WINFREY, OPRAH 1954-

Television star and producer

Changing the Format

Oprah Winfrey changed the format of the daytime television talk show in the 1980s, scoring huge ratings success with frank discussions of sensitive, sometimes controversial topics. Her nationally syndicated Oprah Winfrey Show was one of the most popular of the decade, and she earned honors as an actress as well.

Rough Childhood

Winfrey came from a troubled childhood that included sexual abuse and a pregnancy when she was fourteen. Determined to rise above her unhappy circumstances, she entered beauty pageants in Nashville as a teenager and worked part-time at a local radio station. In 1973 she made the jump to television as a newscaster in Nashville; three years later, at age twenty-two, she was hired by ABC's Baltimore affiliate, WJZTV, to coanchor the station's local news. Her career in Baltimore initially foundered, but she found her niche in 1977 as the cohost of a local talk show, People Are Talking. Winfrey's talent as an interviewer was immediately apparent to WJZ executives and to viewers as well: she prepared for each guest, asked interesting, insightful questions, and was sincerely interested in how the guests responded. Soon People Are Talking was winning the ratings in its local market, beating the popular national talk show hosted by Phil Donahue.

Against Donahue

In 1984 Winfrey moved to Donahue's home turf to host A.M. Chicago, the local ABC affiliate's morning public-affairs show, which had consistently trailed Donahue in the ratings. Winfrey was considered an unlikely candidate for success in Chicago: as she later recalled, "Everybody…told me it wouldn't work. They said I was black, female, and overweight. They said Chicago is a racist city and the talk-show formula was on its way out." Her success in the city, however, was dramatic and immediate. Impressed by her warmth and directness, Chicago viewers took Winfrey to heart. As a local television critic reported soon after her arrival: "She is greeted by strangers on the street, recognized in restaurants and once was driven to work by a Chicago policeman when she was late and couldn't get a cab." Within three months she was outscoring Donahue handily in the ratings and by December 1984 was beginning to gain national attention. Early the next year Phil Donahue relocated his show to New York, probably due at least in part to the success of Winfrey's A.M. Chicago.

Winfrey's Success

The new success of A.M. Chicago was entirely due to Winfrey: her vibrant personality; her frank but good-natured interviewing style; and, most no-table, her willingness to share with viewers and guests the painful details of her past. During a show devoted to child abuse, for example, she revealed the abuse that she had suffered. In response viewers telephoned the station, grateful that Winfrey had the courage to speak out on the air. This empathy has been perhaps the most important factor in Winfrey's success on daytime television. Before her show talk shows as exemplified by Phil Donahue's series followed a journalistic format, focusing objectively on social and political issues. Winfrey has made her career by dealing with personal more than public concerns—including sensitive matters such as incest, adultery, obesity (a problem Winfrey herself has battled for her entire adult life), violent children, and sexual relationships—and more significantly by reaching out to the people behind these issues. Emotionally revealing for the guests, the host, and the audience, Winfrey's show tended to resemble a group-therapy session more than a news interview.

Academy Award Nomination

In 1985 Winfrey came to national attention for another accomplishment, her performance in the Steven Spielberg movie The Color Purple, based on Alice Walker's novel about the painful lives of women in the rural South. The film received eleven Academy Award nominations, including one for Winfrey for best supporting actress. About that time—taking advantage of Winfrey's national exposure from The Color Purple—her talk show changed its name from A.M. Chicago to The Oprah Winfrey Show and made the move to nationwide syndication. The Oprah Winfrey Show was an immediate national success and, thanks to her 25 percent ownership of the show, made Winfrey a wealthy women, earning her $2 million in 1986 and $12 million the year after. She won the first of many Daytime Emmy awards in 1987, beating out former perennial winner Phil Donahue for outstanding talk show, host, and directing honors. Winfrey also became a sought-after public speaker around the country.

Competition

The success of The Oprah Winfrey Show ended Phil Donahue's domination of the format and proved that there was room for competition among day-time talk shows. Winfrey was beating Donahue in most of the markets where they were scheduled directly opposite each other, but Donahue's ratings were actually up as well. Hence, there was little professional animosity between the two hosts. Winfrey continued to explore a diverse range of issues with her usual candid style and featured celebrity interviews also. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the floodgates opened, and dozens of new talk shows tried to duplicate Winfrey's success. These shows were frequently sensational and exploitative, however, and the new crop of hosts rarely treated their guests with the same compassion and taste that had made Winfrey's show distinctive.

Money

By the end of the decade Oprah Winfrey was alone at the top of the daytime television ratings and one of the wealthiest women in America. A dramatic series she produced and in which she starred in for ABC, The Women of Brewster Place, debuted in 1990 but met with lukewarm response and was quickly cancelled.

Source:

George Mair, Oprah Winfrey: The Real Story (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1994).

DONAHUE, Phil 1935–

PERSONAL

Full name, Phillip John Donahue; born December 21, 1935, in Cleveland, OH; son of Phillip (a furniture salesman) and Catherine (a shoe clerk; maiden name, McClory) Donahue; married Margaret Mary Cooney, February 1, 1958 (divorced, 1975); married Marlo Thomas (an actress), May 21, 1980; children: (first marriage) Michael, Kevin, Daniel, Jim, Mary Rose. Education: University of Notre Dame, B.B.A., 1957. Religion: Roman Catholic.

