Oprah_ A Biography Part 26

"Anne asked me if she should do it, and I told her yes, because as soon as her publisher [Pocket Books] heard that Oprah wanted her and her daughter to appear, they offered to publish her book in paperback. So I said she should do the show, sell some books, and get her message out." Robinson, the curt British host of the weekly game show The Weakest The Weakest Link, had a certain visibility in the United States at the time, but according to her agent, had a certain visibility in the United States at the time, but according to her agent, her experience with Oprah was "h.e.l.lacious."

"Anne yelled at me after the show," said Victor. "She hated Oprah and felt she had not been treated right by the Oprah people." Robinson refused to discuss the matter, but Ed Victor recalled it as "a nightmare all around," adding, "As a consequence, I no longer represent her."

Marian Fontana, whose husband, Dave, a firefighter, died at the World Trade Center on 9/11, was hounded by Oprah's producers, who had booked her for an upcoming show. "It was right after Dave's funeral...and they were calling every ten minutes wanting something else. They wanted wedding videotapes and they wanted family photos and they wanted close-up shots." When they heard she was holding a service for her husband on the beach where he had been a lifeguard for sixteen years, they insisted on coming.

"They were very pushy," she said, and when she declined, they canceled the booking.

In the spring of 2008, Oprah's producers began booking for May sweeps and called James Frey to come on the show to talk about the paperback publication of his novel Bright s.h.i.+ny Morning. Bright s.h.i.+ny Morning. They knew a rematch between Oprah and the author of They knew a rematch between Oprah and the author of A A Million Little Pieces was a guaranteed ratings geyser, but the writer was not so eager to was a guaranteed ratings geyser, but the writer was not so eager to return to the scene of his reaming. Since getting bludgeoned on The Oprah Winfrey Show The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006, Frey and his wife had lost their newborn son, Leo, who died eleven days after birth from spinal muscular atrophy, and the writer was not going to put himself through another one of Her Majesty's muggings, even to promote his novel, unless there were certain stipulations in place. Oprah's producers explained the situation to her, and in the end, Frey was not booked, but Oprah did call him to apologize for how she had treated him two years before. She did not use her show to publicly say she was sorry, but Frey told reporters he appreciated her private apology. Oprah's remorse may have been triggered by reading about a character in Frey's novel who is embroiled in a scandal and, feeling people turn on him, begins to tape-record his conversations with the producers and host of a television talk show, including confessions the host made when she called him at home.

In their scramble to give Oprah ratings her producers can be rambunctious. "I found them to be...exceedingly difficult," said Daniel J. Bagdade, the attorney who represented the first child in the United States to be sentenced as an adult for murder. His client, Nathaniel (Nate) Abraham, shot and killed Ronald Greene in Pontiac, Michigan.

At the age of eleven Nate was sent to a maximum-security juvenile detention facility until he was twenty-one. Upon his release, Oprah's producers were waiting to sign him to do a show, featuring his on-air apology to the family of his victim. His lawyer was not sanguine about putting him in the intense media spotlight of The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, but Nate was enthralled with the celebrity allure of Oprah. "She's the person he admires most," said the attorney. "So I agreed....But once we got to Chicago, well..."

Seeing that what the producers had in mind for the show would put his client in legal jeopardy, Bagdade revoked Nate's signed release. "Then it was two days and nights with Oprah and her attorney, a tough older gentleman [William Becker heads Harpo's legal staff of twenty-five], and her hard-charging producers, who were aggressive and really backed us into a corner. They threatened to sue us for breaking the contract....'We are not going to leave it here,' they said. Oprah and I were back and forth on cell phones at midnight as she tried to get the show on the air. When I explained the legal complications to her, she called a lawyer in Michigan to make sure I was telling her the truth. She was reasonable and professional throughout, but I can't say the same about her staff."

In the end the show never aired. Instead, Oprah mediated Nate's apology to his victim's family privately, and Bagdade accompanied him and his mother and Ronald Greene's relatives into Oprah's office, which, he said, "was the size of a large house.

Directly off her office is a wardrobe room, which is the size of another large house....The shoe area alone seems to cover half a block." Bagdade did not see Oprah's huge office bathroom with its pond-sized tub of rose-colored marble.

With Harpo's lawyer sitting in the corner, Oprah stood at her big desk and proceeded to bring the two families together. "A true apology had never been given before, so this was a very moving experience for all of us," said Nate's lawyer. "It's a good thing it was not on-camera. It would've been too exploitive. The two mothers-Nate's and Mrs. Greene--hugged and kissed. Both are churchgoing ladies, so they talked about G.o.d and his forgiveness."

Once Oprah realized she was not going to get the gripping television show she wanted, she could easily have sent the Abrahams and the Greenes back to Pontiac, Michigan. But to her credit she chose to complete the stated purpose of the show: to give a young killer the chance to express remorse for his crime by apologizing to his victim's family, which gave everyone a measure of peace. "Oprah really went out of her way with Nate," said his attorney. "She gave him lots of advice and took a special interest in him during those couple of days."

