document_title: Oprah Winfrey

question_text: when did oprah begin her career in broadcasting

question_tokens: when did oprah begin her career in broadcasting

text: Oprah Winfrey

text: Early life

text: Winfrey's first name was spelled "Orpah" on her birth certificate after the biblical figure in the Book of Ruth, but people mispronounced it regularly and "Oprah" stuck.[1] She was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to an unmarried teenage mother. She later said that her conception was due to a single sexual encounter and the couple broke up not long after.[27] Her mother, Vernita Lee (born c. 1935), was a housemaid. Winfrey's biological father is usually noted as Vernon Winfrey (born c. 1933), a coal miner turned barber turned city councilman who had been in the Armed Forces when she was born. However, Mississippi farmer and World War II veteran Noah Robinson Sr., (born c. 1925) has claimed to be her biological father.[28]

text: A genetic test in 2006 determined that her matrilineal line originated among the Kpelle ethnic group, in the area that today is Liberia. Her genetic makeup was determined to be 89% Sub-Saharan African, 8% Native American, and 3% East Asian. However, the East Asian markers may, given the imprecision of genetic testing, actually be Native American.[29]

text: After Winfrey's birth, her mother traveled north and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her maternal grandmother, Hattie Mae (Presley) Lee (April 15, 1900 – February 27, 1963), who was so poor that Winfrey often wore dresses made of potato sacks, for which the local children made fun of her.[30][31] Her grandmother taught her to read before the age of three and took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed "The Preacher" for her ability to recite Bible verses. When Winfrey was a child, her grandmother would hit her with a stick when she did not do chores or if she misbehaved in any way.[32]

text: At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner-city neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her mother, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother had been, largely as a result of the long hours she worked as a maid.[33] Around this time, Lee had given birth to another daughter, Winfrey's younger half-sister, Patricia[34] who later (in February 2003, at age 43) died of causes related to cocaine addiction.[35]

text: By 1962, Lee was having difficulty raising both daughters so Winfrey was temporarily sent to live with Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee.[36] While Winfrey was in Nashville, Lee gave birth to a third daughter[37] who was put up for adoption (in the hope of easing the financial straits that had led to Lee's being on welfare) and later also named Patricia.[38] Winfrey did not learn she had a second half-sister until 2010.[38] By the time Winfrey moved back with her mother, Lee had also given birth to a boy named Jeffrey, Winfrey's half-brother, who died of AIDS-related causes in 1989.[35]

text: Winfrey has stated she was molested by her cousin, uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was nine years old, something she first announced to her viewers on a 1986 episode of her TV show regarding sexual abuse.[39][40] When Winfrey discussed the alleged abuse with family members at age 24, they reportedly refused to believe her account.[41]

text: Winfrey once commented that she had chosen not to be a mother because she had not been mothered well.[42] At 13, after suffering what she described as years of abuse, Winfrey ran away from home.[1] When she was 14, she became pregnant but her son was born prematurely and he died shortly after birth.[43] Winfrey later stated she felt betrayed by the family member who had sold the story of her son to the National Enquirer in 1990.[44]

text: She began attending Lincoln High School, Milwaukee; but after early success in the Upward Bound program, was transferred to the affluent suburban Nicolet High School, where she says her poverty was constantly rubbed in her face as she rode the bus to school with fellow African-Americans, some of whom were servants of her classmates' families. She began to steal money from her mother in an effort to keep up with her free-spending peers, to lie to and argue with her mother, and to go out with older boys.[45]

text: Her frustrated mother once again sent her to live with Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee, although this time she did not take her back. Vernon was strict but encouraging, and made her education a priority. Winfrey became an honors student, was voted Most Popular Girl, and joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School, placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation.[46]

text: She won an oratory contest, which secured her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black institution, where she studied communication. Her first job as a teenager was working at a local grocery store.[47] At the age of 17, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.[48] She also attracted the attention of the local black radio station, WVOL, which hired her to do the news part-time.[39] She worked there during her senior year of high school, and again while in her first two years of college.

