A Comprehensive Look at Oprah Winfrey's Impact on Media & Society

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of Oprah Winfrey's life, from her humble beginnings in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to her rise as a media mogul and philanthropist. It highlights her early struggles, her career milestones including her groundbreaking talk show, celebrity interviews, and film productions, and her significant philanthropic contributions. The essay also touches upon her personal life, family relationships, and the impact she had on American culture and society, celebrating her legacy as a media icon and a role model for many. The essay concludes with a memorial, encouraging donations to Oprah's charities in her name.

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Sunrise- January 29, 1954, Sunset- October 28, 2018
Oprah Winfrey an American media executive, television producer, actress, a
philanthropist and a talk show host died on Sunday 28th October 2018 after suffering from a
prolonged inflammation of the large and medium-sized airways in the lungs a disease commonly
known as bronchitis. Our “Nigger” as she was nicknamed while in school was an amazing
daughter, granddaughter, and mom and partly a wife like no other could be.
People will fondly remember her for her oration exhibition popularly known as “The
Oprah Winfrey exhibition” which stood out to be the most rated television show of its own
nature. The show was syndicated nationally between the years 1986 to 2011 in Chicago. Queen
of All Media as she was nicknamed was the well-endowed African American in the twentieth
century. In American History, she had been marked as the greatest black philanthropist.
Maximum are the times when she was ranked as the most influential woman in the world.
Oprah’s life began in Kosciusko, Mississippi. She was the daughter of Vernita Lee (born
in 1935), a single teenage mother who was a house cleaner at the time of her birth. Vernon

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Winfrey (born in 1933) a barber, coal miner, city council member originally an Armed Force is
Oprah’s biological father. Her grand mom helped her to learn how to read barely ahead of
attaining three years of age. She then presented her to an affiliate temple where she was by
named “The Sermonizer” due to her capacity to recount bible lyrics at her epoch.
Winfrey was a sister to other two half-sisters who were both named Patricia and Jeffrey
her half-brother who died in 1989 due to AIDS-related causes. Her immediate sister Patricia died
in February 2003 at the age of 43 years due to addictions related to cocaine.
Oprah’s school life began at the Lincoln High School in Milwaukee where she registered
an outstanding performance in the Upward Bound program. This resulted in her transfer to the
affluent suburban Nicolet High School. This as she regularly stated in several interviews was like
a turning point in her life as she started riding a bus to school in company with her African-
American colleagues.
It is around this moment when she was voted as the most popular girl and joined her high
school speech team at the East Nashville High School. This placed Oprah at the second billet in
the theatrical interpretation, which assured her packed erudition to the Tennessee State College,
where she pursued communication.
Oprah was the initial ebony feminine newscaster and the youngest newsreader at the Nashville’s
WLAC-TV. In the year 1976, she went to the Baltimore’s WJZ-TV as a co-caster of the six
o’clock news. Her television working continued until she emceed the affiliate rendition of the
famous program “Calling for Curreny”.
Oprah will be remembered for her celebrity interviews whose journey began in 1983
when she emceed the infrequent supreme-time one on one talk with the famous Michael Jackson

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an event that marked a history in the American television as the most viewed interview ever with
a record of 36.5 million viewers. She never found it difficult in the celebrity interview’s sector
until she interviewed Palin who she termed as a fantastic guest on November 18 2009.
In her film life, the smart, acute and a razor blade like mind actress co-starred as a
distraught housewife “Sofia” in the Steven Spielberg’s “The Pigment Purple”CITATION Kar14 \p
178 \l 1033 (Bowdre 178). This saw her nomination for the Academy Award as result of her Best
Supporting Actress. Historically, Oprah produced as well starred in her first film the “Beloved”
Winfrey was renowned for co-authoring five books. Among them was the weight-loss
book that broadcasted in 2005. The advance fee of the book broke the U.S President’s, Bill
Clinton World’s highest book advance fee recordCITATION Pau13 \p 4 \l 1033 (Kedrosky 4). Oprah
shall be remembered with her “Oprah.com” website, which she created to give more descriptions
pertaining her shows, public charity, book club and magazines.
At the time of her demise, Oprah was living in “The Promised Land” estate in Montecito,
California. Loved ones that cleared the way for Oprah is her mother Vernita Lee, Grandmother
Hattie Mae and biological dad Vernon Winfrey. Loved ones that will surely miss Oprah are
Patricia her half-sister as well all her followers through her celebrity life and so the story
continues until we meet again. We love, cherish and miss you, a hero, and a mentor to many.
In memory of Oprah please make donations to the Oprah.com or to the charity of your choice in
Oprah’s name. Travel safely Oprah until we meet again in eternity, may your soul rest in eternal
peace, Amen.

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Work Cited
Bowdre, Karen. "Presenting Oprah Winfrey, Her Films, and African American Literature ed. by
Tara Green (review)." Cinema Journal (2014): 178-182. Journal.
Kedrosky, Paul. "Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, and Steve Jobs: Who is an Entreprenuel Role
Model?" Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (2013): 1-7. Journal.