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by Lydia Bégin 11 years ago

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Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is a renowned media mogul, celebrated talk show host, and dedicated philanthropist. She emerged as a significant figure in television with the groundbreaking success of "

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah WinfreyA media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist

Oprah's Angel Network

Oprah's Angel Network raised more than $80,000,000
In 1998, Winfrey created the Oprah's Angel Network, a charity that supported charitable projects and provided grants to nonprofit organizations around the world.

Philanthropy

Winfrey was the recipient of the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 2002 Emmy Awards for services to television and film.
By 2012, she had given about $400 million to educational causes.
In 2004, Winfrey became the first black person to rank among the 50 most generous Americans.

South Africa

Winfrey invested $40 million and some of her time establishing the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Henley on Klip south of Johannesburg.
From that show alone, viewers around the world donated over $7,000,000.
Winfrey travelled to South Africa to bring attention to the plight of young children affected by poverty and AIDS.

Oprah Gail Winfrey is born on January 29th, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. She was born to a teenage single mother and raised in a poor neighborhood.

From her senior year, she worked for the local black radio station, WVOL, which hired her to do the news part-time.
At 17 years old, she won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.ll
She became pregnant at the age of 14, but her son died shortly after birth
At 13, she ran away from home.
She was molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend starting when she was nine years old.
Winfrey's family was so poor that she often wore dresses made of potato sacks.

Oprah was named:

The greatest woman in American history.
The most influential black person of her generation.
The most influential woman in the world.
The world's most powerful woman.

Winfrey is best known for multi-award-winning talk show "The Oprah Winfrey Show" which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and aired from 1986 to 2011.

On average, approximately 40 million of Americans watched her show each week.
"AM Chicago" was renamed "The Oprah Winfrey Show", expanded to a full hour and had been broadcast nationally starting September 8, 1986.
Within months, the show went from last place in the ratings the highest rated talk show in Chicago.
In 1983, Winfrey went to Chicago to host WLS-TV's low-rated half-hour morning talk show "AM Chicago".