By Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY
It has been coming for a year, but now the end is just days away.
By Charles Rex Arbogast,, AP
Winfrey has hosted 30,000 guests (Celine Dion 27 times) over 4,500 episodes.
By Charles Rex Arbogast,, AP
Winfrey has hosted 30,000 guests (Celine Dion 27 times) over 4,500 episodes.
Billionaire Oprah Winfrey, who went from abused Mississippi farm girl to talk-show host and spiritual leader for millions of daytime TV viewers in search of their authentic selves ? not to mention a proper-fitting bra and a good book ? is quitting the daily grind after 25 years.
"We gotta land this plane!" she says in her Oprah shout-out way. "Wheels down!"
The last new episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show is set for Wednesday. Harpo Studios, Winfrey's production company, has not announced who the guests are or what the format will be, which has helped create mystique and build hype. The price for a 30-second commercial spot on the finale: $1 million, the bill usually charged for a hot prime-time spot.
Meanwhile, loyal Oprah followers are planning parties at homes, local theaters and convention centers to watch the woman they consider their role model, their mom and their friend say her Big Farewell.
Fans may be stocking up on Kleenex, but Oprah, 55, is anything but weepy. "I'm exhilarated and relieved," she says.
It's everyone else who seems to be having trouble with her departure. "People call me like I'm ill," says Oprah, dropping her voice to somber and low. "Tyler Perry called me yesterday, saying, 'How. Are. You?'"
Chipper. Gleeful. Close to dancing a jig. "I am trying not to bring in the hula hoops," she says.
But recently, her "sensitive side set in," she says, "and I realized there's a sense of sadness and letting go for other people."
The typical Harpo staffer has been there 15 years, she says. "I ran into Sally Lou (Loveman), our audience supervisor, the other day. We passed in the hallway and she burst into tears. I went, 'Are you OK?' She said, 'Who will I be when this is over?'"
Oprah pauses, reverend-style.
"I don't have that question to ask myself. I will still be, fully and completely, wholly myself when this is over. I am filled with a sense of gratitude I was able to do it."
Oprah by the numbers
9/8/86: Date of the first national episode
of The Oprah Winfrey Show (?How to Marry the Man/Woman of Your Choice?)
150: Countries outside USA
where the show airs
4,561: Episodes as of the May 25 finale
About 30,000: Guests over 25 seasons
27: Appearances by Celine Dion,the celebrity who has been on the show the most
5: Presidents who have appeared on the show: Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush,
283: Number of items selected
as ?Oprah?s Favorite Things?
48: Daytime Emmy wins for Oprah
and the show
About 1.3 million: Audience members
who have attended an Oprah taping
About 21,000: Largest audience for one taping, on Chicago?s Michigan Avenue for ?Oprah?s Season 24 Kick-Off Party"
65: Selections by Oprah?s Book Club
Nearly 2 million: Members
of Oprah?s Book Club
$80 million-plus: Total donated to the
public charity Oprah?s Angel Network
25,000: E-mails Oprah.com receives weekly
Source: The Oprah Winfrey Show
Then she admits, "I had one teary moment when I finished taping" the show that will air Friday. "I came home and walked up the stairs and I felt the weight ?the weight? of it. I sat on the side of the bed and the realization hit me that it is done. It is done. And the next day I was a little teary thinking, 'It is done.'"
She quickly adds, "I'm not sad at all. Not a bit. All sweet, no bitter. But the weight was a sense ? the tears were tears of relief ? that I can't believe I've done this."
?The Oprah Effect?
For the past month, Oprah has been posting farewell countdown videos on her website.
During the past two weeks, she has aired her final weight-loss show, the "biggest, best, last" makeover show and has recalled her "most memorable guests" (including author James Frey, who embarrassed Oprah after she had promoted his non-fiction memoir that turned out to be fictionalized; and sweet Mattie Stepanek, a boy with a rare form of muscular dystrophy who befriended Oprah before dying in 2004).