text: Winfrey's career choice in media would not have surprised her grandmother, who once said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was on stage. As a child, she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property. Winfrey later acknowledged her grandmother's influence, saying it was Hattie Mae who had encouraged her to speak in public and "gave me a positive sense of myself".[49]

text: Television

text: Working in local media, she was both the youngest news anchor and the first black female news anchor at Nashville's WLAC-TV. She moved to Baltimore's WJZ-TV in 1976 to co-anchor the six o'clock news. In 1977, she was removed as co-anchor and worked lower profile positions at the station. She was then recruited to join Richard Sher as co-host of WJZ's local talk show People Are Talking, which premiered on August 14, 1978. She also hosted the local version of Dialing for Dollars.[50]

text: In 1983, Winfrey relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV's low-rated half-hour morning talk show, AM Chicago. The first episode aired on January 2, 1984. Within months after Winfrey took over, the show went from last place in the ratings to overtaking Donahue as the highest-rated talk show in Chicago. The movie critic Roger Ebert persuaded her to sign a syndication deal with King World. Ebert predicted that she would generate 40 times as much revenue as his television show, At the Movies.[51] It was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, expanded to a full hour and broadcast nationally beginning September 8, 1986.[52] Winfrey's syndicated show brought in double Donahue's national audience, displacing Donahue as the number-one daytime talk show in America. Their much-publicized contest was the subject of enormous scrutiny. TIME magazine wrote:

text:
“
Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey's swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk. As interviewers go, she is no match for, say, Phil Donahue ... What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah's eye ... They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience. It is the talk show as a group therapy session.[53]
”

text: TV columnist Howard Rosenberg said, "She's a roundhouse, a full course meal, big, brassy, loud, aggressive, hyper, laughable, lovable, soulful, tender, low-down, earthy, and hungry. And she may know the way to Phil Donahue's jugular."[54] Newsday's Les Payne observed, "Oprah Winfrey is sharper than Donahue, wittier, more genuine, and far better attuned to her audience, if not the world"[54] and Martha Bayles of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "It's a relief to see a gab-monger with a fond but realistic assessment of her own cultural and religious roots."[54]

text: In the early years of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the program was classified as a tabloid talk show. In the mid-1990s, Winfrey adopted a less tabloid-oriented format, hosting shows on broader topics such as heart disease, geopolitics, spirituality, and meditation, interviewing celebrities on social issues they were directly involved with, such as cancer, charity work, or substance abuse, and hosting televised giveaways including shows where every audience member received a new car (donated by General Motors) or a trip to Australia (donated by Australian tourism bodies).[citation needed]

text: In addition to her talk show, Winfrey also produced and co-starred in the 1989 drama miniseries The Women of Brewster Place, as well as a short-lived spin-off, Brewster Place. As well as hosting and appearing on television shows, Winfrey co-founded the women's cable television network Oxygen. She is also the president of Harpo Productions (Oprah spelled backwards).

text: On January 15, 2008, Winfrey and Discovery Communications announced plans to change Discovery Health Channel into a new channel called OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. It was scheduled to launch in 2009 but was delayed, and actually launched on January 1, 2011.[55]

text: The series finale of The Oprah Winfrey Show aired on May 25, 2011.[56]

text: In January 2017, CBS announced that Winfrey would join 60 Minutes as a special contributor on the Sunday evening news magazine program starting in September 2017.[57]

text: Celebrity interviews

text: In 1993, Winfrey hosted a rare prime-time interview with Michael Jackson, which became the fourth most-watched event in American television history as well as the most watched interview ever, with an audience of 36.5 million.[58] On December 1, 2005, Winfrey appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman to promote the new Broadway musical The Color Purple,[59] of which she was a producer, joining the host for the first time in 16 years. The episode was hailed by some as the "television event of the decade" and helped Letterman attract his largest audience in more than 11 years: 13.45 million viewers.[60] Although a much-rumored feud was said to have been the cause of the rift,[59] both Winfrey and Letterman balked at such talk. "I want you to know, it's really over, whatever you thought was happening", said Winfrey. On September 10, 2007, Letterman made his first appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, as its season premiere was filmed in New York City.[61]

