Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi on January 29, 1954.  She was born to a single teenage mother and was raised in inner city Milwaukee.    At the age of nine years old, Oprah had a tragic event in her life: she was raped by a family member.  At fourteen years old, she had a child which died.  After these events took place, she was sent to live with her father.  After attending high school in Tennessee, she was able to land a job in radio with WVOL in Nashville.  After working there at the age of nineteen, she landed a job with the local evening news as a co-anchor.  At that time she was the youngest and the first African-American to anchor a news show in Nashville WTVF-TV.  With her success as a co-anchor she was offered a job in the day time talk show market.  

Oprah took brought a low daytime talk show from third place in the ratings to first place. The show was called "People Are Talking." With the success under her belt, she launched her own production company and her own talk show, which came to be known as "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

In 1984, Oprah moved to Chicago to host the show "AM Chicago."  She took that show to first place in under a month.  Once this show began to do well, she was able to get it renamed to "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and it was  aired for one full hour.