Oprah's keeping her ego in check

To sit in the studio audience of The Oprah Winfrey Show is akin to having parachuted into an amiable and welcoming cult. It means being embraced in a group hug, swaying side to side, and singing the Oprah song — which involves chirping "O!" an awful lot.

Her acolytes have flown in from across the nation to have an Oprah moment, which generally includes tears, which is why there's a tissue box tucked under every third seat or so. When Winfrey walks into the studio, some folks slip a bit outside the boundaries of reason.

One woman whispers, "I hope she touches me," as she stretches her hand out, out, out for contact. "I was walking in and there was a woman reaching for my hands. And I've learned not to try to shake hands because they can pull you off balance; they don't even know their strength," Winfrey says later during an interview in her office.

"But I went back. I could feel the energy saying: ‘Look at me. Look at me.' I do feel that. I do sense that. I do try to give people what I think they want, if I can."

Winfrey has become national confessor of the US, its friendly, neighbourhood billionaire philanthropist, the wizard who sprinkles magical dust over every author, entrepreneur, do-gooder and politician within her orbit.

What Winfrey DOESN'T do is as powerful a statement as what she does. How dare she not interview Sarah Palin! The culture, it seems, has declared ownership of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Winfrey begs to differ — but only to a point. "I feel it's very much my show in that every decision you see on the show has come from that desk," she says, gesturing toward the pale green, bean-shaped table in her office. "The part that belongs to the culture is every single person who has watched... who has found or discovered a piece of light from it. Flecks of light, that's what I call it."

Winfrey, 56, received the 2010 Kennedy Center Honours on Sunday because of the way in which all those sparks of light have dazzled, mesmerised and illuminated audiences over the course of nearly 25 years, more than 4,400 shows and some half-dozen films.

She has "impacted nearly every aspect of the entertainment world while engaging, inspiring and enriching the lives of millions," reads her Honours citation. "What it means to me to be able to receive this award alongside Paul McCartney — my heart cannot express what that means to me," Winfrey says.

"When I was living on North Ninth Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a two-room flat, on welfare, the only decoration in a room I shared with a half brother and sister were Beatles posters. I was the only black girl in my inner-city neighbourhood who loved the Beatles. And I loved Paul."

Influence

While other honorees are notable for the impact their body of work has had in specific fields, Winfrey's citation speaks of an amorphous but profound influence.

"You see daughters my age looking at their mothers with tears in their eyes and you realise the centre of their relationship is this woman. They say, ‘Did you see Oprah today?' What a powerful effect she has on people's relationship with each other!" says her friend, actress Julia Roberts, in a telephone interview.

"She's a remarkable human being."

Yet what must it be like on the receiving end of so many strangers' lingering glances — glances filled with hope and need? What does such secular devotion do to your head? What is it like being the beatified, sanctified Oprah?

"Fame is other people's perception of who you are," Winfrey says as she sits on a deep-cushioned sofa in her Harpo Studios office.

"In order to remain true to who you are, you have to be aware of it, but you can't buy into it."

She has, however, come to terms with it. "I used to live above Marshall Field's, now Macy's. And you know how they give out those gifts with purchase at the Clinique counter? I thought, I'm going to go back tomorrow and get myself that free Clinique bag," says Winfrey.

"I was bombarded by so many people. I thought, why are they bombarding me? Well, it was Saturday. And I realised, if you don't want to deal with this, then stay home. For the most part, if I'm not up to dealing with people... then I stay in. I stay behind the gates." (And she has many gates, with homes in Hawaii, California and in Chicago, among other places.)

In the midst of all the rapturous attention, has she ever had to give herself a stern little talking to after some especially egregious behaviour? Or needed her friend of 30 years Gayle King to tug on her shirt sleeve and tell her to stop acting like a diva? No, Winfrey says.

Branding

There is destructive narcissism and then there's business. So she sees no contradiction in the all-encompassing branding that has given her upcoming new television network its name (OWN) and made her the official cover girl of her magazine.

"I'm absolutely a person who has not let ego run amok," Winfrey says. "I see the demands other people make. I see all the other stuff. I've had to say that — take it down a notch — to other people."

Her many Emmys line several shelves in her office like so many glittery bonbons in a candy shop window. A painting by Edward Hopper hangs on one wall, but her favourite work, To the Highest Bidder by Harry Roseland, which depicts an African-American mother and child on the slave auction block, hangs in her California home.