text: In 2006, rappers Ludacris, 50 Cent and Ice Cube criticized Winfrey for what they perceived as an anti-hip hop bias. In an interview with GQ magazine, Ludacris said that Winfrey gave him a "hard time" about his lyrics, and edited comments he made during an appearance on her show with the cast of the film Crash. He also said that he wasn't initially invited on the show with the rest of the cast.[62] Winfrey responded by saying that she is opposed to rap lyrics that "marginalize women", but enjoys some artists, including Kanye West, who appeared on her show. She said she spoke with Ludacris backstage after his appearance to explain her position and said she understood that his music was for entertainment purposes, but that some of his listeners might take it literally. In September 2008, Winfrey received criticism after Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report[63] reported that Winfrey refused to have Sarah Palin on her show, allegedly because of Winfrey's support for Barack Obama.[64] Winfrey denied the report, maintaining that there never was a discussion regarding Palin's appearing on her show. She said that after she made public her support for Obama, she decided that she would not let her show be used as a platform for any of the candidates.[64] Although Obama appeared twice on her show, those appearances were prior to his declaring himself a candidate. Winfrey added that Palin would make a fantastic guest and that she would love to have her on the show after the election, which she did on November 18, 2009.[64]

text: In 2009, Winfrey was criticized for allowing actress Suzanne Somers to appear on her show to discuss hormone treatments that are not accepted by mainstream medicine.[65] Critics have also suggested that Winfrey is not tough enough when questioning celebrity guests or politicians whom she appears to like.[66] Lisa de Moraes, a media columnist for The Washington Post, stated: "Oprah doesn't do follow-up questions unless you're an author who's embarrassed her by fabricating portions of a supposed memoir she's plugged for her book club."[67]

text: Other media

text: Film

text: In 1985, Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple as distraught housewife Sofia. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. The Alice Walker novel went on to become a Broadway musical which opened in late 2005, with Winfrey credited as a producer. In October 1998, Winfrey produced and starred in the film Beloved, based on Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. To prepare for her role as Sethe, the protagonist and former slave, Winfrey experienced a 24-hour simulation of the experience of slavery, which included being tied up and blindfolded and left alone in the woods. Despite major advertising, including two episodes of her talk show dedicated solely to the film, and moderate to good critical reviews, Beloved opened to poor box-office results, losing approximately $30 million. While promoting the movie, co-star Thandie Newton described Winfrey as "a very strong technical actress and it's because she's so smart. She's acute. She's got a mind like a razor blade."[68] In 2005, Harpo Productions released a film adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. The made-for-television film was based upon a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks and starred Halle Berry in the lead female role.

text: In late 2008, Winfrey's company Harpo Films signed an exclusive output pact to develop and produce scripted series, documentaries, and movies for HBO.[69]

text: Oprah voiced Gussie the goose in Charlotte's Web (2006) and voiced Judge Bumbleton in Bee Movie (2007), co-starring the voices of Jerry Seinfeld and Renée Zellweger. In 2009, Winfrey provided the voice for the character of Eudora, the mother of Princess Tiana, in Disney's The Princess and the Frog and in 2010, narrated the US version of the BBC nature program Life for Discovery.

text: In 2018, Winfrey starred as Mrs. Which in the film adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's novel A Wrinkle in Time.[70]

text: Publishing and writing

text: Winfrey has co-authored five books. At the announcement of a weight-loss book in 2005, co-authored with her personal trainer Bob Greene, it was said that her undisclosed advance fee had broken the record for the world's highest book advance fee, previously held by the autobiography of former U.S. President Bill Clinton.[71]

text: Her memoir, The Life You Want, was scheduled for publication in 2017.[72] It did not appear in that year.

text: Winfrey publishes the magazine: O, The Oprah Magazine and from 2004 to 2008 she also published a magazine called O At Home.[73] In 2002, Fortune called O, the Oprah Magazine the most successful start-up ever in the industry.[74] Although its circulation had declined by more than 10 percent (to 2.4 million) from 2005 to 2008,[75] the January 2009 issue was the best selling issue since 2006.[76] The audience for her magazine is considerably more upscale than for her TV show, the average reader earning is well above the median for U.S. women.[74]

