Oprah Winfrey

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Oprah Winfrey

Oprah has become a name in the entertainment industry that stands on its own much like Madonna or even Cher. For the uninformed who think Oprah is just another gabby talk show host, guess again. Anyone who has ever watched "The Oprah Winfrey Show" knows that it stands in a rank all of its own. There is something very different about this black talk show host- she is real. Oprah's key personality factor is her "vulnerability". She is not afraid to expose her own doubts, emotions, problems, failures, and even fears to her millions of viewers. "The reason I communicate with all these people," she told 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace, "is because I think I'm every woman and I've had every malady and I've been on every diet, and I've had- oh, men who have done me wrong, honey. So I relate to all of that. And I'm not afraid or ashamed to say it" (King 169).

Oprah Winfrey has indeed been down a long and rocky road. She has overcome one adversity after another to become the world's highest-paid entertainer, worth almost a half a billion dollars, and with a daily audience of almost 20 million, one of the world's most powerful. Last year Oprah decided she wanted to "get this country reading again," so she turned her talk show into an on-the-air book club once a month. Not only has everyone of her selected novels become a national bestseller, but she has been cited by the American Library Association for "single-handedly expanding the size of the reading public".

In terms of Gardner's model of multiple intelligence, Oprah shines in the verbal/linguistic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal areas. This creative genius seems to fit extraordinarily well into Howard Gardner's model of creativity. In fact, Oprah fits almost ideally i...

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Bibliography

For more information and pictures on Oprah check out her site in the Gallery of Achievement at: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/pagegen/mainmenu.html

Angelou, Maya. "Woman of the Year: Oprah" January 1989: 88-89.

Barthel, Joan. "Here Comes Oprah!" Ms. August 1986: 46-50

Ebert, Alan. "Oprah Winfrey Talks Openly About Oprah" Good Housekeeping1 September 1991: 62-66

Gallery of Achievement, Personal interview at http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/win0pro-1 February 21, 1991, Chicago, Illinois.

Gardner, Howard. Creating Minds. New York: Basic Books, 1993.

Johnson, Marilyn. "Oprah Winfrey: A Life in Books." Life September, 1997: 44-60.

King, Norman. Everybody Loves Oprah. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1987.

Moore, Trudy S. "How 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' helps people live better lives" Jet 18 April 1994: 56-60.

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