Cinema: Queen of All Media

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Supermodels and Nobel prizewinners tend to travel in separate circles, but at a recent party held in honor of Oprah Winfrey in downtown Manhattan, both Toni Morrison and Cindy Crawford were in attendance. The gathering, held at a restaurant where it's difficult to get a reservation unless you call long in advance or are a recent recipient of an MTV Video Music Award, was a starry one. Mariah Carey. Barbara Walters. Maya Angelou. They were all there. Oprah worked the room, shining attention on each guest briefly but brightly, a passing Lexus with her high beams on. The occasion was a celebration of Oprah's star turn in the new film Beloved and of her appearance on the cover of Vogue magazine. She posed next to a huge blowup of the cover, bathed in camera light. The woman who once dragged a cart of fat into a TV studio to dramatize her battles with obesity, the nappy-headed girl who grew up poor in Kosciusko, Miss., had become a full-fledged movie star.

Winfrey is still the Queen of Talk. Despite a strong performance by downscale upstart Jerry Springer, her show remained No. 1 overall last season among all syndicated talk shows. And she recently agreed to continue as the show's host through the 2001-02 season. Nonetheless, in recent years, Winfrey has increased her influence in areas beyond daytime chatter: in prime-time movies and specials, in books, in cinema. She is much more than just talk.

When the Oprah Winfrey Show went into national syndication in 1986, it helped democratize the world of talk shows; it wasn't quite the fall of the Berlin Wall, but an important barrier was breached. Here, finally, was a woman--a black woman, a plus-size woman, a woman with an attitude--holding the mike and holding forth. Says Geraldo Rivera, host of CNBC's Rivera Live and Upfront Tonight: "Oprah was the first host of any daytime talk show who looked and sounded like her audience."

Winfrey, in the wake of Phil Donahue, helped usher in an age of confessional, ultrapersonal TV. Hers was television that cared, that wanted to know, that wanted you to spill your feelings and your guts and just forget about the 15 million people or so watching. Today, of course, all of television wears the Stained Blue Dress of Confessional Excess. Winfrey used confessional TV to explore, to empathize, to try to figure out where people were coming from. Today people watch Jerry Springer to see a good fight, to see a lesbian throw a punch.

In 1994 Winfrey announced her intention to make her show more meaningful. In 1996 she started an on-air book club. In 1997 she launched the Angel Network, an ongoing campaign to spur her viewers into doing good works, like building houses for needy families, volunteering at local schools and saving spare change to fund college scholarships. She recently added a regular segment to her show titled "Remembering Your Spirit," which focuses on the rather lofty goal of soothing viewers' souls. "Oprah set the standard in daytime television," says fellow daytime host Rosie O'Donnell. "She consistently maintains a decency and morality on her show that gives talk shows a positive name."