprah Gail Winfrey was born
• 1967 - Oprah is arrested
• 1968 - birth of her son, who dies after a few days
• 1969 - moves in with her father in Nashville
• 1972 - Oprah wins the Miss Black Tennessee pageant
• 1972 - first job as a radio announcer
• 1974 - Oprah moves to TV station WTVF-TV
• 1977 - moves to Baltimore, works at WJZ-TV
• 1978, August 14 - premiere episode of People are Talking
• 1983 - another move, this time to Chicago, to WLS-TV
• 1984, January 2 - premiere of her own show AM Chicago
• 1985 - Oprah stars in her first movie The Color Purple
• 1986, September - AM Chicago changes its name to The Oprah Winfrey Show
• 1986-2011 - The Oprah Winfrey Show
• 1986 - Oprah founds Harpo Productions
• 1992 - engagement to Stedman Graham
• 1993 - after strong advocacy by the journalist, Bill Clinton signs the National Child Protection Act (a public national sex offender registry)
• 1996, September 17 - launch of Oprah’s Book Club
• 1997 - Angel Network foundation is created
• 1998 - Oprah co-founds and co-owns the TV channel Oxygen
• 1998 - journalist hosts Change Your Life TV
• 2000 - monthly magazine O! The Oprah Magazine launches
• 2001, September - Oprah leads Prayer for America after the 9/11 attack
• 2002-2006 - Oprah After the Show airs on Oxygen
• 2006 - launch of the website Oprah.com
• 2006, September 25 - launch of the radio channel Oprah and Friends
• 2007 - Oprah opens a school for 170 girls in South Africa
• 2008, March 28 - Oprah receives the Order of the Smile
• 2009, March 4 - Oprah and Friends channel renamed Oprah Radio
• 2010 - digital version of O! The Oprah Magazine premieres
• 2011, January 1 - Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) TV channel launches
• 2011, May 25 - final episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show
• 2013 - Oprah receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom
• 2017 - Oprah`s memoir The Life You Want is published
• 2017 - launch of food brand O! That’s Good!
• 2018 - the National Museum of African American History and Culture opens a special exhibit on Oprah Winfrey`s cultural impact on television
• 2018, June - signs a deal with Apple
• 2021, March - interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry
• 2021, May 21 - premiere of five-part documentary The Me You Can’t See

sources and references:

• https://www.vogue.pl/a/oprah-winfrey-jedna-z-najpotezniejszych-kobiet-ameryki
• https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/mar/02/pressandpublishing.usnews1
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey
• https://www.liveabout.com/oprah-winfreys-personal-life-2535833
• https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/oprah-winfrey/
• https://natemat.pl/342893,dzieci-majatek-i-dom-oprah-winfrey-oto-historia-czarnoskorej-miliarderki
• https://plejada.pl/newsy/jedna-z-najbardziej-wplywowych-kobiet-na-swiecie-kim-jest-oprah-winfrey/m92xehs
• http://glamki.se.pl/news/z-zycia-gwiazd/oprah-winfrey-kobieta-ktora-ma-wpyw-na-caa-ameryke-sylwetka-gwiazdy,67_2966.html
• https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/how-i-gave-oprah-her-start
• https://www.oprah.com/pressroom/oprah-winfreys-official-biography/2
• https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/how-oprahs-iconic-you-get-a-car-moment-ended-on-a-sour-note/news-story/46646a3fbf54acc210354304c9910490
• https://web.archive.org/web/20081208125132/http://www.mutualofamerica.com/articles/Fortune/2002_04_08/Oprah1.asp
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oprah_Winfrey_Show
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/sheenascott/2021/05/22/the-me-you-cant-see-new-doc-series-by-oprah-winfrey-and-prince-harry-on-apple-tv/