W. C. Fields
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name William Claude Dukenfield
Born January 29, 1880
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died December 25, 1946
Pasadena, California
Height 5' 8" (1.73 m)
Other name(s) Charles Bogle
Otis Criblecoblis
Mahatma Kane Jeeves
Spouse(s) Harriet Hughes
Notable roles Professor Eustance McGargle
Sally of the Sawdust (1925)
The President
Million Dollar Legs (1932)
Mr. C. Ellsworth Stubbins
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1934)
W. C. Fields (January 29, 1880 - December 25, 1946) was an American comedian and actor. Fields created one of the great American comic personas of the first half of the 20th century?-a misanthrope who teetered on the edge of buffoonery but never quite fell in, an egotist blind to his own failings, a charming drunk; and a man who hated children, dogs, and women, unless they were the wrong sort of women.
This characterization was so strong that it was generally identified with Fields himself as well as the characters he portrayed in films and radio. It was maintained by the then-typical movie-studio publicity departments at Fields' studios (Paramount and Universal), and further established by Robert Lewis Taylor's 1949 biography W. C. Fields, His Follies and Fortunes. Beginning in 1973, with the publication of Fields' letters, photos, and personal notes in grandson Ronald Fields' book W.C. Fields By Himself, it has been shown that Fields was married (and subsequently estranged from his wife), financially supported their son, and loved his grandchildren.
Biography
Birth and early career
Born William Claude Dukenfield in Darby, Pennsylvania. His father, James Dukenfield, came from an English-Irish family of noble origins (being descendants of Lord Dukenfield of Cheshire), and his mother, Kate Spangler Felton, was also of British descent. James Dukenfield arrived in the USA in 1857 from Ecclesall Brierlow in Yorkshire with his father John who was a Comb Maker, mother Ann and his siblings, in the United States James was a Baker on the 1860 census and a Huckster on the 1870 census later an enterprise in which the young William assisted.
Fields left home at age 18 and entered vaudeville. By age 21 he was traveling as a comedy juggling act, becoming a headliner in both North America and Europe. In 1906 he made his Broadway debut in the musical comedy The Ham Tree, signing with impresario Florenz Ziegfeld.
Fields was well-known for embellishing stories of his youth, but despite the legends he encouraged, the truth is that his home seems to have been a relatively happy one and his family supported his ambitions for the stage -- his parents saw him off on the train for his first real stage tour as a teenager and his father visited him in England while Fields was enjoying success in the Music Halls there.
He married a fellow Vaudevillian, chorus girl Harriet "Hattie" Hughes, on April 8, 1900. Their son, Claude, was born on July 28, 1904, while Fields was away from Hattie on tour in England. By 1907, however, W. C. and Hattie were separated, and until his death Fields would keep up both correspondence and the sending of voluntary child-support payments to Hattie.
Though known for his comic acting, Fields started as an "eccentric juggler," (and was later inducted into the juggling hall of fame) appearing in the make-up of a genteel "tramp" -- scruffy beard and shabby tuxedo, for instance. He juggled cigar boxes, hats, and a variety of other objects in what seems to have been a unique and fresh act, parts of which are reproduced in some of his films. His trademark mumbling patter was developed during this time, and he toured with Irwin's Burlesquers and other vaudeville troupes in the United States, Europe and Australia before making it to Ziegfeld's show. There he delighted audiences with a wild pool skit, complete with bizarrely shaped cues and a custom-built table used for a number of hilarious gags and surprising stunts. His pool game is also reproduced, at least in part, in some of his films.
Hollywood
Like many vaudevillians, Fields worked in silent films and one-reelers, but he first hit big theatrical fame in 1923 in the Broadway musical Poppy, where he perfected his persona as an oily, failed confidence man. Fields later appeared in talking feature films and short subjects, including the 1934 classic It's a Gift, which included a version of his stage sketch of trying to sleep on the back porch as a result of nagging family and being bedeviled by noisy neighbors and traveling salesmen. Fields had an affection for unlikely names and many of his characters bore them. Among the prime examples are:
"Larson E. [read "Larceny"] Whipsnade" (You Can't Cheat An Honest Man);
"Egbert Sousé" [pronounced 'soo-ZAY', but pointing toward a synonym for a 'drunk'] (The Bank Dick);
"Ambrose Wolfinger" (Man On the Flying Trapeze); and,
"The Great McGonigle" (The Old Fashioned Way).
As he was often also a writer on his films, the writing credits often include quite unusual names substituting for his own, such as "Otis Criblecoblis", which contains an embedded homophone for "scribble". Another, "Mahatma Kane Jeeves", is a pun on mahatma and a phrase of an aristocrat walking out: "My hat, my cane, Jeeves". He also used the ordinary-sounding "Charles Bogle" several times.
Fields wore a scruffy looking clip-on mustache in virtually all of his silent films, discarding it only after his first sound feature film (Her Majesty Love).
In his films he often played hustlers such as carnival barkers and card sharps, spinning yarns and distracting his marks, as with this gem from Mississippi: "Whilst traveling through the Andes Mountains, we lost our corkscrew. Had to live on food and water for several days!" Another notable quotation regarding his love of alcohol is this: "I can't stand water because of the things fish do in it."
Although lacking formal education, he was well-read, and was a lifelong fan of author Charles Dickens. He achieved one of his career ambitions by playing the character Mr. Micawber, in MGM's David Copperfield in 1935. In 1936, Fields recreated his signature stage role in Poppy for Paramount Pictures. ("If we should ever separate, my little plum, I want to give you just one bit of fatherly advice." "Yes, Pop?" "Never give a sucker an even break!") He had previously transferred his famous role onto the silent screen in Sally of the Sawdust (1925) directed by the legendary D.W. Griffith. That effort was not a success.
Fields's ego sometimes got in the way of important roles. He turned down the role of the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz fearing the role would be "too small". His misanthropic persona was no pose: Madge Evans, an actress who appeared in several films during the golden age of film, and who was later married to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sidney Kingsley "Dead End," "Detective Story," told a visitor in 1972 that her friend Fields so deeply resented intrusions on his privacy by curious tourists walking up the driveway to his Los Angeles home that he would conceal himself in the shrubs by his house, firing BB pellets at the trespassers' legs.
Radio
Illness, worsened by his heavy drinking, stopped Fields' film work for a time, but he made a comeback trading insults with Edgar Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy on radio in 1938. Fields made frequent guest appearances on Charles McCarthy's radio show and other shows. [1] Fields would twit Charlie about his being made of wood, while Charlie would fire back at Fields about his drinking (Fields: "Is it true your father was a gate-leg table?" McCarthy: "If it is, your father was under it!"). This 'rivalry' between the two carried onto film in Fields' first feature for Universal, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939). In 1940 he made My Little Chickadee with Mae West, as well as The Bank Dick, which perhaps might be his most well-known film, speaking to bartender Shemp Howard, ("Was I in here last night, and did I spend a $20 bill?" "Yeah!" "Boy, is that a load off my mind... I thought I'd lost it!").
He was known to his friends as "Bill", a fact evidenced in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, in which he played himself. Edgar Bergen also called him "Bill" in the radio shows. (Charlie McCarthy, of course, called him by other names.) In films in which he was portrayed as having a son, he sometimes named the character "Claude", after his own son. In England he was sometimes billed as "Wm. C. Fields", presumably to avoid controversy due to "W.C." being the British abbreviation/euphemism for "Water Closet", although it might be safely assumed that the earthy Fields was amused by the coincidence.
