I'm wearing my diamond circle pendant necklace in honor of Oprah's last show today. We're both O names. I've enjoyed her show day after day for so many years I can't even remember when I started watching it.
(05-26) 04:00 PDT Chicago --
There were no free
cars or vacations. No favorite things or makeovers. No celebrity guests onstage - though there were plenty in the audience.
The finale of Oprah Winfrey's talk show, taped Tuesday and aired Wednesday, was all about the one thing that made her a billion-dollar success: the unique connection she made with millions of viewers for 25 years.
"Something in me connected with each of you in a way that allowed me to see myself in you and you in me," Winfrey said. "I listened and grew, and I know you grew along with me."
Winfrey was the only person onstage, with little background music and short flashback clips. The show went to commercials with "Twenty-Five Years," a soft song that musician Paul Simon wrote and recorded for her.
Winfrey, who grew up in rural Mississippi, told viewers that sometimes she was a teacher but, more often, her viewers instructed her. She called Wednesday's episode her "last class from this stage."
At one point, she thanked viewers for sharing her "yellow brick road of blessings" - something she said back in November 2009, when she announced that she would end her show.
The program gave rise to a media empire, including a magazine and Winfrey's own cable network, which she launched in January. Wednesday's show was the last piece of a months-long send-off, but as the hour wrapped up, Winfrey stopped short of saying farewell.
"I won't say goodbye. I'll just say, until we meet again," she said.
She hugged and kissed her longtime partner, Stedman Graham, and shook hands with audience members before walking through the halls of Harpo Studios in Chicago, hugging and crying with her staff. She shouted, "We did it!"
The last shot of the finale showed Winfrey walking away with her cocker spaniel, Sadie.
Celebrities in the audience included Tyler Perry, Maria Shriver, Suze Orman and Cicely Tyson. In the bare-bones final taping, there were just 404 audience members, according to Harpo Productions. The show received 1.4 million ticket requests throughout its final season, the company said.
Winfrey became famous over the decades for landing hard-to-get celebrity interviews and for her annual giveaway shows, where she bestowed audience members with such stunning gifts as cars and Australian vacations.
Already a television journalist, Winfrey came to Chicago in 1984 to WLS-TV's morning talk show, "A.M. Chicago." A month later, the show was No. 1 in the market. A year later, it was renamed "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
Winfrey opened Harpo Studios on Chicago's West Loop neighborhood in 1990. She launched the Oprah Winfrey Network, which is based in Los Angeles, on Jan. 1.
This article appeared on page A - 8 of the San Francisco ChronicleRead more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/25/MN6G1JKTQB.DTL#ixzz1NTF46DFVIt's hard to overstate the cultural impact of Oprah Winfrey over the past 25 years. She's a classic Horatio Alger figure who became a global kingmaker. With a show that's broadcast in 150 countries, she used her endorsement to sell everything from millions of books to a spirituality-without-religion viewpoint that's now the norm. Though known for her message of positivity, she also lifted the veil on countless taboos, from child sexual abuse to food addictions.
So it was fitting that on the very last episode of her talk show, Winfrey had just one guest - herself. Though Winfrey's interviewed around 30,000 guests over the course of her remarkable career, her audience's interest lies first and foremost with her.
"You and this show have been the greatest love of my life," Winfrey said. And she talked about a decades-old viewer letter from a woman who noted that "watching you be yourself makes me want to be more myself."
Winfrey has always been the most powerful embodiment of her message, and that's the secret of her success. Born into rural poverty in Mississippi to a teenage single mother, raped at age 9 - Winfrey knows something about hardship. Who wouldn't listen to advice from someone who rose from that background into the richest self-made woman in America?
It helped, too, that the advice was perfectly suited to a nation of women struggling to navigate shifting cultural and economic roles in their own lives. In her "last class," Winfrey talked about the messages she's returned to again and again about finding your passion, giving back to your community, treating others with dignity and allowing the idea of God to work miracles in your life. The message was never groundbreaking, but the medium always was.
Until we see you again, Oprah. Daytime television will never be the same.
This article appeared on page A - 15 of the San Francisco ChronicleRead more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/25/EDDA1JKQ2D.DTL#ixzz1NT9A7BiO
