'''Oprah Gail Winfrey''' (born January 29 1954) is a multiple-Emmy Award winning host of ''
The Oprah Winfrey Show'', the highest rated talk show in television history
[http://www.kingworld.com/release/oprah_winfrey.html King World press release Retrieved July 13, 2006]. She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. According to ''Forbes'' magazine, she was the richest African American of the 20th century and the world's only black billionaire as of 2004.
[Forbes (2006). http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/O0ZT.html The World's Richest People: Oprah Winfrey. Retrieved June 22, 2006.]Early life
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.
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.
At age six, Winfrey moved to a inner city ghetto in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her mother, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother. Winfrey has stated that she was raped by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend. 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 a prestigious all-white high school in the suburbs. 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, 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