Death
Fields spent his final weeks in a hospital, where a friend stopped by for a visit and caught Fields reading the Bible. He inquired as to why, to which Fields replied, "I'm checking for loopholes." In a final irony, W. C. Fields died in 1946 (due to a stomach hemorrhage) on the holiday he claimed to despise: Christmas Day. As documented in W. C. Fields and Me (published 1971, the book was made into a film of the same name, starring Rod Steiger in 1976.), he died in a bungalow-type sanitarium where, as he lay in bed dying, his long-time and final love, Carlotta Monti, went outside and turned the hose onto the roof, so as to allow Fields to hear for one last time his favorite sound of falling rain. According to the documentary W.C. Fields Straight Up, his death occurred in this way: he winked and smiled at a nurse, put a finger to his lips, and died. Fields was 66.
He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California. There have been stories that he wanted his grave marker to read, "On the whole, I would rather be in Philadelphia", his home town, similar to a line he used in My Little Chickadee, "I'd like to see Paris before I die... Philadelphia would do!" (In one of his film bits, he made a point of referencing "Philadelphia Cream Cheese". Given his fondness for words, maybe he just liked the sound of his home town's name.) This rumor has also morphed into "I would rather be here than in Philadelphia." The anecdote that Fields often remarked, "Philadelphia, wonderful town, spent a week there one night" is unsubstantiated. It is also said that Fields wanted "I'd rather be in Philadelphia" on his gravestone because of the old vaudeville joke among comedians that "I would rather be dead than play Philadelphia." Whatever his wishes might have been, his interment marker merely has his name, and birth and death years.
Caricatures
Fields, with his bulbous nose, rotund body and blustery, nasal voice, has often been caricatured . A few examples:
Several contemporary cartoons contained Fields characterizations. [1]
The comic strip The Wizard of Id features an attorney called "Larsen E. Pettifogger", an obvious parody of Fields that borrows from the character "Larsen E. Whipsnade" that Fields created in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man.
Frito-Lay's controversial "Frito Bandito" in the late 1960s was retired in favor of a a Fields lookalike called "W.C. Fritos".
Fields was an easy target for impressionists and mimics. For example, Ed McMahon aped Fields on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and Family Feud host and Match Game panelist Richard Dawson frequently did imitations of Fields. Master impressionist Rich Little used a Fields characterization for the "Scrooge" character in his one-man presentation of A Christmas Carol.
Les Dawson's character Zebediah Twain was obviously an affectionate tribute.
Trivia
When casting the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz, Fields was the original choice for the title role. However, he couldn't make it. One rumor of why he couldn't because he believed the role was too small. Another alleged reason was that he was asking too much money: his asking price was $100,000 while MGM offered $75,000. However, his agent asserted that Fields rejected the role because he wanted to devote his time to writing You Can't Cheat an Honest Man.
After losing money on Citizen Kane, RKO executives urged Orson Welles to choose as his next film a subject with more commercial appeal. Welles considered an adaptation of Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers starring Fields and John Barrymore, but Fields's schedule would not permit it. The project was permanently shelved, and Welles went on to adapt The Magnificent Ambersons.
Fields's bulbous nose was caused not so much by heavy drinking as by the fact that he suffered from rosacea.
Fields kept a thermos of martini for purposes of refreshment, which he referred to as his "pineapple juice." One day a prankster switched the contents of the thermos, filling it with actual pineapple juice. Upon discovering the prank, Fields was heard to yell, "Who put pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?"
Singer Jimmy Buffett has made much of the fact that he was born on the very day that Fields died, even mentioning it in the cover booklet of his CD "Christmas Island." [2]
Claudine Longet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Born January 29, 1942
Origin Paris, France
Genre(s) Pop music
Years active 1960s - 1970s
Label(s) Barnaby, A&M
Claudine Georgette Longet (born January 29, 1942 in Paris), was a popular singer and recording artist in the 1960s and 1970s. She was best known as the ex-wife of singer Andy Williams and later for being convicted for killing skiing star Spider Sabich.
She met Williams while he pulled over to aid her on a Las Vegas road. She was a dancer at the time at the Folies Bergere. They married on Christmas Day 1961 and had three children, Noëlle, Christian and Robert. In 1968, she appeared in The Party with Peter Sellers and sang "Nothing to Lose" by Henry Mancini. Longet recorded a series of five albums for A&M Records between 1966 and 1970 and two albums for Williams's Barnaby label in 1971 and 1972. She also made frequent acting appearances in television series and appeared from time to time on Williams' variety series and specials. Williams called Longet a beautiful, sleek brunette with large doe eyes, "my favorite French singer". She and Williams separated in 1969 but did not divorce until 6 years later.
One song, "Wanderlove" (music and lyrics by Mason Williams), went to #7 on the charts in Singapore and still occasionally gets airplay on Asian radio.
Longet was arrested and charged with the March 21, 1976 shooting death of her lover, Olympic skier Vladimir "Spider" Sabich at his Aspen, Colorado home after he had showered and was preparing to dress. Sabich was a very handsome athlete with no lack of female companionship when he met Longet. As their relationship progressed, Longet and her three children moved in with Sabich, radically altering his bachelor life. There were widespread rumors of discord between the couple before the shooting. Spider had told friends he wanted Claudine out of his house but had taken no real action to evict her because he adored her children. At the sensational trial, Longet claimed the gun discharged accidentally as Sabich was showing her how it worked. Despite the fact that the autopsy found that Sabich was bent over with his back turned to her and Claudine was no closer than 6 feet from him, she stuck to her story that it was a tragic accident. Williams very publicly supported Claudine throughout the trial, even escorting her to and from the courthouse.
The Aspen police made two enormous blunders which turned the tide for Longet. They took a blood sample from her and confiscated her diary without warrants. Longet's blood contained cocaine and her diary showed that her relationship with Sabich had turned bitter. Since the evidence was not obtained legally the prosecution couldn't use it. The gun was also mishandled by non-weapons experts. It was given to a policeman, who wrapped it in a towel and put it in the glove compartment of his unit; for 3 days it was unaccounted for.
Put on the stand, Longet reiterated her innocence and pleaded for mercy because her three young children needed her. The jury acquitted her of felony manslaughter but convicted her of criminal negligence, a misdemeanor and sentenced her to pay a small fine and spend 30 days in jail. As a generous gesture, Judge Lohr allowed Longet to choose the days she served, believing that this arrangement would allow her to spend the most time with her children. Longet chose to work off most of her sentence on weekends. Once the trial was over, she took off for a vacation with her defense attorney Ron Austin. Austin left his wife and children to do so. Longet and Austin later married and remain together residing in Aspen.
Longet has never performed again. After the criminal trial, the Sabich family initiated civil proceedings to sue Longet. The case was eventually settled out of court for a large monetary settlement, with the proviso that Longet never tell or write about her story. They also demanded that Claudine withdraw from public circulation her recording of "Bang Bang, My Baby Shot Me Down."
Trivia
The incident of criminal negligence in the death of Sabich was the subject of a song written by Mick Jagger which was ultimately cut from the 1980 Rolling Stones album Emotional Rescue, although copies have surfaced due to piracy over the years. The song, titled simply "Claudine", contains the lyrics "Claudine's back in jail again/She only does it at weekends/Claudine Oh, Claudine/Now only Spider knows for sure/But he ain't talkin' about it any more/Is he, Claudine?/There's blood in the chalet/And blood in the snow/Washed her hands of the whole damn show/The best thing you could do, Claudine/Shot him once right through the head/Shot him twice right through the chest/The judge says it was an accident, Claudine/Accidents will happen (In the best homes)/What about the children, baby?/Poor, poor children/Now I threaten my wife with a gun/I always leave the safety on/I recommend it/Claudine/Now she pistol whipped me once or twice/But she never tried to take my life(What do you think about that)/Claudine/The prettiest girl I ever seen/I saw you on the movie screen/Hope you don't try to make a sacrifice of me/Claudine (Don't get trigger happy with me)/Don't wave a gun at me (Claudine)"
Season 1 Episode 18 of Saturday Night Live featured a skit titled "The Claudine Longet Invitational," which parodied the shooting incident.[1]
A Season 1 episode of "Gilmore Girls" features Rory's friend, Lane, having bought an eclectic range of CDs. Rory responds, "I *must* listen to anyone named Claudine Longet." They play the CD, and Lorelai, on discovering who they're listening to, says "the chick who shot the skier?...Wow, renaissance woman."