Career:

Host and actor. Albuquerque National Bank, Albuquerque, NM, check sorter, 1957; KYW, Cleveland, OH, radio announcer, 1957; KYW–TV, Cleveland, OH, television announcer, 1958; WAJB, Adrian, MI, program and news director, 1958–59; WHIO, Dayton, OH, news announcer, 1959–63, then newscaster, 1963–67; E. F. MacDonald, trading stamp salesperson, 1967; WLWD, Dayton, OH, radio personality, c. 1967.

Awards, Honors:

Personal Award, Peabody Awards, 1981; Golden Apple Award, daytime star of the year, 1982.

CREDITS

Television Appearances; Series:

Host, The Phil Donahue Show, WLWD–TV (Dayton, OH), 1967–74.

Host, Donahue (also known as The Phil Donahue Show), syndicated, 1974–96.

Contributor of special segments, Today (also known as The Today Show and NBC News Today), NBC, 1979–82.

Cohost and interviewer, The Last Word, ABC, 1982–83.

Host, Donahue/Pozner, CNBC, 1992.

Host, Donahue, MSNBC, 2002–2003.

Television Appearances; Movies:

Himself, First Steps, CBS, 1985.

Himself/talk show host, The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader–Murdering Mom, HBO, 1993.

Television Appearances; Specials:

Host, Donahue and Kids (documentary), NBC, 1981.

Narrator, Love, Sex … and Marriage, ABC, 1983.

Bob Hope Buys NBC?, NBC, 1985.

Host, Phil Donahue Examines the Human Animal, NBC, 1986.

Host, Drinking and Driving: The Toll, The Tears (documentary), PBS, 1986.

Himself, Sesame Street Special (also known as Put Down the Duckie), PBS, 1988.

Happy Birthday, Bugs: 50 Looney Years, CBS, 1990.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (documentary), Arts and Entertainment, 1991.

Host and moderator, The Issue Is Race (documentary), PBS, 1992.

In a New Light (documentary), 1992.

Host, Donahue: The 25th Anniversary, NBC, 1992.

Host and moderator, Condition Critical: The American Health Care Forum (documentary), PBS, 1992.

The Barbara Walters Special, ABC, 1992.

What Is This Thing Called Love?, ABC, 1993.

Talk Back America, CNBC, 1994, 1995.

Shock Video 2: The Show Business of Crime and Punishment (documentary), HBO, 1995.

Breakthroughs: Amazing Things to Come (documentary), NBC, 1995.

Talked to Death (documentary), HBO, 1997.

Himself, Intimate Portrait: Marlo Thomas (documentary), Lifetime, 2000.

The 70s: The Decade that Changed Television (documentary), ABC, 2000.

Madalyn Murray O'Hair (documentary), Arts and Entertainment, 2001.

Television Appearances; Awards Presentations:

Host, The 15th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, CBS, 1988.

Host, Better World Society Awards Dinner, TBS, 1989.

The 16th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, NBC, 1989.

Host, The 5th Annual Better World Society Awards Dinner, TBS, 1990.

Host, The 19th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, NBC, 1992.

Presenter, The Walt Disney Company Presents the American Teacher Awards, The Disney Channel, 1993.

The 9th Annual Television Academy Hall of Fame, The Disney Channel, 1993.

Presenter, The 22nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, NBC, 1995.

Honoree, The 23rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, CBS, 1996.

The 25th Daytime Emmy Awards, NBC, 1998.

The 27th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, ABC, 2000.

Television Appearances; Episodic:

Himself, Bozo's Circus, WGN Chicago, 1978.

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, NBC, 1980.

Late Night with David Letterman, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992.

Himself, The Howard Stern Show, syndicated, 1990.

Himself, "Splatoon," L.A. Law, NBC, 1991.

Himself, "Sex, Lies and Teenagers," Blossom, NBC, 1991.

Himself, "Tony Micelli, This Is Your Life," Who's the Boss?, ABC, 1992.

Himself, Late Show with David Letterman, CBS, 1993.

Himself, "Ellen: A Hollywood Tribute: Part 2," Ellen, ABC, 1998.

Voice of Larry, "Our Parents, Ourselves," Frasier, NBC, 1999.

Himself, The View, ABC, 2002.

Live with Regis and Kelly, 2003.

The Wayne Brady Show, syndicated, 2003.

Himself, Tinseltown TV, 2003.

Film Appearances:

Mugger in alley, Deadly Addiction (also known as Rock House), Hemdale Home Video, 1988.

(Uncredited; in archive footage) Himself, Man of the Year, Seventh Art Releasing, 1995.

(Uncredited; in archive footage) Himself, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life (documentary), Strand Releasing, 1997.

Preventative Warriors (documentary), 2004.

Radio Appearances; Series:

Host, Conversation Piece, WHIO (Dayton, OH), 1963–67.

WRITINGS

Autobiography:

Donahue: My Own Story, Simon & Schuster, 1980.

Nonfiction:

The Human Animal, Simon & Schuster, 1985.

OTHER SOURCES

Books:

St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, St. James Press, 2000.

Periodicals:

Broadcasting & Cable, February 6, 1995, p. 13; January 22, 1996, p. 146; April 8, 2002, p. 22.

Commonweal, March 22, 1996, p. 20.

Entertainment Weekly, November 8, 1996, p. 84; July 26, 2002, p. 20.

National Review, May 6, 2002.

New Republic, February 12, 1996, p. 12.

People, May 20, 1996, p. 54.

Variety, March 10, 2003, p. 6.