text: Online

text: Winfrey's company created the Oprah.com website to provide resources and interactive content relating to her shows, magazines, book club, and public charity. Oprah.com averages more than 70 million page views and more than six million users per month, and receives approximately 20,000 e-mails each week.[77] Winfrey initiated "Oprah's Child Predator Watch List", through her show and website, to help track down accused child molesters. Within the first 48 hours, two of the featured men were captured.[78]

text: Radio

text: On February 9, 2006, it was announced that Winfrey had signed a three-year, $55-million contract with XM Satellite Radio to establish a new radio channel. The channel, Oprah Radio, features popular contributors to The Oprah Winfrey Show and O, The Oprah Magazine including Nate Berkus, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Bob Greene, Dr. Robin Smith, and Marianne Williamson. Oprah & Friends began broadcasting at 11:00 am ET, September 25, 2006, from a new studio at Winfrey's Chicago headquarters. The channel broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week on XM Radio Channel 156. Winfrey's contract requires her to be on the air 30 minutes a week, 39 weeks a year.

text: Personal life

text: Homes

text: Winfrey currently lives on "The Promised Land", her 42-acre (17-ha) estate with ocean and mountain views in Montecito, California. Winfrey also owns a house in Lavallette, New Jersey; an apartment in Chicago; an estate on Fisher Island, Florida; a ski house in Telluride, Colorado; and properties on Maui, Hawaii and Antigua.

text: Romantic history

text: Winfrey's high school sweetheart Anthony Otey recalled an innocent courtship that began in Winfrey's senior year of high school, from which he saved hundreds of love notes; Winfrey conducted herself with dignity and as a model student.[79] The two spoke of getting married, but Otey claimed to have always secretly known that Winfrey was destined for a far greater life than he could ever provide.[80] She broke up with him on Valentine's Day of her senior year.[80][81]

text: In 1971, several months after breaking up with Otey, Winfrey met William "Bubba" Taylor at Tennessee State University. According to CBS journalist George Mair, Taylor was Winfrey's "first intense, to die for love affair". Winfrey helped get Taylor a job at WVOL, and according to Mair, "did everything to keep him, including literally begging him on her knees to stay with her."[82] Taylor, however, was unwilling to leave Nashville with Winfrey when she moved to Baltimore to work at WJZ-TV in June 1976. "We really did care for each other", Winfrey would later recall. "We shared a deep love. A love I will never forget."[83]

text: In the 1970s, Winfrey had a romantic relationship with John Tesh. Biographer Kitty Kelley claims that Tesh split with Winfrey over the pressure of having an interracial relationship.[84]

text: When WJZ-TV management criticized Winfrey for crying on the air while reporting tragedies and were unhappy with her physical appearance (especially when her hair fell out as the result of a bad perm), Winfrey turned to reporter Lloyd Kramer for comfort. "Lloyd was just the best", Winfrey would later recall. "That man loved me even when I was bald! He was wonderful. He stuck with me through the whole demoralizing experience. That man was the most fun romance I ever had."[85]

text: According to Mair, when Kramer moved to NBC in New York, Winfrey had a love affair with a married man who had no intention of leaving his wife.[86] Winfrey would later recall: "I'd had a relationship with a man for four years. I wasn't living with him. I'd never lived with anyone—and I thought I was worthless without him. The more he rejected me, the more I wanted him. I felt depleted, powerless. At the end, I was down on the floor on my knees groveling and pleading with him".[87] Winfrey became so depressed that on September 8, 1981, she wrote a suicide note to best friend Gayle King instructing King to water her plants.[87] "That suicide note had been much overplayed" Winfrey told Ms. magazine. "I couldn't kill myself. I would be afraid the minute I did it; something really good would happen and I'd miss it."[88]

text: According to Winfrey, her emotional turmoil gradually led to a weight problem: "The reason I gained so much weight in the first place and the reason I had such a sorry history of abusive relationships with men was I just needed approval so much. I needed everyone to like me, because I didn't like myself much. So I'd end up with these cruel self-absorbed guys who'd tell me how selfish I was, and I'd say 'Oh thank you, you're so right' and be grateful to them. Because I had no sense that I deserved anything else. Which is also why I gained so much weight later on. It was the perfect way of cushioning myself against the world's disapproval."[88]