Claudine recorded a version of the Lynsey De Paul song "Sugar Me".
Tom Selleck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Thomas William Selleck
Born January 29, 1945
Detroit, Michigan, USA
Height 6'4"
Notable roles "Thomas Magnum" in
Magnum P.I.
Thomas William Selleck (born January 29, 1945 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American actor, screenwriter and film producer, best known for his starring role on the long-running television show Magnum P.I..
Biography
Early life
Born in Detroit to Ukrainian Rusyn parents, but raised in Los Angeles, Selleck did modeling work and attended the University of Southern California on a basketball scholarship; he majored in business administration, however a drama coach suggested he try acting. He then studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse under Milton Katselas.
Early career
Selleck began his career with bit parts in smaller movies, including the over-the-top Myra Breckinridge and Russ Meyer's The Seven Minutes. He also appeared in number of TV series, mini-series and TV movies. Selleck also had a recurring role in the 1970s as Lance White in The Rockford Files. Lance was very trusting and always lucky, much to the surprise of Jim Rockford, the show's star private eye played by James Garner. White would frequently say to Rockford, "Don't worry, Jim, clues will turn up" and then a clue would just turn up, much to Rockford's consternation, for whom obtaining clues required hard work and hard knocks. Selleck's character was based on one played in Garner's earlier TV series Maverick (1957) by Selleck lookalike Wayde Preston in that series' highest-rated episode, "The Saga of Waco Williams." Ironically Selleck, after years of little interest, was cast as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark that same year. Magnum's producers would not release the actor and he had to pass on the role, which then went to Harrison Ford.
Movie stardom
Selleck starred in a number of film roles during and after Magnum; among the most notable were as an acrophobic police detective in Runaway and as a stand-in father in Three Men and a Baby. He also played the lead role in the Australian western Quigley Down Under. His other films included High Road to China, Lassiter, Her Alibi, An Innocent Man (film), Folks!, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, Mr. Baseball, In & Out and The Love Letter.
Selleck had a very successful recurring guest-star television role on the popular sitcom Friends as "Richard," an ophthalmologist friend of Monica Geller's father and, eventually, one of Monica's (ex-)boyfriends. During filming, when he would show up on stage, he would receive long standing ovations. This led to a change in Friends' filming style; the live audience was removed, and laugh tracks were used instead. Selleck reprised his role as Richard several times throughout the show's ten years on the air.
Selleck has also appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies in recent years. In particular, he has sought to help bring back to popularity the western, often playing one of that genre's typical characters but thrust into a modern context.
Surprising many of his fans, Selleck unexpectedly played the role of General Dwight D. Eisenhower in the History Channel's 2004 made-for-TV movie Ike: Countdown to D-Day. The movie showed the planning, politics, and preparation for the 1944 Invasion of Normandy, and Selleck was critically lauded for playing a cool, calm Eisenhower.
Most recently, Selleck has appeared in a recurring role on the acclaimed ABC drama Boston Legal as Ivan Tiggs, the troubled ex-husband of Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen).
Magnum P.I.
Tom Selleck played the role of Thomas Magnum in 1980 after six failed TV pilots. The show would go on for eight seasons and 162 episodes until 1988. Selleck was famous for wearing a Hawaiian-style aloha shirt and also wearing a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. In the series, Magnum would drive a Ferrari 308 GTS. Tom Selleck will not star in the upcoming Magnum P.I. film, because he has been considered too old but may appear in a cameo role. George Clooney, Vince Vaughn, and Ben Affleck have been rumoured for the role.
Awards & Accolades
On April 28, 2000, he received an honorary doctorate from Pepperdine University. He was chosen because of his outstanding character and ethic. He is a board member of the non-profit Michael Josephson Institute of Ethics and co-founder of the Character Counts Coalition. Selleck received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1986. The star is situated at 6925 Hollywood Blvd.
Golden Apple Awards- 1982 Male Star of the year
Golden Apple Awards- 1983 Male Star of the year
Emmy Awards- 1984 Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Golden Globes- 1985 Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series-Drama
Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame- 1986 6925 Hollywood Blvd
Personal life
Tom Selleck was married to model Jacqueline Ray from 1970 to 1982 from which he adopted her son, Kevin, from a previous marriage. Selleck's second marriage was to Jillie Mack, they married in 1987. They have one daughter, Hannah Selleck. Selleck also dated Mimi Rogers in the early 1980's. He reportedly lives in Abbotsford, British Columbia.
Politics
Selleck is a member of the National Rifle Association. On May 20, 1999 He sparred with Rosie O'Donnell on The Rosie O'Donnell Show on the issue of gun control and an ad in which he appeared which supported the NRA. Selleck was invited to the show to promote his latest movie, The Love Letter, but found himself instead defending his position on gun ownership. Selleck refused to be drawn into a heated discussion by saying: "It's your show, and you can talk about it after I leave". O'Donnell was highly criticized for this, which led her to make an apology to Selleck by saying: "For him feeling embarrassed and humiliated by me, I strongly do apologize to him personally, but I do not apologize for my feelings about this issue gun control."[1]
Though often considered a conservative, Selleck describes himself politically as "a registered independent with a lot of libertarian leanings"[2].
Oprah Winfrey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born: January 29, 1954 (age 52)
Kosciusko, Mississippi, USA
Occupation: Talk show host
Net worth: over $1.5 billion USD
(Feb, 2006)
Website: Oprah.com
Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is the American multiple-Emmy Award winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest rated talk show in television history.[1] She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century[2], the most philanthropic African American of all time,[3] and the world's only Black billionaire for three straight years.[4][5][6][7] She is also, according to several assessments, the most influential woman in the world.[8]
Early life
Oprah Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to a Baptist family. Her parents were unmarried teenagers. She was originally named Orpah Gail Winfrey, after one of the people in the Bible's Book of Ruth. Winfrey has said that because of problems spelling or pronouncing Orpah, the "r" and the "p" were reversed.[9][10] Her mother, Vernita Lee, was a housemaid, and her father, Vernon Winfrey, was a coal miner and later worked as a barber before becoming a city councilman. Winfrey's father was in the Armed Forces when she was born. After her birth, Winfrey's mother travelled north and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her Grandma Hattie Mae. Winfrey's 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 take a switch and would hit her with it when she didn't do chores or if she misbehaved in any way.[11]
At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner city ghetto in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her mother, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother. Winfrey has stated that she was molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was 9.
Despite her dysfunctional home life, Winfrey skipped two of her earliest grades, became the teacher's pet, and by the time she was 13 received a scholarship to attend Nicolet High School in the suburbs, known as Glendale, Wisconsin. Although Winfrey was very popular, she couldn't afford to go out on the town as frequently as her better-off classmates. Like many teenagers at the end of the 1960s, Winfrey rebelled, ran away from home and ran the streets. When she was 14, she became pregnant, but lost the baby after birth. [12] Also at that age, her frustrated mother sent her to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee. Vernon was strict, but encouraging and made her education a priority. Winfrey became an honors student, was voted "Most Popular Girl", joined her high school speech team, and placed second in the nation in dramatic interpretation. She won an oratory contest, which secured her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black institution, where she studied communication. At age 18, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.