Not all sc.r.a.pped shows brought out Oprah's magnanimity, however, particularly if money was involved. When she got a chance to interview Monica Lewinsky, she said she was thrilled to land the young intern's first interview about her s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p with President Clinton, which eventually led to his impeachment. Lewinsky, too, was excited, especially when told that Oprah was going to embrace her in front of her studio audience.

But when the former White House aide insisted on keeping the foreign distribution rights to that interview after it aired in the United States, Oprah balked. At issue were world licensing fees in excess of $1 million, which Lewinsky said she needed to pay her mounting legal fees. Being one of the world's most sought-after interviewees then, she was of immense international interest, because no one had ever heard her voice or her side of the story that nearly toppled a president. Oprah insisted on keeping the foreign rights to the interview; Monica said she could not afford to give them up. The next day on her talk show, Oprah announced, "I did have the interview with Monica Lewinsky, and then the conversation moved in a direction that I did not want to go. I don't pay for interviews, no matter how it's couched. I've taken myself out of the running. I don't even want the interview now. Whoever gets the interview, G.o.d help you in your struggle."

The two-hour interview went to Barbara Walters, for a special edition of 20/20 20/20 on on ABC, and drew forty-five million viewers in the United States, with Lewinsky retaining world rights. Later, in a story t.i.tled "How Oprah Dumped Monica," George George magazine magazine recounted that Oprah had "trashed" the former intern when she refused to sign an agreement with Harpo. "[I]n Lewinsky's eyes, Winfrey proved to be...heartless, treacherous, and disloyal."

None of that would be believed by any of Oprah's adoring fans or the studio audiences, who wait months, sometimes years, for tickets to her show and then stand in line for hours to be admitted. "Everything about The Oprah Winfrey Show The Oprah Winfrey Show is orchestrated is orchestrated right down to the last squeal of the studio audience," said a publis.h.i.+ng executive who has escorted many authors to Chicago over the years. "The drill goes something like this: Once you get through security and get seated, four or five producers--not just one--warm up the audience for about forty-five minutes. We are all given directions on how to act.

We're told to jump and scream. When Oprah says something funny, we're supposed to laugh and clap. Then we are rehea.r.s.ed. 'Now let's try it. If Oprah is shocked, you are shocked. C'mon. Act horrified. Show it. Let's do it again. The more you react, the better chance you'll have to be shown on television. This is important. You are Oprah's audience. You are her portal to the world. So you must respond.' These producers are trained to work everyone into a frenzy so the audience is hysterical by the time Oprah comes out of the tunnel. The minute she appears, everyone jumps up and begins cheering and weeping and screaming and stomping."

Oprah became so accustomed to rapturous audiences that she reacted negatively if she saw someone not standing to applaud her. "One time she spotted a young black man who just sat there," said the publis.h.i.+ng executive. "She began heckling him. 'I see someone here who is very brave.' She began shuckin' and jivin': 'Oh no. I don't have to stand up and cheer for Oprah. No, sir. Not me. I'm the man. I won't bow to Oprah.' She did her whole ghetto shtick. It was ugly, very ugly for about four or five minutes while the poor guy just sat there as she mocked him. She wouldn't let up....She was p.i.s.sed that he was not giving her the adoring routine that the rest of the audience was....Turned out the young man was mentally challenged and severely disabled."

Part of the excitement in attending one of Oprah's shows is the possibility of walking away with a fabulous giveaway--TiVos, iPods, Kindles, cakes, clothes, even cars. The most antic.i.p.ated gift show of every year--"Oprah's Favorite Things"--started in 1999 as an outgrowth of Oprah's pa.s.sion for shopping. For years she had shared her spending orgies with her viewers--her towels, her pajamas, her cashmere sweaters, her diamond earrings--and they enjoyed her unbridled enthusiasm over her newfound wealth.

Excited about becoming a millionaire, she constantly asked her celebrity guests, "When did you know you were rich?" "How does it feel to be able to buy anything you want?"

"What did you do when you first got real money?" "Has being a millionaire changed your life?"

When she started "Oprah's Favorite Things" she called the manufacturer of each item she picked and asked them to send her three hundred freebies to give to her studio audience. The publicity they received in exchange launched many into new levels of profitability because they were then flooded with orders from her viewers. Small businesses such as Spanx, Inc., Thermage beauty treatment, Philosophy skin care, Carol's Daughter beauty products, and Lafco fragrances became behemoths as a result of making something that Oprah liked; thus few companies ever denied her free merchandise. "My deal is only this: If I'm going to say it's my favorite thing because it is my favorite thing, all you have to do is give me three hundred of them, okay? [T]here was this book that somebody had given me--a book called The Way We Live. The Way We Live. It was a great coffee table It was a great coffee table book, and it had pictures from all over the world of different homes and how people live in these different homes. Do you know we called the publisher [Crown] and they said no?