text: Winfrey later confessed to smoking crack cocaine with a man she was romantically involved with during the same era. She explained on her show: "I always felt that the drug itself is not the problem but that I was addicted to the man." She added: "I can't think of anything I wouldn't have done for that man."[89]

text: Winfrey was allegedly involved in a second drug-related love affair. Self-proclaimed former boyfriend Randolph Cook said they lived together for several months in 1985 and did drugs. In 1997, Cook tried to sue Winfrey for $20 million for allegedly blocking a tell-all book about their alleged relationship.[90][91]

text: Also, in the mid-1980s, Winfrey briefly dated movie critic Roger Ebert, whom she credits with advising her to take her show into syndication.[51]

text: In 1985, before Winfrey's Chicago talk show had gone national, Haitian filmmaker Reginald Chevalier claims he appeared as a guest on a look-alike segment and began a relationship with Winfrey involving romantic evenings at home, candlelit baths, and dinners with Michael Jordan and Danny Glover. Chevalier says Winfrey ended the relationship when she met Stedman Graham.[92]

text: Winfrey and her boyfriend Stedman Graham have been together since 1986. They were engaged to be married in November 1992, but the ceremony never took place.[93]

text: Close friends

text: Winfrey's best friend since their early twenties is Gayle King. King was formerly the host of The Gayle King Show and is currently an editor of O, the Oprah Magazine. Since 1997, when Winfrey played the therapist on an episode of the sitcom Ellen in which Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet, Winfrey and King have been the target of persistent rumors that they were gay. "I understand why people think we're gay", Winfrey says in the August 2006 issue of O magazine. "There isn't a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it—how can you be this close without it being sexual?"[94] "I've told nearly everything there is to tell. All my stuff is out there. People think I'd be so ashamed of being gay that I wouldn't admit it? Oh, please."[94]

text: Winfrey has also had a long friendship with Maria Shriver, after they met in Baltimore.[95][96] Winfrey considered Maya Angelou, author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, her mentor and close friend; she called Angelou her "mother-sister-friend."[97] Winfrey hosted a week-long Caribbean cruise for Angelou and 150 guests for Angelou's 70th birthday in 1998, and in 2008, threw her "an extravagant 80th birthday celebration" at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.[98]

text: Personal wealth

text: Born in rural poverty, and raised by a mother dependent on government welfare payments in a poor urban neighborhood, Winfrey became a millionaire at the age of 32 when her talk show received national syndication. Winfrey negotiated ownership rights to the television program and started her own production company. At the age of 41, Winfrey had a net worth of $340 million and replaced Bill Cosby as the only African American on the Forbes 400.[99] With a 2000 net worth of $800 million, Winfrey is believed to be the richest African American of the 20th century. There has been a course taught at the University of Illinois focusing on Winfrey's business acumen, namely: "History 298: Oprah Winfrey, the Tycoon".[100] Winfrey was the highest paid television entertainer in the United States in 2006, earning an estimated $260 million during the year, five times the sum earned by second-place music executive Simon Cowell.[101] By 2008, her yearly income had increased to $275 million.[102]

text: Forbes' list of The World's Billionaires has listed Winfrey as the world's only black billionaire from 2004 to 2006 and as the first black woman billionaire in the world that was achieved in 2003.[99] As of 2014, Winfrey has a net worth in excess of 2.9 billion dollars[103] and has overtaken former eBay CEO Meg Whitman as the richest self-made woman in America.[104]

text: Religious views

text: Oprah was raised a Baptist. In her early life, she would speak at local, mostly African American congregations of the Southern Baptist Convention that were often deeply religious and familiar with such themes as evangelical Protestantism, the Black church and being born-again.[105][106][107]

text: She was quoted as saying: "I have church with myself: I have church walking down the street. I believe in the God force that lives inside all of us, and once you tap into that, you can do anything."[108]

text: Influence

text: Rankings

text: Winfrey was called "arguably the world's most powerful woman" by CNN and Time.com,[109] "arguably the most influential woman in the world" by The American Spectator,[110] "one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th Century" and "one of the most influential people" from 2004 to 2011 by TIME. Winfrey is the only person in the world to have appeared in the latter list on ten occasions.[111]