She has fielded farewell messages from Julia Roberts, Tina Fey, Russell Crowe, Whoopi Goldberg and other notable pals.
Before 13,000 fans at Chicago's United Center on Tuesday, she taped the two penultimate shows to air Monday and Tuesday. More than two dozen stars, from Maya Angelou and Aretha Franklin to Will Smith and Dr. Mehmet Oz, showed up to hug her, praise her and sing to her. As Tom Hanks told her, "Today, Oprah Winfrey, you are surrounded by nothin' but love. Your studio just wasn't big enough to hold it all."
Jada Pinkett Smith called her "a goddess." Madonna said she was "inspiring." Even Oprah's rarely seen boyfriend, Stedman Graham, took the stage to call her "sweetheart" and tell her, "I love you for making a difference in my life."
Wrapping up a job that has included chatting with 30,000 guests over 4,500 episodes, winning 35 Emmys (before she took herself out of the race five years ago) and reaching 150 countries, Oprah ? once called a "really hip and materialistic Mother Teresa" by Kathryn Lofton, author of Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon? will be missed.
"There's going to be a huge void," says Phil McGraw, the psychologist who befriended Oprah in 1996 when she was facing defamation claims from the beef industry for warning viewers about potential diseases in U.S. beef. McGraw later became Oprah's first TV-show offspring.
Even for the Oprah naysayers ? the NOprah club members, the Anti-Oprah brigade, those who accused her of cultivating the "Cult of Oprah," and anyone else who simply didn't like her ? her influence during the past 2� decades has been unparalleled.
With her Walter Cronkite-esque ability to evoke trust and her Billy Graham-like gift for gab, Oprah made us believe. If she liked it, we bought it, whether it was a chicken pot pie from Cape Cod or a Kindle from Amazon. She has been named to Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people six times, more than any other individual, including the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Bill Gates, George Clooney and Rupert Murdoch.
"It's hard to think of a single individual in American culture right now who has as much impact as she does, from her magazine to her TV show and even the way she influences people's purchasing power," says Craig Garthwaite, a professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University who has studied the effect of Oprah's endorsement on Barack Obama's presidential bid in 2008.
Garthwaite cites the 80,000 copies of Anna Karenina sold in the month after Oprah chose it for her book club pick, the 900,000 Lance Armstrong bracelets sold in a day after Oprah asked her fans to support his cancer research efforts, the 1 million votes he estimates she brought in for Obama when she backed him.
"It's hard to wrap my brain around that," she says, when asked about her far-reaching influence. "I've seen the stories about 'The Oprah Effect' and that means little to me, compared to sitting here reading these messages."
She is looking at the Farewell Guest Book on her website, which encourages fans to write messages and send videos. "Somebody wrote to me on May 13: 'Sweet, sweet Oprah. I didn't know I had a light in me until you told me it was there.'"
She adds, "I would take that over all of the sales."
What makes Oprah, Oprah?
Why have we trusted Oprah all these years? Why have we listened so intently as she told us all how to live?
"Oprah's got a magical combination of extraordinary personal charisma, a tele-presence, a back story that's full of high drama and suffering and triumph, and an ability to open herself up or appear to be very much willing to expose that. And the empathetic bond that's been created as a result is appealing and enduring," says Adam Hanft, CEO of marketing firm Hanft Projects.
"She's honest," says cooking host Rachael Ray, another Oprah TV prot�g�e. "That's the best advice she ever gave me: 'Be yourself. You've got it. Just stay true to you. People know when you're not being genuine with them.'"
Says Oz, a New York cardiothoracic surgeon who has his own syndicated show thanks to Oprah: "She faced challenges that have steeled her. You know how they make a samurai sword? They take metal and hammer it and hammer it. After a while, it is so hammered it becomes steeled. Oprah became a remarkably ornate, but incredibly sharp, Samurai sword."
Oz says Winfrey has "mentored" him, and now he's poised to take 83 of her show slots on local stations, and will be on at 4 p.m. in 150 markets. "For me, it's like surgery ? and I still practice ? I liken it to being trained by someone to go in and do a really big operation."