They said they didn't have that many books to give away for free because I think the book is expensive [$75], if you buy it in stores. Can you believe that? So you know what I said, 'Well, it's not going to be my favorite thing no more!' But how dumb is that [publisher]?

That's pretty dumb. It's a book. How many books could they have sold?"

Oprah referred to her "Favorite Things" show as "the hottest ticket in television"

and kept the airdate secret until the day of the show. Then she devoted an hour to giving away her favorite things of that year, which have included organic cheesecakes, candied popcorn, Ugg boots, CDs, books, coats, laptops, digital cameras, custom-designed Nike shoes, diamond watches, BlackBerrys, and flat-screen TVs. Each year she announced the items with great fanfare and always included the retail price. In 2007 she presented her most outrageously exorbitant item at the end of the show, when she hollered, "This is my most expensive favorite thing ever, ever, ever." Nearly spent with o.r.g.a.s.mic delight over what they had already received, her studio audience trembled as the drums rolled and the velvet curtains opened to reveal an LG refrigerator with a high-definition TV built into the door, a DVD hookup, and a radio, plus technology for a slide show, a five-day forecast, and a laptop holding one hundred recipes. "It [retails for] $3,789.00," Oprah screamed. The grand total for that year's Favorite Things was $7,200. Conan O'Brien joked on late-night television, " Forbes Forbes magazine released its list of the twenty richest magazine released its list of the twenty richest women....Oprah is number one. The rest are in her audience."

The list of "Oprah's Favorite Things" seemed to get longer and more expensive over the years, making her, as one writer noted, "The countess of ka-ching, the monarch of materialism." When she was criticized for cra.s.s commercialism, Oprah announced that, going forward, the audiences for her "Favorite Things" shows would be deserving recipients such as underpaid teachers or Katrina volunteers.

Her most ballyhooed giveaway occurred on September 13, 2004. "That was the best year I've ever experienced in television with the exception of the first year," she told the writer P. J. Bednarski. She opened the season by giving away 276 brand-new Pontiac G6s, worth more than $28,000 apiece, for a collective total of $7.8 million.

"It was not a stunt and I resent the word stunt, stunt, " she said, explaining that when a " she said, explaining that when a General Motors executive offered to give the cars as part of her "Favorite Things" show, she said no. "I can't do that because that's not my favorite car and I'm not going to say it is." Then she remembered Jane Pauley's new talk show was launching in September as a strong alternative to her own. Oprah's producers pushed, saying she could not turn down the opportunity to give away cars, so they set about finding worthy souls who needed wheels. Jane Pauley's launch show was buried under Oprah's free cars show, which became one of the most talked-about giveaways in television history.

"My heart was palpitating [that day]," she recalled. "We had real emergency medical personnel standing by because sometimes people really do pa.s.s out in the audience."

Revving herself and her audience into a paroxysm of ecstasy, she pa.s.sed out small boxes to everyone and said that one box contained the keys to a free car. The audience opened their boxes and each found a set of keys. Oprah started yelling and jumping and pumping her arms: "You win a car! You win a car! Everybody gets the car. Everybody gets the car! Everybody gets the car!" She led her delirious audience out to the Harpo parking lot, where 276 gleaming blue Pontiac G6s had been wrapped in huge red bows.

"This car is so cool," said Oprah. "It has one of the most powerful engines on the road."

Teachers and ministers and nurses and caregivers who had been walking to work for years or taking buses and having to transfer three times were thrilled by their lifechanging gifts. However, almost immediately they learned they would have to pay taxes (approximately $7,000) on the cars, because they were considered prizes rather than gifts.

Many turned to Oprah for help, and her publicist said they had three options: They could keep the car and pay the tax, sell the car and pay the tax with the profit, or forfeit the car.

There was no other option from Oprah, and Pontiac already had donated the cars and paid the sales tax and licensing fees.

"Was this really a do-good event Winfrey pulled off," asked Lewis Lazare in the Chicago Sun-Times, "or a cold-blooded publicity stunt carefully designed to make the "or a cold-blooded publicity stunt carefully designed to make the talk show diva really look good at the expense of Pontiac, which gladly provided cars in exchange for some of Winfrey's promotional plugging?" He added: "It's increasingly apparent she's...become an unabashed s.h.i.+ll for a slew of marketing-savvy companies salivating at the prospect of getting her to back their products in the hope big sales will ensue."

