Oprah Winfrey Born January 29, 1954 (1954-01-29) (age 54) Kosciusko, Mississippi, United States Residence Chicago, Illinois, United States Occupation Talk show host, media mogul Salary $260 million (2007)[1] Net worth over US$2.5 billion ? (Sept. 2007) Website www.oprah.com Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954), often referred to simply as Oprah, is an American television host, media mogul, and philanthropist. Her internationally-syndicated talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, has earned her multiple Emmy Awards and is the highest-rated talk show in the history of television.[2] 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,[3] the most philanthropic African American of all time,[4] and the world's only black billionaire for three straight years.[5][6][7][8][9] She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.[10][11] Born in rural Mississippi to a poor unwed teenaged mother, and later raised in an inner city Milwaukee neighborhood, Winfrey was raped at the age of nine, and at fourteen, gave birth to a son who died in infancy.[12] 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.[13] 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,[6] she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated. Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication,[14] she is thought to have popularized and revolutionized[15][16][17][18] the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue,[17] which a Yale study claimed broke 20th century taboos and allowed gays, transsexuals, and transgender people to enter the mainstream.[19] By the mid 1990s she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing confession culture[18] and promoting controversial self-help fads, she is generally admired for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others.[20]