Oprah Winfrey

Host, author, actor, and media mogul Oprah Winfrey was born to an unwed teen mother in rural Mississippi in 1954. She grew up in Mississippi, Minnesota, and Tennessee as she moved between the homes of her mother, grandmother, and other relatives. Raised in extreme poverty, Winfrey nevertheless excelled as a student and as a speaker, winning a full scholarship to Tennessee State University through an oratory competition. By this point, Winfrey was already reading the news part-time for local radio station WVOL which she continued to do in college. After graduating, she became a TV news anchor for WLAC-TV in Nashville. Winfrey would land a number of news anchor jobs around the country before moving to Chicago to become the host of a low rated talk show called "AM Chicago" (WLS, 1984-86). Within months Winfrey's revamp of the program had it beating then-ratings juggernaut " Donahue " (Syndicated, 1967-1995). Though she paused in the middle of this ascent to star in the film "The Color Purple" (1985), Winfrey soon built upon her talk show success, signing a new deal to host her own syndicated talk show titled "The Oprah Winfrey Show" (Syndicated, 1985-2011). The show began as a tabloid style talk show typical of its time, but Winfrey eventually broadened the range of topics and adjusted the tone to one more serious. Her lengthy list of awards includes the 2011 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, multiple Daytime Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Talk Show and Outstanding Talk Show Host categories, a Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2018, People's Choice Awards, multiple Primetime Emmy Awards and others. In 2011 she launched cable network OWN, and is considered to be "the ultimate self-made business leader."