Oprah was incensed. "For all the people who say, 'Oh, you didn't personally pay for the cars yourself,' which I heard, I say, 'Well, I could have, and what difference does it make, if they get the cars? And why should I have paid for them if Pontiac was willing to do so?' "

By then she was surfing on high waves of spending, and sounding a trifle cavalier as she discussed her $500 mink eyelashes, her one-thousand-thread-count sheets, and FedEx-ing her horses from her farm in Indiana to her house in Hawaii. She frequently name-dropped when talking of the celebrity gifts she had received, such as the twentyone pairs of Christian Louboutin shoes ($1,600 a pair) from Jessica Seinfeld; the RollsRoyce Corniche II convertible ($100,000) from John Travolta; the roomful of Casa Blanca lilies from American Idol American Idol judge Simon Cowell, which she said "looked like a judge Simon Cowell, which she said "looked like a Mafia funeral"; and the white Bentleys ($250,000 each) that she and Gayle received from Tyler Perry. "I call him my rich Negro man," Oprah told viewers.

Speaking at a fund-raiser for a community school in Baltimore, she said, "I have lots of things like all these Manolo Blahniks. I have all that and I think it's great. I'm not one of these people, like, 'Well, we must renounce ourselves.' No. I have a closet full of shoes, and it's a good thing." She told the well-heeled crowd she enjoyed her money without guilt or apology. "I was coming back from Africa on one of my trips. I had taken one of my wealthy friends with me. She said, 'Don't you just feel guilty? Don't you feel terrible?' I said, 'No, I don't. I do not know how my being dest.i.tute is going to help them.'

Then I said when we got home, 'I'm going home to sleep on my Pratesi sheets right now and I'll feel good about it.' "

She recalled for her magazine readers that on her forty-second birthday she and Gayle were in Miami, where she decided to buy herself a big Cartier watch as a present.

En route, she spotted a black Bentley Azure in a dealers.h.i.+p window. "Oh, my G.o.d," she said. "That is the most beautiful car." She bought the Bentley on the spot. "It's a convertible. The top is down and guess what? It starts to rain. It's pouring." Oprah did not put the top up on her $365,000 car. "Because I want[ed] to ride in a convertible on my birthday." Next stop: the Cartier boutique for the Diabolo small model watch in yellow gold with all-diamond bezel, case, dial, and bracelet for $117,000.

She told viewers after attending her first couture show in Paris, "I could have bought a home for what I bought the Chanel outfits for." She entertained at the same apex of luxury, spending millions to host parties. "Eyes have not seen, nor ears heard," said Vernon Winfrey as he tried to describe the sumptuous events his daughter staged for Maya Angelou's birthday every five years. Many guests recalled Maya's seventieth, in April 1998, as Oprah's most opulent. She rented the Seabourn Pride Seabourn Pride for a week's cruise in for a week's cruise in the Caribbean, invited two hundred people, and gave each a suite with a balcony on the luxury s.h.i.+p. "She even had two thousand yellow rubber duckies dropped into the s.h.i.+p's pool so we could play like children in a bathtub," recalled one guest. Their invitations arrived four months before the Easter event asking everyone for s.h.i.+rt size; pant size; shoe size; champagne preference; favorite liquors, foods, cosmetics, fragrances, and body lotions--all of which were stocked in their suites, along with terry-cloth robes st.i.tched with their names. "I think she spent four million dollars on that party," said Vernon, shaking his head as he recalled the many stops the s.h.i.+p made for lavish lunches on white beaches, the silk-lined tents for dinners, and the moonlit concerts with Nancy Wilson singing under the stars. Oprah threw a similar bash for Maya when she turned seventyfive; on Angelou's eightieth birthday, Oprah rented Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach for a weekend and arranged special performances by Michael Feinstein, Natalie Cole, Jessye Norman, and Tony Bennett.

In 2005, at her Montecito mansion, Oprah hosted her most lavish event, which she billed as "A Bridge to Now--A Celebration for Remarkable Women During Remarkable Times," with cameras filming every moment for a special on ABC t.i.tled Oprah Winfrey's Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball. A year and a half in the planning, the event honoring black women gave A year and a half in the planning, the event honoring black women gave the network its biggest non-sports ratings in three years. The year before, 2004, Oprah had devoted two shows to celebrating her fiftieth birthday, the first of which was said to be a "surprise" hosted by "my best friend" (Gayle King) and "my favorite white man"

(John Travolta). That show, called a "modest little Super Bowl of Love" by the Chicago Chicago Sun-Times, was followed by an after-party at Harpo for 500 employees and then 5 days of was followed by an after-party at Harpo for 500 employees and then 5 days of celebration, beginning with a dinner, hosted by Stedman at Chicago's Metropolitan Club for 75 people, including Oprah's father and mother.

The next day they boarded Oprah's jet and flew to California, where she was guest of honor at a ladies luncheon for 50 at the Bel-Air Hotel, her favorite LA retreat. The guests there included Salma Hayek, Diane Sawyer, Maria Shriver, Toni Morrison, Ellen DeGeneres, and Celine Dion. The following night there was a dinner dance for 200 at a neighbor's estate in Montecito, and the next morning a Sunday brunch for 175 people at the San Ysidro Ranch, all of which was filmed for a second Oprah show. In addition, Oprah invited People People to cover the dinner dance staged by her party planner, Colin Cowie, to cover the dinner dance staged by her party planner, Colin Cowie, full of what he called JDMs (jaw-dropping moments): 50 violinists, 200 waiters (one per guest), a chocolate-and-raspberry pound cake gilded with twenty-three-karat gold, music by Stevie Wonder, and wall-to-wall celebrities, including the Bel-Air luncheon ladies and their husbands and partners, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, Robin and Dr. Phil McGraw, Tina Turner, and Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.