Winfrey's boyfriend from high school, Anthony Otey, would later recall what Winfrey was like during those early years:
she knew what she wanted very early in life. She said she wanted to be a movie star. She wanted to be an actress. And I praise God that she's done that. She was willing to put aside a lot of other things. Back in the seventies, drugs had started entering the schools, and that kind of thing. We were involved in integration and those fights in those years. We were actively involved in that, but she knew what she wanted to do. She worked hard at it, and when her ship started to sail, she got aboard.[13]
Winfrey's grandmother has said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was "on stage". In her youth she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property. But her true media career began at age 17, when Winfrey worked at a local radio station while attending Tennessee State University.
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 1976 to co-anchor the six o'clock news. She was then recruited to join Richard Sher as co-host of WJZ's local talk show People Are Talking, which premiered on August 14, 1978. She also hosted the local version of Dialing for Dollars there as well.
Career and success
Television
In 1983, 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, 1984. 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. It was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, expanded to a full hour, and broadcast nationally beginning September 8, 1986, its first show was about marrying the right person.[14] On her 20th anniversary show, Oprah revealed that movie critic Roger Ebert was the one who persuaded her to sign a syndication deal with King World. Ebert predicted that she would generate 40 times as much revenue as his television show, At the Movies.[53] Having surpassed Donahue in the local market Winfrey quickly doubled his national audience, her show replacing his as the number one day-time talk show in America. Their much publicized contest was the subject of enormous scrutiny.
Time magazine wrote, "Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey's swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk. As interviewers go, she is no match for, say, Phil Donahue...What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah's eye...They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience. It is the talk show as a group therapy session."
TV columnist Howard Rosenberg said "She's a roundhouse, a full course meal, big, brassy, loud, aggressive, hyper, laughable, lovable, soulful, tender, low-down, earthy and hungry. And she may know the way to Phil Donahue's jugular."
Newsday's Les Payne observed, "Oprah Winfrey is sharper than Donahue, wittier, more genuine, and far better attuned to her audience, if not the world."
Martha Bayles of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "It's a relief to see a gab-monger with a fond but realistic assessment of her own cultural and religious roots."
In the mid-1990s Winfrey adopted a less tabloid-orientated format, doing shows about heart disease in women, geopolitics with Lisa Ling, spirituality and meditation, and gift-giving and home decorating shows. She often interviews celebrities on issues that directly involve them in some way, such as cancer, charity work, or substance abuse. In addition, she interviews ordinary people who have done extraordinary things or been involved in important current issues.
In 1993 Winfrey hosted a rare prime-time interview with Michael Jackson which became the fourth most watched event in American television history as well as the most watched interview ever, with an audience of one hundred million. Perhaps Winfrey's most famous recent show was the first episode of the nineteenth season of The Oprah Winfrey Show in the fall of 2004. During the show each member of the audience received a new G6 sedan; the 276 cars were donated by Pontiac as part of a publicity stunt. The show received so much media attention that even the taxes on the cars became controversial.
During a lawsuit against Winfrey (see Influence), she hired Dr. Phil McGraw's company Courtroom Sciences, Inc. to help her analyze and read the jury. Dr. Phil made such an impression on Winfrey that she invited him to appear on her show. He accepted the invitation and was a resounding success. McGraw appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show for several years before launching his own show, Dr. Phil, in 2002, which was created by Winfrey's production company, Harpo Productions in partnership with Paramount which produced the show.
Winfrey recently made a deal to extend her show until the 2010 - 2011 season, by which time it will have been on the air for twenty-five years. She plans to host 140 episodes per season, until her final season, when it will return to its current number, 130. [15]
The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Concert was hosted by Oprah and Tom Cruise. There were musical performances by Cyndi Lauper, Andrea Bocelli, Joss Stone, Chris Botti, Diana Krall, Tony Bennett and others. The concert was broadcasted in the United States on Dec. 23, 2004 by E!. An unofficial Winfrey fan-club also organized a petition drive in 2005 to nominate Oprah for the Nobel Peace Prize.
As well as hosting and appearing on television shows, Winfrey co-founded the women's cable television network Oxygen. She is also the president of Harpo Productions (Oprah spelled backwards).
Film
Oprah Winfrey as Sofia in The Color Purple.In 1985, Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg's epic film adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple. She earned immediate acclaim as Sofia, the distraught housewife. The following year Winfrey was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, but she lost to Anjelica Huston. The Color Purple has now been made into a Broadway musical and opened late 2005, with Winfrey credited as a producer.
In October 1998, Winfrey produced and starred in the film Beloved, based upon Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. To prepare for her role as Sethe, the protagonist and former slave, Winfrey experienced a 24-hour simulation of the experience of slavery, which included being tied up and blindfolded and left alone in the woods. Despite major advertising, including two episodes of her talk show dedicated solely to the film, and moderate to good critical reviews, Beloved opened to poor box-office results, losing approximately $30 million. Working with delicate subjects, Winfrey managed to keep the cast motivated and inspired. "Here we were working on this project with the heavy underbelly of political and social realism, and she managed to lighten things up," said costar Thandie Newton. "I've worked with a lot of good actors, and I know Oprah hasn't made many films. I was stunned. She's a very strong technical actress and it's because she's so smart. She's acute. She's got a mind like a razor blade."[16]
In 2005, Harpo Productions released another film adaptation of a famous American novel, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). The made-for-television film Their Eyes Were Watching God was based upon a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks, and starred Halle Berry in the lead female role.
Books and magazines
Winfrey publishes two magazines: O, The Oprah Magazine and O at Home. She has co-authored five books; at the announcement of her future weight loss book (to be co-authored with her personal trainer Bob Greene), it was said that her undisclosed advance fee had broken the record for the world's highest book advance fee, previously held by former U.S. President Bill Clinton for his autobiography My Life.[17] In 2002 Fortune called O, the Oprah Magazine the most successful start-up ever in the industry.[18]
Online
Oprah.com is a website created by Winfrey's company to provide resources and interactive content relating to her shows, magazines, book club, and public charity. Through Oprah.com Winfrey raised over three million dollars for Katrina victims[19] and helped to capture four accused child predators. Oprah.com averages more than 100 million page views and more than three million users per month.[citation needed]
Radio
On February 9, 2006 it was announced that Winfrey signed a $55 million, three-year contract with XM Satellite Radio to establish a new radio channel. The channel will be called Oprah & Friends and will feature popular contributors to The Oprah Winfrey Show and O, The Oprah Magazine including Nate Berkus, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Bob Greene, Dr. Robin Smith and Marianne Williamson. Oprah & Friends airs 24/7 on XM Radio Channel 156. Winfrey's contract requires her to be on air 30 minutes a week, 39 weeks a year. The 30-minute weekly show will feature Winfrey with friend Gayle King. Winfrey's audience is extremely loyal and XM hopes that the "Oprah Effect" can have the same effect on XM subscription sales that she does on the New York Times Best Seller List, thanks to her book club. The channel broadcasted from a new studio at Winfrey's Chicago headquarters and went on the air at 11 a.m. ET, September 25th, 2006 on XM Channel 156.
Future projects
In late 2006 Winfrey's Harpo production and ABC revealed plans to bring two new reality TV shows to the air. One of the series is tentatively titled "Oprah Winfrey's The Big Give," and presents 10 people with large sums of money and resources and they must compete to find "the most powerful, sensational, emotional and dramatic ways to give to others." The second show, tentatively titled "Your Money or Your Life," will unleash an "expert action team" every week to aid a family in overcoming a crisis through a "total money and life makeover."[20]
Winfrey will also voice a part in Bee Movie coming out in 2007.