He says Oprah's exit is sure to bring mixed emotions. "It will be like a New Orleans funeral. There's some sadness that we're not going to have her anymore, but it's a celebration."
For designer Nate Berkus, still another Oprah prot�g�, it's more like moving day. "The books are coming off the shelves," he says. "People are packing up." He means that literally, as some Harpo staffers are moving from Chicago to Los Angeles to work on the Oprah Winfrey Network, some are staying to work on Rosie O'Donnell's new show, and some are leaving to spend more time with their kids or start new jobs.
Berkus' life has been changed dramatically.
Because of Oprah, he went from being a little-known Chicago interior designer to having a syndicated TV show. He says they connected because "I've never lied to her, which I think is the first tip in dealing with Oprah. She has a quality and clarity about her as a friend and person and businesswoman that's pretty unique and pretty special."
Another key to Oprah?
Don't mess around, he says. She doesn't have time for it. "If I have a meeting with Oprah or a meal with Oprah, I'm aware I'm not going to waste her time. I think a big mistake is that people think Oprah has the answer to everything and go to her saying, 'What should I do?' That's the last conversation she wants to have. She much prefers, 'Come to me when you know what you want to do.'"
Now, as she turns her attention to building up her low-rated Oprah Winfrey Network on cable, she won't have her personal pulpit, and her impact will change. Oprah's daily show "magnified it," says Hanft, but as she spreads herself out over OWN, "the diffusion will reduce it."
Oprah says she isn't thinking about her impact.
"I feel that the show has stood for something broader, stronger, deeper than just television. When I look at how it has impacted the way people feel about themselves, I feel that's irreplaceable. Somebody else will come along and do something that's different. ? It's just like Aretha Franklin is Aretha Franklin. I don't care how many Whitney Houstons and Mariah Careys come along. Everybody is their own individual tune."
She says she has never let the impact of her influence get to her, or be a burden. She has always said she is a teacher at heart. With her talk show, the world became her students.
"That's the reason I'm not having a breakdown," she says. "I am who I am. I would be the same person were I on TV or were in a classroom. I would be doing the same thing."
That's not to say she doesn't like to win. And although she has a far larger canvas with OWN, she's happy to leave the daily scene behind.
"I am completely out of the fear of competition. I'm so over that. I'm going to learn from my own lessons from the past. I remember every single time there was a new talk show. ? I remember Geraldo Rivera? we all said, 'Argghhh, what are we going to do? Morton Downey Jr. ? 'Arggghhh, what are we going to do?' Every single time! Ricki Lake ? 'Argggghh!' Until about five years ago. About the time Jane Pauley's show came along, I finally said, 'Everybody relax.'"
Goodbye, Chicago. Hello, Hollywood.
Oprah plans to relax next week before she dives into OWN. She says she'll first spend a few weeks on Hollywood mogul David Geffen's boat, and later in the summer she plans to hike with her dogs at her place in Hawaii.
"I will come back in mid-June and have an all-hands-on-deck OWN meeting," she says, "so that while I am resting, things will be on course."
She will then take "a longer break" in July.
She has had meetings with Broadway producer Scott Sanders and director George Wolfe about getting involved in a stage project, but Broadway will have to wait.
"No, no," she says. "Need a break. Need a break! That cannot happen this year."
So after she rests, she will return not to Chicago but to Los Angeles, where OWN is based. Her 45-acre spread in Montecito, about 85 miles from Los Angeles, is too far away to commute to work every day. "I got stuck in a 5�-hour traffic jam several months ago and I realized I need a place (in the city). I'm going to get a little pied-�-terre. I'm going to get a little tiny space where I can go after work."
Says her pal Gayle King: "She's loading up the truck and moving to Bev-er-ly," quoting the BeverlyHillbillies theme song.
"I think you can start playing the Beach Boys' soundtrack to California Girls."
Nicole Richie America Ferrera Natalie Imbruglia Mariah Carey Melissa Sagemiller
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