The Oprah Winfrey Show (also known as Oprah) is a United States syndicated talk show, hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey, and is the highest-rated talk show in American television history.

It is currently the longest-running daytime television talk show in the United States, having run since September 8, 1986, for over 22 seasons and 3,000 episodes (as of September 10, 2007). The show is renewed through 2011 but in a 2007 interview with Larry King, Oprah said that in 2011 she will not renew her contract, and thus end the show for good.

Oprah has been included in Time magazine's shortlist of the best television series of the twentieth century in 1998, and it made the top 50 of TV Guide's countdown of the greatest shows of all time in 2002.

The show is highly influential, especially with women, and many of its topics penetrate into American pop-cultural consciousness. While early episodes of the show followed a Phil Donahue-style exploration of sensationalistic social issues, Oprah eventually transformed her series into a more positive, spiritually uplifting experience marked by book clubs, celebrity interviews, self-improvement segments, and philanthropic forays into world events.

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is the American multiple-Emmy Award winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in television history. She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time, and was the world's only black billionaire for three straight years. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

Born in rural Mississippi to a poor unwed teenaged mother, and later raised in a Milwaukee ghetto, Winfrey was raped at the age of nine, and at fourteen, gave birth to a son who died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication, she is thought to have popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue, which a Yale study claimed broke 20th century taboos and allowed gays, transsexuals, and transgender people to enter the mainstream. By the mid 1990s she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing confession culture and promoting controversial self-help fads, she is generally admired for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others.

Chicago-based daytime talk-show host Oprah Winfrey invites a guest panel to discuss a topic, in front of a studio audience. The topics are often controversial or sensational. Written by Tad Dibbern

She permanently withdrew herself and her show from consideration for a Daytime Emmy Award after being awarded the Lifetime Achievement in 1998. She was quoted as saying, "After you've achieved it for a lifetime, what else is there?"

In addition to being a news anchor on WJZ-TV13 in Baltimore, Maryland, Winfrey was co-host with Richard Sher (a reporter) on a local talk show called "People are Talking" on that station.

Graduated from East Nashville High School in Nashville, Tennessee (1971), where she was voted most popular.

Was sued by Texas cattlemen who claimed that Oprah defamed beef on her talk show. The case went to trial, causing Oprah to have to relocate her show's production to Amarillo, Texas, for the duration of the trial. She was found not liable.

She was ranked first in Entertainment Weekly's 1998 list of the most powerful people in show business, but dropped to sixth in the 1999 list. Still, she was the highest ranking performer, as well as the highest ranking woman, and the only African-American to make the list.

Graduate of Tennessee State University, with a degree in Speech and Performing Arts.

Is the first woman in history to own and produce her own talk show.

The given name on her birth certificate is Orpah, but the spelling was eventually changed to Oprah after others had difficulty pronouncing her name.

Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1985" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 37.

(15 September 1997) Announced that Oprah would receive $130,000,000 for continuing her talk show through the 1999-2000 TV season.

Chosen by "People" magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 1997.

(1994) Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca, New York.

(Fall 1999) She and Stedman Graham (I) are teaching "Dynamics of Leadership" class at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

(October 1999) Given an honorary National Book Award for her "influential contribution to reading and books".

(November 1999) Awarded (lst) 50th anniversary medal by National Book Foundation, NYC.

Her immensely popular TV talk show is a Harpo Production. Harpo is Oprah spelled backwards. Harpo is also the name of a character in Color Purple, The (1985) (Oprah's film debut) played by 'Willard E. Pug'.

Gave birth to a baby boy when she was just 14. The baby died after 2 weeks, from complications of being born 2 months premature.

Was instrumental in the passage of the Oprah Bill, in the early 1990s. The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton (I), and is aimed at stopping child abuse.

Raised in abject poverty, she received her first pair of shoes in 1959 at age 6. She learned to read at age 2½. In fact, when it was time for her to start kindergarten, she wrote a note to her teacher insisting she should be in first grade. The teacher agreed and after finishing that grade she was then skipped to third grade.

(1986 - present) Partner is Stedman Graham (I).

Born at 7:51 PM EST

(April 2002) She and her former personal trainer Bob Greene announced they are buying seven shoreline lots from Getty Family Trust to build several homes, including one on 102-acre lot for Oprah. They plan to put conservation first and keep site development low key.

(Febuary 2003) Added to Forbes Billionare list, making her the first African American woman to do so.

Ranked #1 on VH1's list of the "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons" (2003)

Measurements: 36-25-37 (as 18 year-old pageant contestant), 44D-29-40 (in 1990 at 200#+), 36C-25-35 (after 1995 diet), (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

Elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY

Ranked #1 Pop Culture Icon on VH1's "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons" (2003) (mini), beating out Superman and Elvis.

(2004) Net worth is estimated to be US$1.1 billion.

(June 2004) Purchased a house at 3330 Radcliffe Avenue, West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This superb 11,000 sq ft waterfront property was on sale for Cdn $18 million, at the time British Columbia's most expensive house, but she paid Cdn $17 million (US$13 million).

Natural daughter of Vernon Winfrey by Vernita Lee (born 2 May 1935).

According to Forbes magazine, her 2005 net worth is $1.3 billion. She was the first African-American women to make the list of billionaires, in 2003.

Was a guest at friends Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger's star-studded wedding

First African-American woman to become a billionaire in American history.

(2005) After years of publicly criticizing David Letterman's late-night television show, "Late Show with David Letterman" (1993), she and Letterman finally settled their differences when she agreed to appear on the December 1, 2005 episode, during which time she was be in New York to promote her musical of Color Purple, The (1985). During the Superbowl of 2007, they appeared in an advertisement together for Letterman's show. In the ad, they sat together on a couch watching the Superbowl, wearing opposing team jerseys.

Has a cameo playing herself in Throw Momma from the Train (1987). In a "clip" from her show, she interviews a writer (the ex-wife of Billy Crystal's character) whose plagiarized and embellished "life story" is at the top of the bestseller lists (foreshadowing the James Frey controversy twenty years later).

Was #3 on the annual Forbes magazine Celebrity 100 list in 2006

(October 2006) Collapsed from heat exhaustion during a recent visit to her hometown of Kosciusko, Mississippi.

Winfrey's name was originally "Orpah," after the biblical figure in the book of Ruth. Several different stories allude to the fact that either a misspelling on her birth certificate or a struggle with the pronunciation of her name eventually led to "Oprah" being adopted as her given name.

Has Native American ancestry.

Appearing on the annual "Time 100" list, Time's ranking of the 100 most influential people in the world, in 2007 again, she is the only person who has been on that list five times (May 2007).

Her two-year-old golden retriever, Gracie, died after accidentally choking to death on another dog's ball [July 2007].