Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi to an unmarried teenage mother. Her mother was a housemaid while her biological father was a coal miner who later became a barber and businessman. After having a troubled adolescence because of a sexual abuse she told her mother but she dint believe her so she moved to Nashville with her father. Her father was way different than her mother he was strict and argued that education was priority. While on Nashville things got better for her as she landed in a radio station job and at age 19 became the co-anchoring at the local news. Winfrey became an honors student, was voted Most Popular Girl, and joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School, placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation. She won an oratory contest, which secured her full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black institution, where she studied communication. "Oprah Winfrey." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 12 Feb. 2015.
Much of Oprah's career life was always on media. As of age 17 she was offered a part time at a radio station named WVOL AM 1470 at Nashville, Tennessee after winning a beauty contest representing them. As years passed on 1976, Ms' Winfrey left Nashville for a position as news reporter and anchor at WJZ-TV. On that same network she co-hosted a show with Richard Sher which had beat the national best Phil Donahue in view meanings. Six years later she moved to Chicago to host the A.M. Chicago show where she once again gain more views than Phil Donahue but this time her show was taped on the same city as Phil's show. On 1985 Oprah finally got a chance to complete her dream of being an actress on the film 'The Color Purple' where she played as Sofia. On 1986, Oprah's Talk show was bought by King World productions which made her the first African American host to receive national programming.