For "The Legends Weekend," Oprah selected twenty-five black women she considered to be legends: Maya Angelou (author/poet/actor/producer/director) s.h.i.+rley Caesar (singer) Diahann Carroll (actor/singer) Elizabeth Catlett (sculptor) Ruby Dee (actor/playwright) Katherine Dunham (dancer/ch.o.r.eographer) Roberta Flack (singer) Aretha Franklin (singer) Nikki Giovanni (poet) Dorothy Height (activist) Lena Horne (singer/actor) Coretta Scott King (activist) Gladys Knight (singer) Patti LaBelle (singer) Toni Morrison (author) Rosa Parks (activist) Leontyne Price (opera singer) Della Reese (singer/actor) Diana Ross (singer/actor) Naomi Sims (model) Tina Turner (singer) Cicely Tyson (actor) Alice Walker (author/poet) Dionne Warwick (singer) Nancy Wilson (singer) Inexplicably missing from Oprah's list were her onetime friend Whoopi Goldberg, the singer Eartha Kitt, acclaimed opera star Jessye Norman, respected broadcaster Gwen Ifill, and Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice. Of the twenty-five women Oprah selected as legends, seven did not attend: Katherine Dunham, Aretha Franklin, Nikki Giovanni, Lena Horne, Toni Morrison, Rosa Parks, and Alice Walker. "Just too many television cameras," said one who did not partic.i.p.ate. "Too much Oprah."

The "young 'uns," as Oprah called those following in the footsteps of the "legends," included: Yolanda Adams (singer) Debbie Allen (actor/dancer) Ashanti (singer) Tyra Banks (model/talk show host) Angela Ba.s.sett (actor) Kathleen Battle (opera singer) Halle Berry (actor) Mary J. Blige (singer) Naomi Campbell (model) Mariah Carey (singer) Pearl Cleage (poet/playwright) Natalie Cole (singer) Suzanne De Pa.s.se (producer/writer) Kimberly Elise (actor) Missy Elliot (rap artist) Pam Grier (actor) Iman (model) Janet Jackson (singer) Judith Jamison (dancer/ch.o.r.eographer) Beverly Johnson (model) Chaka Khan (singer) Gayle King (editor, O O magazine) magazine) Alicia Keys (singer) Audra McDonald (actor/singer) Terry McMillan (author) Darnell Martin (director/screenwriter) Melba Moore (actor/singer) Brandy Norwood (singer) Mich.e.l.le Obama (community affairs executive) Suzan-Lori Parks (playwright) Phylicia Rashad (actor) Valerie Simpson (singer/composer) Anna Deavere Smith (actor/playwright) Susan L. Taylor (editorial director of Essence Essence) Alfre Woodard (actor) Oprah began the weekend with a luncheon at her estate on Friday (May 13, 2005), during which she gave six-carat diamond teardrop earrings to "the legends" and ten-carat black-and-white diamond hoop earrings to "the young 'uns," all presented in red alligator boxes inside of which were engraved silver cases. "I'm a girl who loves a good diamond earring, you know?" Oprah told her astounded guests.

"Are they real?" asked author Terry McMillan.

"They are black diamonds, crazy love! Of course they're real!"

During the "Legends" weekend, even the wealthiest stars were dumbfounded, especially when they saw the trolley Oprah had installed on the grounds for guests to tour "The Promised Land," as Oprah called her rolling estate with its various promenades, pools, ponds, rose arbors, romantic bridges, and winding trails, all bordered by five thousand white hydrangeas and two thousand white flowering trees. She called her equally luxurious home in Hawaii "Kingdom Come." As she told reporters, "I'm very biblical, you know. I got two roads to my [Hawaii] house...Glory and Hallelujah."

But it was her home in Montecito that left guests breathless. "The driveway is five miles long, and every stone was cut by hand," said one. "Her bathtub is a solid piece of jade, and her bathroom overlooks the entire forty-two-acre estate and gives her an eightydegree view of the ocean. Her closet is three thousand square feet and she has a thousand drawers for everything--yes, one thousand--sweaters and T-s.h.i.+rts and one hundred hats.

Each drawer has a gla.s.s front so nothing gets dusty and she can see what's inside....Gayle has her own room in the main house with rose wallpaper, and Stedman's study overlooks the Montecito Mountains....The views throughout are magnificent....I think it's the most beautiful house I've ever seen."