Personal life
Winfrey currently lives on "The Promised Land", her 42 acre (170,000 m²) ocean and mountain view estate in Montecito, California, outside of Santa Barbara. Rumors state that Winfrey was at a party the previous owners were throwing and fell so in love with the estate that she was reported to have purchased it by writing a personal check for $50,000,000 USD, although it was not for sale. Winfrey also owns a house in Lavallette, New Jersey, an apartment in Chicago, an estate on Fisher Island off the coast of Miami, a ski house in Telluride, CO and property on the island of Maui, Hawaii.
Winfrey and her partner Stedman Graham have been together for over 20 years. Sophie and Soloman are her two Cocker Spaniels. Winfrey believes that the reason she never had children was because her students at South Africa's Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girls were meant to be her daughters:
I never had children, never even thought I would have children. Now I have 152 daughters; expecting 75 more next year. That is some type of gestation period![21]
I said to the mothers, the family members, the aunts, the grannies ?- because most of these girls have lost their families, their parents ?- I said to them, "Your daughters are now my daughters and I promise you I'm going to take care of your daughters. I promise you." [22]
"When I watched Oprah with those girls," observed best friend Gayle King, "I kept thinking she was meant to be a mother, and it would happen one way or another."[23] Newsweek described a student named Thelasa Msumbi hugging Winfrey extra tight, then whispering "We are your daughters now."[24] Winfrey who will teach a class at the school via satellite, plans to spend much of her retirement in a house she is building on the campus where she plans to use the same dishes, sheets, and curtains that the students do. "I want to be near my girls and be in a position to see how they're doing," said Winfrey. [25]
She previously dated movie critic Roger Ebert, whom she credits with advising her to take her show into syndication. The relationship of Winfrey and Graham has been documented through the years with numerous romantic tabloid articles often accompanied by color spreads of the couple at home and on lavish vacations. Prior to meeting Graham, Winfrey's love life was a lot less stable. A self-described promiscuous teen who was a victim of sexual abuse, Winfrey gave birth at the age of 14, though her son died while still in infancy.[26] In 1997 a former boyfriend named Randoph Cook tried to sue Winfrey for $20 million for allegedly blocking a tell-all book where he claimed they lived together for several months in 1985 and did drugs.[27] Cook's claims mark the second time reports surfaced about Winfrey's involvement in a drug related love affair. In 1995 Winfrey herself confessed to drug use. "And I've often said over the years
in my attempts to come out and say it, I've said many times I did things in my 20s that I was ashamed of, I did things I felt guilty about, but that is my life's great big secret that's always been held over my head," she explained on her show. "I always felt that the drug itself is not the problem but that I was addicted to the man." She added: "I can't think of anything I wouldn't have done for that man."[28]
Winfrey's early love life had not always been so tumultuous. Her high school sweetheart Anthony Otey would recall an innocent courtship that began in Winfrey's senior year of high school, from which he saved hundreds of love notes; Winfrey conducted herself with dignity and as a model student.[29] The two spoke of getting married, but Otey claimed to have always secretly known that Winfrey was destined for a far greater life than he could ever provide.[30] On Valentine's day of her senior year, Otey's fears came true when Winfrey took Otey aside and told him they needed to talk. "I knew right then that I was going to lose the girl I loved," Otey recalled. "She told me she was breaking up with me because she didn't have time for a relationship. We both sat there and cried. It broke my heart."[31] Years later, Otey was stunned to discover details from Winfrey's promiscuous and rebellious past at the end of the 1960s, and the fact that she had given birth to a baby several years before they met.[30]
In 1971, several months after breaking up with Otey, Winfrey met William "Bubba" Taylor at Tennessee State University. According to CBS journalist George Mair, Taylor was Winfrey's "first intense, to die for love affair". Winfrey helped get Taylor a job at WVOL, and according to Mair, "did everything to keep him, including literally begging him on her knees to stay with her."[32] Taylor however was unwilling to leave Nashville with Winfrey when she moved to Baltimore to work at WJZ-TV in June 1976. "We really did care for each other," Winfrey would later recall. "We shared a deep love. A love I will never forget."[33]
When WJZ-TV management criticized Winfrey for crying on the air while reporting tragedies and were unhappy with her physical appearance (especially when her hair fell out as the result of a bad perm), Winfrey turned to reporter Lloyd Kramar for comfort. "Lloyd was just the best," Winfrey would later recall. "That man loved me even when I was bald! He was wonderful. He stuck with me through the whole demoralizing experience. That man was the most fun romance I ever had."[34]
According to Mair, when Kramar moved to NBC in New York Winfrey became involved with a man who friends had warned her to avoid. Winfrey would later recall:
I'd had a relationship with a man for four years. I wasn't living with him. I'd never lived with anyone?-and I thought I was worthless without him. The more he rejected me, the more I wanted him. I felt depleted, powerless. At the end I was down on the floor on my knees groveling and pleading with him.[35]
According to Mair's reporting "the major problem with this intense love affair arose from her lover's being married, with no plans to leave his wife". Winfrey became so depressed that on September 8, 1981, she wrote a suicide note to best friend Gayle King instructing King to water her plants.[35] "That suicide note had been much overplayed" Winfrey told Ms. magazine's Joan Barthel. "I couldn't kill myself. I would be afraid the minute I did it; something really good would happen and I'd miss it."[36]
According to Winfrey, such emotional ups and downs gradually lead to a weight problem:
The reason I gained so much weight in the first place and the reason I had such a sorry history of abusive relationships with men was I just needed approval so much. I needed everyone to like me, because I didn't like myself much. So I'd end up with these cruel self-absorbed guys who'd tell me how selfish I was, and I'd say "Oh thank you, you're so right" and be grateful to them. Because I had no sense that I deserved anything else. Which is also why I gained so much weight later on. It was the perfect way of cushioning myself against the world's disapproval.[36]
In 1989, Winfrey was personally touched by the 1980s AIDS crisis so frequently discussed on her show when her long time aide, Billy Rizzo, became afflicted by the disease. Rizzo was the only man among the four-person production team who Winfrey relied on in her early years in Chicago long before she had a large staff. "I love Billy like a brother," she said at the time. "He's a wonderful, funny, talented guy, and it's just heartbreaking to see him so ill". Winfrey visited him daily during his last days.
Winfrey's best friend since their early twenties is Gayle King. King was formerly the host on "The Gayle King Show," and is currently an editor of "O," the Oprah Magazine. Since 1997, when Winfrey played the therapist on an episode of the sitcom Ellen in which Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet, Winfrey and King have been the target of persistent rumours that they were gay. "I understand why people think we're gay," Winfrey says in the August 2006 issue of "O magazine". "There isn't a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it?-how can you be this close without it being sexual?"[37] "I've told nearly everything there is to tell. All my stuff is out there. People think I'd be so ashamed of being gay that I wouldn't admit it? Oh, please."[38]
Her celebrity status notwithstanding, the billionaire Winfrey served in 2004 on a murder trial jury. The trial was held in Chicago, and involved a man accused of murder after an argument over a counterfeit 50 dollar bill. The jury voted to convict the man of murder.[39][40]
In June 2005, Winfrey was denied access to the Hermès company's flagship store in Paris, France. Winfrey arrived fifteen minutes after the store's formal closing time, though the store was still very active and high end stores routinely extend hours for VIP customers. Winfrey believed she would have been allowed in the store if she were a white celebrity. "I know the difference between a store that is closed and a store that is closed to me," explained Winfrey. In September 2005, Hermès USA CEO Robert Chavez was a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show and sincerely apologized for a rude employee.
On December 1, 2005, Winfrey appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote the new Broadway musical The Color Purple, of which she was a producer, joining the host for the first time in 16 years. The episode was hailed by some as the "television event of the decade" and helped Letterman attract his largest audience in more than 11 years: 13.45 million viewers.[41] Although a much-rumored feud was said to have been the cause of the rift, both Winfrey and Letterman balked at such talk. "I want you to know, it's really over, whatever you thought was happening," said Winfrey.