text: At the end of the 20th century, Life listed Winfrey as both the most influential woman and the most influential black person of her generation, and in a cover story profile the magazine called her "America's most powerful woman".[112] In 2007, USA Today ranked Winfrey as the most influential woman and most influential black person of the previous quarter-century.[113] Ladies Home Journal also ranked Winfrey number one in their list of the most powerful women in America and Senator Barack Obama has said she "may be the most influential woman in the country".[114] In 1998, Winfrey became the first woman and first African American to top Entertainment Weekly's list of the 101 most powerful people in the entertainment industry.[115] Forbes named her the world's most powerful celebrity in 2005,[116] 2007,[117] 2008,[102] 2010,[118] and 2013.[119]

text: As chairman of Harpo Inc., she was named the most powerful woman in entertainment by The Hollywood Reporter in 2008.[120] She has been listed as one of the most powerful 100 women in the world by Forbes, ranking fourteenth in 2014.[121] In 2010, Life magazine named Winfrey one of the 100 people who changed the world, alongside such luminaries as Jesus Christ, Elvis Presley and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Winfrey was the only living woman to make the list.[122]

text: Columnist Maureen Dowd seems to agree with such assessments: "She is the top alpha female in this country. She has more credibility than the president. Other successful women, such as Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart, had to be publicly slapped down before they could move forward. Even Condi has had to play the protegé with Bush. None of this happened to Oprah – she is a straight ahead success story.[123] Vanity Fair wrote: "Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader, except perhaps the Pope.[124] Bill O'Reilly said: "this is a woman that came from nothing to rise up to be the most powerful woman, I think, in the world. I think Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful woman in the world, not just in America. That's – anybody who goes on her program immediately benefits through the roof. I mean, she has a loyal following; she has credibility; she has talent; and she's done it on her own to become fabulously wealthy and fabulously powerful."[125]

text: In 2005, Winfrey was named the greatest woman in American history as part of a public poll as part of The Greatest American. She was ranked No. 9 overall on the list of greatest Americans. However, polls estimating Winfrey's personal popularity have been inconsistent. A November 2003 Gallup poll estimated that 73% of American adults had a favorable view of Winfrey. Another Gallup poll in January 2007 estimated the figure at 74%, although it dropped to 66% when Gallup conducted the same poll in October 2007. A December 2007 Fox News poll put the figure at 55%.[126] According to Gallup's annual most admired poll, Americans consistently rank Winfrey as one of the most admired women in the world. Her highest rating came in 2007[127] when she was statistically tied with Hillary Clinton for first place.[128] In a list compiled by the British magazine New Statesman in September 2010, she was voted 38th in the list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".[129]

text: In 1989, she was accepted into the NAACP Image Award Hall of Fame.[130]

text: "Oprahfication"

text: The Wall Street Journal coined the term "Oprahfication", meaning public confession as a form of therapy.[131] By confessing intimate details about her weight problems, tumultuous love life, and sexual abuse, and crying alongside her guests, Time magazine credits Winfrey with creating a new form of media communication known as "rapport talk" as distinguished from the "report talk" of Phil Donahue: "Winfrey saw television's power to blend public and private; while it links strangers and conveys information over public airwaves, TV is most often viewed in the privacy of our homes. Like a family member, it sits down to meals with us and talks to us in the lonely afternoons. Grasping this paradox, ... She makes people care because she cares. That is Winfrey's genius, and will be her legacy, as the changes she has wrought in the talk show continue to permeate our culture and shape our lives."[132]

text: Observers have also noted the "Oprahfication" of politics such as "Oprah-style debates" and Bill Clinton being described as "the man who brought Oprah-style psychobabble and misty confessions to politics."[133] Newsweek stated: "Every time a politician lets his lip quiver or a cable anchor 'emotes' on TV, they nod to the cult of confession that Oprah helped create.[134]

text: The November 1988 Ms. observed that "in a society where fat is taboo, she made it in a medium that worships thin and celebrates a bland, white-bread prettiness of body and personality [...] But Winfrey made fat sexy, elegant – damned near gorgeous – with her drop-dead wardrobe, easy body language, and cheerful sensuality."[135]