The following night (Sat.u.r.day, May 14, 2005), Oprah invited 362 people to a white-tie dinner dance at the Bacara Resort and Spa in Santa Barbara. She ordered 80 cases of champagne flown in from France, 120 pounds of tuna flown in from j.a.pan, and 20,000 white peonies flown in from Ecuador. Entertainment was provided by Michael McDonald and a twenty-six-piece orchestra. Her party planner had sent his two hundred servers to waiter boot camp for three days to properly serve Oprah's A-list celebrity guests. As everyone sat for dinner, a drum rolled and the black-tied waiters laid down 362 plates at the same moment. It was another JDM. Oprah expected no less.

That night, after a sumptuous meal and dancing, guests returned to their hotel rooms to find on their pillows a gift-wrapped souvenir photograph of the evening in a sterling-silver frame from Asprey, the jeweler who carries royal warrants from Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince of Wales. Oprah had instructed the women to wear black or white gowns for the ball, while she appeared in flaming red, just like Norma Shearer did at a black-and-white ball she threw--so everyone would look only only at her. The following at her. The following morning (Sunday, May 15, 2005), Oprah wore a tall feathered hat to host a gospel brunch at "The Promised Land," where Senator Barack Obama, wearing sungla.s.ses, stood under a tree a few feet away from Oprah, who had her arm draped around Barbra Streisand, swaying to the music.

Later Oprah approached Obama, who had been sworn in as a U.S. senator four months earlier. "If someone were to announce one of these days that he was going to run for president," she said, "don't you think this would be a sweet place to hold a fundraiser?"

Senator Obama grinned.

Twenty.

BY THE twenty-first century, Oprah was omnipresent, if not omnipotent. She appeared on television five days a week, claimed 44 million viewers in the United States, and was broadcast in 145 countries, from Saudi Arabia to South Africa. She was a daily presence on satellite radio (Sirius XM) with her own twenty-four-hour channel Oprah and Friends. Her monthly magazine, with her picture on every cover, had a paid circulation of 2.4 million in the United States and was published also in South Africa. Through her investment in Oxygen she was seen on cable television with segments ent.i.tled Oprah Oprah After the Show. When Oxygen was sold to NBC Universal, she recouped her $20 million When Oxygen was sold to NBC Universal, she recouped her $20 million investment and announced plans to start her own television network in 2011, to be called OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network). She produced made-for-television movies under the banner "Oprah Winfrey Presents," and prime-time network specials. Her website, Oprah.com, attracted 6.7 million visitors a month, and her Twitter following numbered more than 2 million. A Google search of her name generated more than 8 million results, and there were 529 websites devoted solely to her.

By the millennium she was known and recognized throughout the country, even by those who never watched daytime television. She entered the vocabulary as a noun, a verb, and an adjective. Even disgruntled media critics acknowledged they had entered the Oprahsphere. "She puts the cult in pop culture," Mark Jurkowitz sniped in The Boston The Boston Phoenix, prompting Oprahettes to howl about the prompting Oprahettes to howl about the jerk jerk in "Jurkowitz." Opraholics in "Jurkowitz." Opraholics wors.h.i.+pped her, and Oprahphiles studied her, making her the subject of more than three dozen PhD dissertations listed in the Library of Congress. The object of a case study on corporate success by the Harvard Business School, she was also studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in a course t.i.tled History 298: Oprah Winfrey, the Tyc.o.o.n: Contextualizing the Economics of Race, Gender, Cla.s.s in Black Business in Post-Civil Rights America. Newsweek Newsweek declared the new century's touchy-feely era to be declared the new century's touchy-feely era to be the "Age of Oprah," and The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal defined "Oprahfication" to mean defined "Oprahfication" to mean "public confession as a form of therapy." Jet Jet magazine used magazine used Oprah Oprah as a verb: "I didn't as a verb: "I didn't want to tell her...but she Oprah'd it out of me." Politicians everywhere began "to go Oprah," holding town meetings to let const.i.tuents vent their feelings. Companies lucky enough to have their products featured on "Oprah's Favorite Things" experienced an avalanche of orders known as the "Oprah Effect." By 2001, the nation had become so Oprahfied that New York's mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, chose Oprah along with James Earl Jones to lead the memorial service at Yankee Stadium in honor of the victims of 9/11.

With the country in her thrall, Oprah finally felt secure enough to break her "no politicians" rule and wade into their divisive waters. For years she had avoided politics because she did not want to alienate her audience. "If I support one person or another, I will p.i.s.s a lot of people off," she said. "And I have not met the politician that was worth going to the mat for. When I do, I certainly will." By staying above the political fray, she felt she retained more affection from her viewers than her highly partisan predecessor, Phil Donahue. "Oprah would not even attend a Gridiron dinner," said former Hearst columnist Marianne Means, a past president of The Gridiron Club, whose annual dinner in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., is attended by the president, the vice president, and members of Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Members of the media perform skits and songs poking fun at both political parties. "We invited her many times, but she always turned us down, saying she did not get involved with politics."