Winfrey's show is based in Chicago, so she spends time there, specifically in the neighborhood of Streeterville, but otherwise resides in California. She purchased at least one property on Maui, Hawaii, which was featured on the cover of O at Home and on her TV show.
For the 2006 PBS program, African American Lives, Winfrey had her DNA tested. The genetic test determined that her maternal line originated among the Kpelle ethnic group, in the area that today is Liberia. Her genetic make up was determined to be 89% Sub-Saharan Africa. She is part Native American (about 8% according to the test) and East Asian (about 3% according to the test).
To celebrate two decades on national TV, and to thank her employees for their hard work, Winfrey took her staff and their families (1065 people in total) on vacation in Hawaii in the summer of 2006.[42]
Family
As revealed on a 2004 episode of her television show,Oprah had a half-brother who was gay and had died of AIDS. [43]
In the February 2006 issue of her magazine, O, Winfrey felt "betrayed" by her family member, who revealed to the National Enquirer that Winfrey gave birth as a teen to a baby who died in the hospital weeks later. [54]
Oprah's Legends Weekend
To celebrate her African heritage and to honor her cultural and political heroines of the civil rights era, Winfrey hosted the Legends Weekend; a televised ball that took place at her California home and was watched by 11 million viewers. Among the most prominent honorees were civil rights icons Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King who both died less than a year after being honored.
Wealth
Born in rural poverty, then raised by a mother on welfare in the ghetto, Winfrey became a millionaire at age 32 when her talk show went national. Because of the amount of revenue the show generated, Winfrey was in a position to negotiate ownership of the show and start her own production company. By 1994 the show's ratings were still thriving and Winfrey negotiated a contract that earned her nine figures a year. Considered the richest woman in entertainment by the early 1990s, at age 41 Winfrey's wealth crossed another milestone when with a net worth of $340 million, she replaced Bill Cosby as the only African American on the Forbes 400. Although blacks are 12% of the U.S. population, Winfrey has remained the only black person wealthy enough to rank among America's 400 richest people nearly every year since 1995. (BET founder Bob Johnson briefly joined her on the list from 2001-2003 before his ex-wife reportedly acquired part of his fortune, though he returned in 2006.)[44]
With a 2000 net-worth of $800 million, Winfrey is believed to have been the richest African American of the 20th century. To celebrate her status as a historical figure, Professor Juliet E.K. Walker of the University of Illinois created the course "Oprah the tycoon".[45]
Forbes' international rich list has listed Winfrey as the world's only black billionaire[46] in 2004, 2005, and 2006 and as the first black woman billionaire in world history.[47] Forbes most recent estimate for Winfrey's wealth is at least $1.5 billion[48])
Philanthropy
In 1998, Winfrey began Oprah's Angel Network, a charity aimed at encouraging people around the world to make a difference in the lives of underprivileged others. Accordingly, Oprah's Angel Network supports charitable projects and provides grants to nonprofit organizations around the world that share this vision. To date, Oprah's Angel Network has raised more than $51,000,000 ($1 million of which was donated by Jon Bon Jovi). Winfrey personally covers all administrative costs associated with the charity, so 100% of all funds raised go to charity programs.[49]
Although Winfrey's show is known for raising money through her public charity and the cars and gifts she gives away on TV are often donated by corporations in exchange for publicity, behind the scenes Winfrey personally donates more of her own money to charity than any other show-business celebrity in America. In 2005 she became the first black person listed by Business Week as one of America's top 50 most generous philanthropists, having given an estimated $250 million.[50] Despite being the 235th richest American in 2005,[51] Winfrey was the 32nd most philanthropic. Her philanthropy has included a $10 million donation to Hurricane Katrina relief.[52] Winfrey also put 100 black men through college with $7 million in scholarships.[53]
Winfrey was the recipient of the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 2002 Emmy Awards for services to television and film.
South Africa
In 2004, Winfrey and her team filmed an episode of her show entitled Oprah's Christmas Kindness, in which Winfrey, her best friend Gayle King, her partner Stedman Graham, and some crew members travelled to South Africa to bring attention to the plight of young children affected by poverty and AIDS. During the 21-day whirlwind trip, Winfrey and her crew visited schools and orphanages in poverty-stricken areas, and at different set-up points in the areas distributed Christmas presents to 50,000 children, with dolls for the girls and soccer balls for the boys. In addition, each child was given a backpack full of school supplies and received two sets of school uniforms for their gender, in addition to two sets of socks, two sets of underwear, and a pair of shoes. Throughout the show, Winfrey appealed to viewers to donate money to Oprah's Angel Network for poor and AIDS-affected children in Africa, and pledged that she personally would oversee[54] where that money was spent. From that show alone, viewers around the world donated over $7,000,000.
Main article: Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls
Winfrey invested $40 million and much of her time establishing the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls near Johannesburg in South Africa. The school opened in January, 2007. Nelson Mandela praised Winfrey for overcoming her own disadvantaged youth to become a benefactor for others and for investing in the future of South Africa.[55]
Influence
Rankings as world's most influential woman
Winfrey was called "arguably the world's most powerful woman" by CNN and Time.com.[56] Time named Winfrey one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century, as well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005, and again in 2006. Winfrey and Bill Gates are the only two people in the world to make all four lists. At the end of the 20th century Life magazine listed Winfrey as both the most influential woman and the most influential black person of her generation, and in a cover story profile the magazine called her "America's most powerful woman".[57] Ladies Home Journal also ranked Winfrey number one in their list of the most powerful women in America and senator Barack Obama has said she "may be the most influential woman in the country"[58]. In 2003 Winfrey edged out both Superman and Elvis Presley to be named the greatest pop culture icon of all time by VH1.[59] In 2005 Forbes named her the world's most powerful celebrity.[60] Columnist Maureen Dowd seems to agree with such assessments:
She is the top alpha female in this country. She has more credibility than the president. Other successful women, such as Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart, had to be publicly slapped down before they could move forward. Even Condi has had to play the protegé with Bush. None of this happened to Oprah ?- she is a straight ahead success story.[61]
Vanity Fair wrote:
"Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader, except perhaps the Pope."[62]
Bill O'Reilly said:
I mean this is a woman that came from nothing to rise up to be the most powerful woman, I think, in the world. I think Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful woman in the world, not just in America. That's ?- anybody who goes on her program immediately benefits through the roof. I mean, she has a loyal following; she has credibility; she has talent; and she's done it on her own to become fabulously wealthy and fabulously powerful.[63]
Biographer Kitty Kelly states that she has always been "fascinated" by Winfrey:
As a woman, she has wielded an unprecedented amount of influence over the American culture and psyche,
There has been no other person in the 20th century whose convictions and values have impacted the American public in such a significant way.[64]
I see her as probably the most powerful woman in our society. I think Oprah has influenced every medium that she's touched.[65]
Winfrey's influence reaches far beyond pop-culture and into unrelated industries where many believe she has the power to cause enormous market swings and radical price changes with a single comment. During a show about mad cow disease with Howard Lyman (aired on April 16, 1996), Winfrey exclaimed, "It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger!" Texas cattlemen sued her and Lyman in early 1998 for "false defamation of perishable food" and "business disparagement," claiming that Winfrey's remarks subsequently sent cattle prices tumbling, costing beef producers some USD$12 million. On February 26, after a trial spanning over two months in an Amarillo, Texas court in the thick of cattle country, a jury found Winfrey and Lyman were not liable for damages. (After the trial, she received a postcard from Rosanne Barr reading, "Congratulations, you beat the meat!") In June 2005 the first case of mad cow disease in a cow native to the United States was detected in Texas. The USDA concluded that it was most likely infected in Texas prior to 1997.[66]
In 2005 Winfrey was named the greatest woman in American history as part of a public poll as part of The Greatest American. She was ranked #9 overall on the list of greatest Americans.