"It reminds me of where I've come from," Winfrey says.

She was born into poverty in 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to an unwed mother. She bounced from her grandmother's home to her mother in Milwaukee, where she lived a wild and fractious life, and finally to her father in Nashville.

After graduating from Tennessee State University, where she majored in speech communications and performing arts, Winfrey began her professional television career in earnest in Baltimore at WJZ-TV.

"We connected because we were very similar: young black women, single," recalls King, who was a production assistant at the station. "But she was always scary smart and a really great speaker."

Spend five minutes with Winfrey and it's difficult to imagine that she's in any danger of forgetting her humble roots. ("She, to me, is incapable of not being completely honest and straightforward," Roberts says.)

This billionaire-next-door acknowledges her wealth in a way that few members of the monied class will. Winfrey can see and describe her rarified life from the miles-long distance of those who lead pedestrian ones. She defuses easy accusations that she's bragging with self-inflicted nicks to her thick wall of success.

Winfrey has dubbed her other art collection, which includes a Monet, the "hoity-toity" one. What's left for the masses to call it? She points to a framed photograph of her Maui mansion with an extraordinary rainbow arching over it, and describes it as one of her favourite things in her office.

But she also mentions that she had to borrow someone else's camera to take the picture because hers didn't work.

She begins a story — and she tells lots of stories — by describing how she was driving to work and then immediately corrects herself, "when I was being driven," because she does not want to give the impression that she was stuck on the Dan Ryan Expressway behind the wheel of a Prius.

She is the mogul who keeps it real.

And her audience can't get enough of her. Her ratings might have wobbled this summer, but she remains at the top of the talk show heap with 7.2 million viewers.

"I realise that she's a ‘bad mama jama' and she holds the clout and influence she does," says King, who is editor-at-large of O, The Oprah Magazine and also has her own radio show.

"But when you see someone in pajamas, you see the core of who she is."

Boldface names who have committed public malfeasance sit on her stage and confess. Regular folks come to Winfrey to tell their stories and reveal their secrets. When these average Joes and Janes are asked to explain their candour, the practiced response is this: I want to help others. Does Winfrey believe them?

"Inherently, no," she says. "You first do it for yourself, and if you raise awareness, that's a bonus."

Winfrey leans back into her sofa. She's dressed in deep purple trousers with a matching sweater. She has kicked off her Christian Louboutin stilettos — the ones without a hint of a scuff mark on the signature red soles. "We did a story on a woman and sexual addiction," she begins. "The team spent weeks with her. She had a confession cam. She was a Sunday school teacher, a soccer mum and a sex addict."

Dark Details

Winfrey asked whether her behaviour made her feel like a slut. The woman said yes. In the midst of the unveiling of dark details, the woman mentioned her two sons, 10 and 14. Winfrey decided not to air the show. As O magazine might say: This is what Winfrey knows for sure. People want to be noticed. They want to be validated.

"The reason why people come, to me, is not social redemption. But they know they will be heard," she says.

"I will not have a ‘gotcha' mentality with anyone. I'm not trying to get a headline with anything they said. I've been doing it long enough that people know that."

Her show will end in May, and its namesake will decamp to Los Angeles to focus on the new Oprah Winfrey Network, which launches on New Year's Day.

Harpo Studios will remain as a Chicago landmark. It will also produce Winfrey's new show for OWN. But much of her staff of 464 will have to find new jobs. OWN promises to be infused with Oprah-ness. She hopes to capture that sense of intimacy she exudes as a television host who, during commercial breaks, looks at the image of herself on the video monitor and announces to no one in particular, "I'm showing an awful lot of cleavage," and proceeds to hoist up the neckline of her dress.

The audience giggles. They love her for that remark, for the fashion flub. She chats up the fans who have come so far and worked so hard to see her. She inquires about them, curious about what their lives are like. After all, what is left for her to reveal about herself? She has put so much of it out there for public consumption: the weight struggles, the drug and sexual abuse, life with her boyfriend Stedman Graham. She's shed a light on every dark corner, it seems.

"For the most part, they've heard Oprah's life story," King says. "But she has a couple more secrets. Stay tuned."

Rest assured, her fans will do just that. Their hunger for the self-help confessional, uplifting anecdote and the Oprah song shows no sign of waning.