After fifteen years on the air Oprah finally decided to enter the political arena.

"She waited until she was rich enough so it wouldn't affect her bottom line," said her cousin Katharine Carr Esters. "And that was very smart of her....But then when it comes to money, no one is smarter than Oprah."

Once she became a fixture on the Forbes Forbes "400 Richest Americans" list, Oprah "400 Richest Americans" list, Oprah became part of the nation's political conversation by extending an invitation in 2000 to the two presidential candidates to appear on her show. "I hope to create the kind of environment and ask the questions that will allow us to break the political wall and see who each one is as a person," she said through her publicist. The next day's news was more about Oprah going political than it was about Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush. The headline on Salon.com read, "The Road to the White House Goes Through Oprah."

Politically, she appeared to be a Democrat, having contributed $1,000 in 1992 to Chicago's Carol Moseley Braun, a Democrat and the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Oprah also donated $10,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1996, and $5,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 1997. Yet she claimed to have voted "for as many Democrats as I have Republicans."

However, federal election records do not show any Republican votes, only that she voted in four Democratic primaries between 1987 and 1994. She skipped voting in the 1996, 1998, and 2000 primaries, but did cast a ballot in the general elections for president.

She once boasted to a British writer, "I think I could have a great influence in politics, and I think I could get elected." But, she added, "I think a politician would want to be me [instead]. If you really want to change people's lives, have an hour platform every day to go into their homes." To The Times The Times of London she said, "Having this big of London she said, "Having this big voice on television is what every politician wants. They all try and get on the show and I don't do politics on the show."

Careful at the time not to get partisan, Oprah invited First Lady Barbara Bush to be her guest in 1989, and she later extended several invitations to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who appeared four times during her husband's eight years in the White House. Hillary celebrated her fiftieth birthday on Oprah's show, and Oprah asked Hillary to present her with her Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Emmys.

During that ceremony, Oprah, clutching Hillary's hand, said, "I hope you do us the privilege of running for...president of the United States."

Oprah had considered breaking her "no politicians" rule back in 1992 by inviting Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, Sr., to be her guest, because, as she said at the time, "He's become larger than politics," but she backed off. Still skittish four years later, she turned down a request from Senator Robert Dole, the 1996 GOP presidential candidate, who was running against Bill Clinton.

"I was very torn [about Dole's request to come on the show]," she told her viewers. "I went to my producers and said, 'Maybe this isn't the right decision.' But in the end I decided to stay out of politics, maintaining my long-standing policy: I don't do politicians." At the time, her studio audience gave her a resounding ovation. "I've tried to stay out of politics for my entire tenure on the air," she said that day. "Basically, it's a nowin situation. Over the years, I have not found that interviewing politicians about the issues worked for my viewing audience. I try to bring issues that people understand through their hearts and their feelings so they can make decisions."

Senator Dole laughed at Oprah's explanation. "Riiight," he jibed years later. "She doesn't do politicians--if they run against Democrats."

Oprah admitted she had been "asked to do everything" at the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but she insisted she would not partic.i.p.ate in any way, except for attending the parties thrown by "my friends Ethel Kennedy and John Kennedy, Jr." Since meeting Maria Shriver in Baltimore, where they both worked for WJZ-TV, Oprah had been besotted by the Kennedys. She boosted them at every turn, contributing to Ethel Kennedy's online charity, promoting the books of Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver, attending fund-raisers for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, hosting a show t.i.tled "The Kennedy Cousins," and inviting any and all Kennedys to appear with her throughout the years. In 2009, Victoria Kennedy gave Oprah her first interview after the death of her husband, Senator Edward Kennedy.

Although Oprah had not publicly declared herself a Democrat, her close friends-Maya Angelou, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Quincy Jones, Coretta Scott King, Toni Morrison, Andrew Young--were all Democrats committed to Clinton, and Oprah herself had been invited to the Clintons' first white-tie state dinner in 1994, for j.a.pan's emperor, Akihito, and empress, Michiko. (She admitted later she had been tongue-tied in the presence of j.a.panese royalty. "I didn't know what to say, and it was one of the few times.") Oprah had attended her first White House state dinner in 1989, during the George Herbert Walker Bush administration, with Stedman Graham, a conservative Republican, who would not accompany her to the Clinton White House five years later.

So she took Quincy Jones.

"I met her that evening," recalled the art dealer Christopher Addison, who, with his wife, owns the Addison/Ripley Fine Art gallery in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. "I did not recognize her as anybody famous then because I don't watch daytime television, but the eighty-year-old woman who was my guest that evening told me who she was....Oprah had brought a little instamatic camera with her and asked me to take her photograph. I thought it was endearing of her to want her picture taken in the White House, almost like a tourist. Very sweet."