Winfrey's reach extends far beyond the shores of the U.S., where 49 million U.S. viewers see her talk show weekly. The show airs in 117 countries around the world "from Australia to Zimbabwe."[67]
Media counterculture
While Phil Donahue has been credited with pioneering the tabloid talk show genre, what has been described as the warmth, intimacy and personal confession[68] Winfrey brought to the format is believed to have both popularized[69] and revolutionized it.[70][71] In the scholarly text Freaks Talk Back,[72] Yale sociology professor Joshua Gamson credits the tabloid talk show genre with providing much needed high impact media visibility for gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, and transgender people and doing more to make them mainstream and socially acceptable than any other development of the 20th century. In the book's editorial review Michael Bronski wrote "In the recent past, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people had almost no presence on television. With the invention and propagation of tabloid talk shows such as Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Oprah, and Geraldo, people outside the sexual mainstream now appear in living rooms across America almost every day of the week."[73]
An example of one such show by Winfey occurred in the 1980s where for the entire hour, members of the studio audience stood up one by one, gave their name and announced that they were gay. Also in the 1980s Winfrey took her show to West Virginia to confront a town gripped by AIDS paranoia because a gay man living in the town had HIV. Winfrey interviewed the man who had become a social outcast, the town's mayor who drained a swimming pool in which the man had gone swimming, and debated with the town's hostile residents. "But I hear this is a God fearing town" Winfrey scolded the homophobic studio audience, "where's all that Christian love and understanding?" During a show on gay marriage in the 1990s, a woman in Winfrey's audience stood up to complain that gays were constantly flaunting their sex lives and she announced that she was tired of it. "You know what I'm tired of," replied Winfrey, "heterosexual males raping and sodomizing young girls. That's what I'm tired of." Her rebuttal inspired a screaming standing ovation from that show's mostly gay studio audience.
Gamson credits the tabloid talk show fad with making alternative sexual orientations and identities more acceptable in mainstream society. Examples include a recent Time magazine article describing early 21st century gays coming out of the closet younger and younger and gay suicide rates plummeting. Gamson also believes that tabloid talk shows caused gays to be embraced on more traditional forms of media. Examples include sitcoms like Will & Grace, primetime shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Oscar nominated feature films like Brokeback Mountain.
While having changed with the times from her tabloid talk show roots, Winfrey continues to include gay guests by using her show to promote openly gay personalities like her hairdresser, makeup artist, and decorator Nate Berkus who inspired an outpouring of sympathy from middle America after grieving the loss of his partner in the 2004 tsunami on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Winfrey's "therapeutic" hosting style and the tabloid talk show genre has been credited or blamed for leading the media counterculture of the 1980s and 1990s which some believe broke 20th century taboos, led to America's self-help obsession, and created confession culture. The Wall Street Journal coined the term "Oprahfication" which means public confession as a form of therapy.[74]
In April 1997, Winfrey played the therapist on the sitcom Ellen to whom the character (and the real-life Ellen DeGeneres) said she was a lesbian. In 1998, Mark Steyn in the National Review wrote of Winfrey "Today, no truly epochal moment in the history of the Republic occurs unless it is validated by her presence. When Ellen said, 'Yep! I'm gay,' Oprah was by her side, guesting on the sitcom as (what else?) the star's therapist. She is, of course, therapist to an entire nation. If only it weren't so hard for the rest of us to get an appointment. Asked to explain the cause of the 1992 riots, one angry black looter from South Central said: 'We had to do something to get Oprah to Los Angeles.'"
Communication style
By confessing intimate details about her weight problems, tumultuous love life, and sexual abuse, and crying alongside her guests, Time Magazine credits Winfrey with creating a new form of media communication known as "rapport talk" as distinguished from the "report talk" of Phil Donahue:
Winfrey saw television's power to blend public and private; while it links strangers and conveys information over public airwaves, TV is most often viewed in the privacy of our homes. Like a family member, it sits down to meals with us and talks to us in the lonely afternoons. Grasping this paradox, ...She makes people care because she cares. That is Winfrey's genius, and will be her legacy, as the changes she has wrought in the talk show continue to permeate our culture and shape our lives.
Observers even noted the "Oprahfication" of politics by noting "Oprah-style debates" and Bill Clinton's empathetic speaking style. Columnist Maureen Dowd commented on the symbolism of Bill Clinton seeking an "Oprah-style" talk show when he left the presidency:
There is a delicious symmetry in Clinton's exploring the idea of a daytime syndicated talk show: the man who brought Oprah-style psychobabble and misty confessions to politics taking the next step and actually transmogrifying into Oprah.[75]
Newsweek stated:
Every time a politician lets his lip quiver or a cable anchor "emotes" on TV, they nod to the cult of confession that Oprah helped create.[76]
Winfrey's intimate confessions about her weight (which peaked at 108 kg (238 lb), also paved the way for other plus sized women in media such as Roseanne Barr, Rosie O'Donnell and Star Jones. The November 1988 Ms. magazine observed that "in a society where fat is taboo, she made it in a medium that worships thin and celebrates a bland, white-bread prettiness of body and personality...But Winfrey made fat sexy, elegant ?- damned near gorgeous - with her drop-dead wardrobe, easy body language, and cheerful sensuality."
Oprah's Book Club
In the late 1990s, Winfrey introduced a new segment on her television show: Oprah's Book Club. The segment focused on new books and classics, and often brought obscure novels to popular attention. The book club became such a powerful force that whenever Winfrey introduced a new book as her book-club selection, it instantly became a best-seller (known as the Oprah Effect); for example, when she selected the classic John Steinbeck novel East of Eden, it soared to the top of the book charts. Being recognized by Winfrey often means a million additional book sales for an author.[77]
In Reading with Oprah: The book club that changed America, Kathleen Rooney describes Winfrey as "a serious American intellectual who pioneered the use of electronic media, specifically television and the Internet, to take reading ?- a decidedly non-technological and highly individual act ?- and highlight its social elements and uses in such a way to motivate millions of erstwhile non-readers to pick up books."
Oprah's Book Club is so influential that, when she selected his memoir Night in 2006, just a few months later Time Magazine named author Elie Wiesel as one of the 100 most influential people on the planet. Winfrey and Wiesel traveled together back to the Auschwitz concentration camp with Wiesel telling Winfrey that he would not have made the trip with just anyone and that it was probably his last trip there. "What you did was so respectful," Wiesel told Oprah. 50,000 high school students competed to be part of a follow-up show in which only 50 winners of an essay contest were selected to meet Winfrey and Wiesel. Consistent with the book's theme, many of the winning students had endured their own forms of discrimination including homophobia and surviving the Rwandan Genocide (and being reunited with lost family on the show). The students were surprised to learn that AT&T had given them all a $5000 scholarship to the college of their choice, and even more surprised when Winfrey decided to double their scholarships herself by adding an additional $5000.
Oprah's Book Club has occasionally chosen books which have proven to be controversial. Most notably, Jonathan Franzen questioned the Club's selection process and credibility,[78] and there was a live television confrontation over allegations of fabrication regarding James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.
Oprah's latest selection, The Measure of a Man by Sydney Poitier, was announced on Janaury 26, 2007.
