Shirley MacLaine is an American actress and author. With a career spanning over 70 years, she has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, two BAFTA Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Volpi Cups, and two Silver Bears. She has been honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center Tribute in 1995, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1998, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2012, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2014.
Beloved is a 1998 American gothic psychological horror drama film directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, and Thandiwe Newton. Based on Toni Morrison's 1987 novel of the same name, the plot centers on a formerly enslaved person after the American Civil War, her haunting by a poltergeist, and the visitation of her reincarnated daughter. This was the first film produced by Harpo Films.
Oprah's Book Club was a book discussion club segment of the American talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, highlighting books chosen by host Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey started the book club in 1996, selecting a new book, usually a novel, for viewers to read and discuss each month. In total, the club recommended 70 books during its 15 years.
Harpo Productions is an American multimedia production company founded by Oprah Winfrey and based in West Hollywood, California. The name "Harpo" is "Oprah" spelled backwards and it was also the name of her on-screen husband in the film The Color Purple (1985).
James Christopher Frey is an American writer and businessman. His first two books, A Million Little Pieces (2003) and My Friend Leonard (2005), were bestsellers marketed as memoirs. Large parts of the stories were later found to be exaggerated or fabricated, sparking a media controversy. His 2008 novel Bright Shiny Morning was also a bestseller.
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a 2005 American television drama film based upon Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel of the same name. The film was directed by Darnell Martin, written by Suzan-Lori Parks, Misan Sagay, and Bobby Smith Jr., and produced by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions. It stars Halle Berry, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and Michael Ealy, and aired on ABC on March 6, 2005.
The Color Purple is a 1985 American epic coming-of-age period drama film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Menno Meyjes. It is based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker and was Spielberg's eighth film as a director, marking a turning point in his career as it was a departure from the summer blockbusters for which he had become known. It was also the first feature film directed by Spielberg for which John Williams did not compose the music, instead featuring a score by Quincy Jones, who also produced. The film stars Whoopi Goldberg in her breakthrough role, with Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery, and Adolph Caesar.
Iyanla Vanzant is an American inspirational speaker, lawyer, New Thought spiritual teacher, author, life coach, and television personality. She is known primarily for her books, her eponymous talk show, and her appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. From 2012 to 2021, she served as host of OWN's Iyanla: Fix My Life.
Elizabeth Strout is an American novelist and author. She is widely known for her works in literary fiction and her descriptive characterization. She was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and her experiences in her youth served as inspiration for her novels–the fictional "Shirley Falls, Maine" is the setting of four of her nine novels.
Oprah Gail Winfrey, also known mononymously as Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African-American of the 20th century and was once the world's only black billionaire. By 2007, she was often ranked as the most influential woman in the world.
Tuesdays with Morrie is a 1999 American biographical drama television film directed by Mick Jackson and written by Thomas Rickman, based on journalist Mitch Albom's 1997 memoir of the same title. In the film, Albom bonds with his former professor, Morrie Schwartz, who is dying of ALS, over a series of visits.
Before Women Had Wings is a 1997 American drama television film directed by Lloyd Kramer and written by Connie May Fowler, based on her 1996 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. It stars Ellen Barkin, Oprah Winfrey, Tina Majorino, Julia Stiles, Burt Young, and John Savage. In the film, set in 1960s Tampa, Florida, a woman whose abusive husband had committed suicide begins violently abusing her two daughters. It is only then that a kindly woman becomes good friends with her youngest daughter and helps the daughter escape her tortured life.
Oprah's Lifeclass is an American primetime television show hosted and produced by Oprah Winfrey, which aired on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. The series premiered on October 10, 2011.
Oprah's Book Club 2.0 is a book club founded June 1, 2012, by Oprah Winfrey in a joint project between OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network and O: The Oprah Magazine. The club is a re-launch of the original Oprah's Book Club, which ran for 15 years and ended in 2011, but as the "2.0" name suggests, digital media is the new focus. It incorporates the use of various social media platforms and e-readers that allow for the quoting and uploading of passages and notes for discussion, among other features.
Heaven Lake is the debut novel of American author John Dalton published in 2004. It won both the 2005 Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the 2004 Barnes & Noble Discover Award in Fiction. It gets its name from the Heaven Lake of Tian Shan in northwest China which features towards the end of the novel.
Love Thy Neighbor is an American television sitcom broadcast from May 29, 2013 to August 19, 2017 on the Oprah Winfrey Network. The series is written, directed and executive produced by Tyler Perry. The series serves as a spin-off of the Madea franchise. It also acquired the second highest-rated series premiere on the Oprah Winfrey Network, after another Perry program, The Haves and the Have Nots.
The Burgess Boys (2013) is the fourth book by the American author Elizabeth Strout. The novel was first published in hardback on March 26, 2013, through Random House. The story follows two brothers who must return home to help out their sister after her son is accused of a hate crime. The novel is set in the fictional New England town of Shirley Falls, the setting of Strout's first novel, Amy and Isabelle.
Amy & Isabelle is a 2001 made-for-television film produced through Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films as part of her "Oprah Winfrey Presents" film line. It was directed by Lloyd Kramer, who had previously directed another film under the "Oprah Winfrey Presents" banner, Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day. The book is based on the 1998 Elizabeth Strout book Amy and Isabelle and stars Elisabeth Shue and Hanna Hall as Isabelle and her daughter Amy.
Lloyd Kramer is an American filmmaker known for directing made-for-TV films such as The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
Olive, Again is a novel by the American author Elizabeth Strout. The book was published by Random House on October 15, 2019. It is a sequel to Olive Kitteridge (2008), which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In November 2019, the novel was selected for the revival of Oprah's Book Club. Similar to the first novel, Olive, Again takes the form of 13 short stories that are interrelated but discontinuous in terms of narrative. It follows Olive Kitteridge from her seventies into her eighties.