Oprah had charmed them downstairs at the Bush White House by visiting the kitchen staff after the state dinner, but upstairs was another matter: the social staff found her to be overbearing and unreasonable. "She was rude and demanding, impossible to deal with," Lea Berman, a former White House social secretary, told the Colonial Dames of America. "She insisted she be allowed to bring her own security into the president's mansion. This is so against White House policy, but Ms. Winfrey became so adamant and shrill that we finally relented and allowed her to be accompanied by her own bodyguards."

When Oprah issued her invitations to Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush in 2000 to appear on her show, both accepted because the presidential race was close, and each man wanted to reach her large female audience. A Gallup/CNN/ USA Today USA Today poll had Bush trailing Gore by ten percentage points before the poll had Bush trailing Gore by ten percentage points before the visit with Oprah; days later the same poll showed Bush in a statistical tie. News reports called it the "Oprah Bounce." The Chicago Sun-Times Chicago Sun-Times editorial page saluted her for editorial page saluted her for getting involved in the presidential race, and she hyped her first political foray before her season's opening show, prompting the comedian Chris Rock to joke, "Both Gore and Bush are going to appear on Oprah, but for different reasons. Gore is trying to appeal to women voters. Bush wants to find out how in the world did this black woman get all that money."

Oprah welcomed the vice president on September 11, 2000, and he strode onstage, greeting her with a handshake and a one-armed half-hug.

"No kiss? I was hoping for something," she teased, referring to the exceedingly long on-camera kiss Gore had planted on his wife at the Democratic Convention. "Until today I've stayed away from politicians, but after fifteen years I need to try to penetrate that wall," she told her viewers as she put Gore on notice that she was going to be more grill than gush. Despite twenty-four years in public office, he demurred, "I am a little bit more of a private person than a lot of the people in the profession." Oprah was having none of it.

"Let's get to that kiss," she said. "What was that all about? What did you say to your wife? Was it scripted? Were you trying to send a message?"

"I was trying to send a message to Tipper," Gore quipped, prompting a huge laugh from the studio audience.

"No, really," Oprah persisted. To her credit, she interrupted whenever he lapsed into his stump speech, and tried to get something more truthful and heartfelt.

"Well...I...It was an overwhelming surge of emotion. This was a great moment in our lives. I mean, it's not as if I got there by myself. This has been a partners.h.i.+p, and she is my soul mate."

The studio audience, mostly female, erupted in wild applause for the romantic robot, usually stiff and awkward, who seemed so in love with his wife after thirty years of marriage.

For an hour Oprah huffed and puffed and tried to blow "that wall" down, but all she got was Gore's favorite movie ( Local Hero Local Hero), Gore's favorite music (The Beatles), and Gore's favorite cereal (Wheaties). "The woman who has persuaded hundreds of people to reveal things about themselves that might better have been kept private couldn't get Gore out of his comfort zone," wrote Mark Brown in the Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago Sun-Times. "Best of all for "Best of all for Gore, he handled her so smoothly that Oprah never seemed to realize it."

The following week (September 18, 2000) she welcomed Governor Bush of Texas, who arrived with coconut macaroons from Texas-based Neiman Marcus for her studio audience and greeted her with a huge kiss. The photo of Bush bussing Oprah on the cheek as she smiled gleefully made the front page of TheNew York Times. TheNew York Times.

"Thanks for the kiss," she said, sitting down next to him.

"My pleasure." He grinned.

"There were people on the street yesterday who told me that they were going to make their decision [about who to vote for] after today's show," she told him. The c.o.c.ky governor nodded as the c.o.c.ky host dug right in and asked if he was running to restore his father's defeat by Bill Clinton. "To get revenge?"

"Not even in the teeniest, tiniest part," Bush insisted, saying he felt "a calling" to be president. "I see America as a land of dreams, hopes, and opportunities...."

"I wanna go behind the wall now," snapped Oprah. "Tell us about a time when you needed forgiveness."

"Right now," said Bush as the studio audience erupted with laughter.

"I'm looking for specifics," Oprah said sternly.

"I know you are, but I'm running for president." Even she had to laugh at that, and her studio audience clapped with delight. When she asked him his "favorite dream," he raised his right hand as if to be sworn in as president, and the studio audience again rocked with laughter. Bush later got teary-eyed as he discussed his wife's difficult pregnancy and the birth of their twin daughters. He admitted that he finally stopped drinking at the age of forty because alcohol had taken over his life.

"Ever mindful of her status as the Most Powerful Woman on the Planet, Winfrey approached the Gore and Bush interviews as if they were a sacred duty," Joyce Millman wrote on Salon.com. "You could tell she was serious, because she interrupted Gore and Bush even more than she usually interrupts guests who have ceased to interest her.... I don't understand why Bush was so reluctant to debate his opponent; facing Al Gore for 90 minutes has got to be easier than keeping She Who Must Be Obeyed amused for an hour."

Oprah did not endorse either candidate, but by the end of his hour, George W.