Spiritual icon
In 2002, Christianity Today published an article called "The Church of O" in which they concluded that Winfrey had emerged as an influential spiritual leader. "Since 1994, when she abandoned traditional talk-show fare for more edifying content, and 1998, when she began 'Change Your Life TV', Oprah's most significant role has become that of spiritual leader. To her audience of more than 22 million mostly female viewers, she has become a postmodern priestess?-an icon of church-free spirituality."[79] The sentiment was seconded by Marcia Z. Nelson in her book The Gospel According to Oprah.[80] On the season premier of Winfrey's 13th season Rosanne Barr told Winfrey "you're the African Mother Goddess of us all" inspiring much enthusiasm from the studio audience. The animated series Futurama alluded to her spiritual influence by suggesting that, a thousand years from now, a religion known as "Oprahism" exists.
Fan base
The audience for her magazine is considerably more upscale than those who watch her show, earning US$63,000 a year (well above the median for U.S. women).[18] Although Winfrey's audience is sometimes spoofed for their fanatical devotion by shows like Saturday Night Live, Winfrey has been very protective of them and gets very offended when they are publicly disparaged.
Some of Winfrey's biggest fans are gay males. For example, one of the stars of the reality TV show The Benefactor was a gay African American man named Kevin who was so obsessed with Winfrey that he would ask "What would Oprah do?" before making any strategic decision. Another gay man included Oprah on his published list of women worshipped by gay men and asked, "What gay man hasn't watched at least 1,000 episodes of The Oprah Winfrey Show?"[81]
Criticisms and controversies
Although Winfrey has continually changed the focus of her show since the mid-1990s, her success has been blamed for popularizing the "tabloid talk show" genre, and turning it into a thriving industry that has included Ricki Lake, The Jenny Jones Show, and The Jerry Springer Show. Sociologist Vicki Abt criticised tabloid talk shows for redefining social norms. In her book Coming After Oprah: Cultural Fallout in the Age of the TV talk show, Abt warned that the media revolution that followed Winfrey's success was blurring the lines between "normal" and "deviant" behavior.
Leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Winfrey's show received criticism for having an anti-war bias. Ben Shapiro of Townhall.com wrote:
"Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful woman in America. She decides what makes the New York Times best-seller lists. Her touchy-feely style sucks in audiences at the rate of 14 million viewers per day. But Oprah is far more than a cultural force ?- she's a dangerous political force as well, a woman with unpredictable and mercurial attitudes toward the major issues of the day."[82]
In 2006, Winfrey recalled such controversies:
"I once did a show titled Is War the Only Answer? In the history of my career, I've never received more hate mail-like 'Go back to Africa' hate mail. I was accused of being un-American for even raising the question."[83]
In 2006, rappers Ludacris, 50 Cent and Ice Cube criticized Winfrey for what they perceived as an anti-hip hop bias. In an interview with GQ magazine, Ludacris said that Winfrey gave him a "hard time" about his lyrics, and edited comments he made during an appearance on her show with the cast of the film Crash. He also claimed that he wasn't initially invited on the show with the rest of the cast. Winfrey responded by saying that she's opposed to rap lyrics that "marginalize women", but enjoys some artists, including Kanye West, who appeared on her show. She said she spoke with Ludacris backstage after his appearance to explain her position, and said she understood that his music was for entertainment purposes, but that some of his listeners might take it literally.[84]
In early 2007, Winfrey was criticized for building a $40 million school complex for girls in South Africa. The school will have an initial enrollment of 152 but will gradually accommodate 450 [85], and features such amenities as a beauty salon and yoga studio. [55] It has been argued that the money would be better utilized to educate a larger amount of children in either North America or South Africa, however Winfrey insists that beautiful surroundings will inspire greatness in the future leaders of Africa[86].
Despite the occasional media controversy, best-selling biographer Kitty Kelley, best known for uncovering scandalous secrets on such celebrated figures as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor and the Bush dynasty, admits that two months into researching Winfrey, she and her staff have been unable to uncover a single nasty rumour or story: "So far, I don't see anything negative on this woman. I think she's a real icon."[87]
Quotes
"I was taught to read at an early age. By the time I was three, I was reciting speeches in the church. They'd put me up on the program, and say, 'Little Mistress Winfrey will render a recitation,' and I would do 'Jesus rose on Easter day, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, all the angels did proclaim.'"
"It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you ?- always."
"All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men, but I ain't never thought I'd have to fight in my own house! I loves Harpo, God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead 'fo I let him beat me." ?- as Sofia in the movie, The Color Purple)
"I really became frustrated with the fact that all I did was write check after check to this or that charity without really feeling like it was a part of me." [88]
Heather Graham
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Heather Joan Graham
Born January 29, 1970 (age 36)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Height 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)
Heather Joan Graham (born January 29, 1970, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American film and television actress.
Childhood and early career
Her father, Jim, is a retired FBI agent and her mother, Joan, is a noted author of children's books. Graham has a younger sister, Aimee, who is also an aspiring actress and writer. The family followed a strict traditional Catholic upbringing of Irish descent. Heather has since estranged herself from the Catholic Church, saying it is: "made up of closed-minded men who believe a woman's sexuality is evil...Why do I have to do what all these men are saying?" [1]. Heather has practiced transcendental meditation since 1991 [2]. She is a convert to Hinduism.
Spending her early years in Virginia, Graham attended North Springfield Elementary School in Springfield, Virginia. Her family then moved to the Conejo Valley, Los Angeles, California, where she attended Sumac Elementary School, Lindero Canyon Middle School, and Agoura High School where she graduated in 1988.
Initially, Heather's parents were supportive of her budding acting career. However, her parents were concerned that she should not appear in any movie featuring sex or nudity. Breaking away from that mold, Heather appeared fully nude in several scenes in her breakout role in Boogie Nights. Heather is currently estranged from her parents, who are still devout Catholics.
In 1991, she appeared in the TV series Twin Peaks as Annie Blackburn, Agent Cooper's second-season love interest.
After high school, Graham enrolled in extension classes of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and she also met the actor James Woods. Their subsequent romantic involvement might have led to her being cast in the movie Diggstown (1992), which starred Woods. After two years had passed, Graham stopped taking classes at UCLA to pursue acting full time, over her parents' objections. She then moved to Hollywood, Calif., where she worked different jobs while continuing to establish herself as an actress.
Film and television career
As a supporting actress, Graham was cast in a number of parts that brought her critical notice, including Nadine in Drugstore Cowboy (1989). However, her breakthrough role was that of 1970s porn starlet Roller Girl in Boogie Nights (1997), for which she received several award nominations. Her first starring role was in 1999 with her lead role as Felicity Shagwell in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. She also appeared in the music video for "American Woman"- a song which Lenny Kravitz covered for the film's soundtrack. More recently, she starred as Mary Kelly in the film From Hell (2001), based on the story of Jack the Ripper.
Although Heather has been featured in mainstream films, she has also been cast in a number of independent films. Some of those films, like 2002's The Guru, have brought her critical praise. She also starred in the less successful Killing Me Softly.
She was named by People Magazine as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World 2001" [3].
She also played herself on one episode of the TV series Sex and the City. She was given special guest-star status on several episodes of NBC-TV's Scrubs during its fourth season (2004-2005), and also appeared in a small role as a teacher in an episode of Fox's Arrested Development. In 2005, Graham became the spokeswoman and TV model for the Garnier brand of hair care products. Graham's print ad for Skyy vodka, which was photographed in 1993 (titled "#3, Entourage") is still appearing in national magazines today as well.
Heather's most recent project was starring in the ABC-TV comedy series Emily's Reasons Why Not in 2006. However, ABC-TV announced that the show was canceled after its first airing on January 9, 2006. Because they print their covers weeks in advance, and they did not expect the quick cancellation, Life Magazine did a cover story on Graham two weeks later in their January 27, 2006 issue, and they referred to her as "TV's sexiest star." [4] [5]
) I think that puts it in the key of G major, but not certain. I have gotten really rusty about key signatures.
