History
The show has its roots in A.M. Chicago, a half-hour morning talk show airing on WLS-TV in Chicago, Illinois. Winfrey took over as host on January 2, 1984 and, within a month, took it from last place to first place in the ratings. On September 8, 1986, it was relaunched under its current title and picked up nationally. For the premiere, the show's producers tried rigorously to book Miami Vice's Don Johnson as the first guest, even trying to bribe him with Dom Pérignon and a pair of rhinestone sunglasses. All attempts to book Johnson failed and Winfrey decided to "do what we do best, and that is a show about and with everyday people." The topic for the premiere show was "How to Marry the Man or Woman of Your Choice."
Early in the 12th season of The Oprah Winfrey Show, Winfrey confessed she was "exhausted" and considered quitting. While making the movie Beloved, Winfrey then admitted that it brought her back to her responsibility as an admired black woman with a great deal of power and influence. She realized that being in such a position within the media industry, she could make a positive difference in people's lives. Winfrey was once again inspired to continue to help people take better control of their destinies, hence her slogan, "Live Your Best Life".
I made the decision…in the midst of doing Beloved. I was doing some scenes—Beloved is about an ex-slave, and during that process of doing that I connected to really what slavery had meant, and my own personal ancestry and history connected it to a way I have never before from reading all about Black history and, you know, talking to relatives. And I realized that I had no right to quit coming from a history of people who had no voice, who had no power, and that I have been given this—this blessed opportunity to speak to people, to influence them in ways that can make a difference in their lives, and to just use that.
The show was renewed through 2011, but in a 2008 interview with Larry King, Winfrey announced that in 2011, she would not renew her contract, thus ending the show.
Read more about this topic: The Oprah Winfrey Show
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“In the history of the human mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of men, as Aurora the sun’s rays. The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)