When young Oprah Winfrey dated movie critic Roger Ebert who, like Robert DeNiro, has a thing for black women, he persuaded her to take her successful Chicago talk show into syndication. By 1986, a month after Winfrey opens her own studio, Harpo Productions (her name spelled backwards), “The Oprah Winfrey Show” goes into national syndication and quickly becomes the highest-rated talk show in TV history. It goes on to attract 49 million viewers each week in the U.S. alone and is distributed to 122 other countries. In 2000, after winning more than 40 Emmys, Winfrey takes her show out of Emmy consideration.
