• December 28, 1998
• Vol. 50
• No. 24

Oprah Winfrey

For a Beloved TV Icon, a Year of Grit, Glamor—and Jeers

It had to happen sometime—the Oprah backlash. Once the omnipotent Empress of Entertainment, "Winfrey has seen her daytime talk show slip in the ratings, surpassed frequently by the brash antics of Jerry Springer and even, on occasion, by Judge Judy. Then Beloved, the wrenching post-slavery epic based on Toni Morrison's novel that she nurtured for a decade, tanked with less than $25 million in ticket sales. Heck, there's even a nasty anti-Oprah Web site! Could it be that the Era of Oprah is—gasp—at an end?

Yeah, right. "Based on what I know about her, I think she's just beginning," says marketing exec Stedman Graham of his fiancée of six years, at 44 more influential than ever. Oprah kicked off 1998 by beating Texas cattle ranchers in a six-week libel suit and saw The Wedding, which she produced for ABC, soar in the ratings. And so what if Beloved was trounced by Bride of Chucky? Her poignant turn as tortured Sethe, dubbed "a brave, deep performance" by critic Roger Ebert, might earn Oprah an Oscar—and fulfilled her in ways no award could reflect. This project, says her best friend Gayle King, "was the dearest thing to Oprah's heart. She felt more passionate about it than anything I've ever seen her do."

That mission accomplished, "Winfrey lived another dream: vamping it up on the cover of October's Vogue. On top of that she signed a deal to keep her 12-year-old syndicated show on the air through 2002 and devised a new self-help format called Change Your Life TV. ("Deepak Oprah," jeered The Chicago Sun-Times. But "on the air and off," counters fellow gabber Rosie O'Donnell, "she inspires me to reach for my better self.") And in November, Winfrey became a partner in the Oxygen Channel, a network designed for women that is set to launch in 2000.

A backlash? A box office letdown? Sure. But don't expect Winfrey, now worth more than half a billion dollars, to abandon her vision for film or talk TV. "If I can't take a risk, nobody can," she told Vogue. "With fame, notoriety, credibility—if you can't have the courage to stand up and speak out for what you truly believe in, then it means nothing."