text: Mainstream acceptance of LGBT people

text: While Phil Donahue has been credited with pioneering the tabloid talk show genre, Winfrey's warmth, intimacy, and personal confession popularized and changed it.[16][17] Her success at popularizing the tabloid talk show genre opened up a thriving industry that has included Ricki Lake, The Jenny Jones Show, and The Jerry Springer Show. Sociologists such as Vicki Abt criticized tabloid talk shows for redefining social norms. In her book Coming After Oprah: Cultural Fallout in the Age of the TV talk show, Abt warned that the media revolution that followed Winfrey's success was blurring the lines between "normal" and "deviant" behavior. In the book Freaks Talk Back,[18]

text: Yale sociology professor Joshua Gamson credits the tabloid talk show genre with providing much needed high impact media visibility for gay, bisexual, transsexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and doing more to make them mainstream and socially acceptable than any other development of the 20th century. In the book's editorial review, Michael Bronski wrote, "In the recent past, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people had almost no presence on television. With the invention and propagation of tabloid talk shows such as Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Oprah, and Geraldo, people outside the sexual mainstream now appear in living rooms across America almost every day of the week."[136] Gamson credits the tabloid talk show with making alternative sexual orientations and identities more acceptable in mainstream society. Examples include a Time magazine article[page needed] on early 21st-century gays coming out of the closet at an increasingly younger age and on plummeting gay suicide rates. Gamson also believes that tabloid talk shows caused gays to be accepted on more traditional forms of media.

text: In April 1997, Winfrey played the therapist in "The Puppy Episode" on the sitcom Ellen to whom the character (and the real-life Ellen DeGeneres) said she was a lesbian.

text: "The Oprah Effect"

text: The power of Winfrey's opinions and endorsement to influence public opinion, especially consumer purchasing choices, has been dubbed "The Oprah Effect".[137] The effect has been documented or alleged in domains as diverse as book sales, beef markets, and election voting. Late in 1996,[138] Winfrey introduced the Oprah's Book Club segment to her television show. The segment focused on new books and classics and often brought obscure novels to popular attention. The book club became such a powerful force that whenever Winfrey introduced a new book as her book-club selection, it instantly became a best-seller; for example, when she selected the classic John Steinbeck novel East of Eden, it soared to the top of the book charts. Being recognized by Winfrey often means a million additional book sales for an author.[139] In Reading with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America (2005), Kathleen Rooney describes Winfrey as "a serious American intellectual who pioneered the use of electronic media, specifically television and the Internet, to take reading – a decidedly non-technological and highly individual act – and highlight its social elements and uses in such a way to motivate millions of erstwhile non-readers to pick up books."

text: When author Jonathan Franzen's book was selected for the Book Club, he reportedly "cringed" and said selected books tend to be "schmaltzy".[140] After James Frey's A Million Little Pieces was found to contain fabrications in 2006, Winfrey confronted him on her show over the breach of trust. In 2009, Winfrey apologized to Frey for the public confrontation.[141] During a show about mad cow disease with Howard Lyman (aired on April 16, 1996), Winfrey said she was stopped cold from eating another burger. Texas cattlemen sued her and Lyman in early 1998 for "false defamation of perishable food" and "business disparagement", claiming that Winfrey's remarks sent cattle prices tumbling, costing beef producers $11 million. Winfrey was represented by attorney Chip Babcock and, on February 26, after a two-month trial in an Amarillo, Texas, court, a jury found Winfrey and Lyman were not liable for damages.[142][143] During the lawsuit, Winfrey hired Phil McGraw's company Courtroom Sciences, Inc. to help her analyze and read the jury.[144] Winfrey's ability to launch other successful talk shows such as Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and Rachael Ray has also been cited as examples of "The Oprah Effect".[145]

text: Politics

text: Winfrey endorsed presidential candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election,[146][147][148] the first time she endorsed a political candidate running for office.[149] Winfrey held a fundraiser for Obama on September 8, 2007, at her Santa Barbara estate. In December 2007, Winfrey joined Obama for a series of rallies in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The Columbia, South Carolina, event on December 9, 2007, drew a crowd of nearly 30,000, the largest for any political event of 2007.[150] An analysis by two economists at the University of Maryland, College Park estimated that Winfrey's endorsement was responsible for between 420,000 and 1,600,000 votes for Obama in the Democratic primary alone, based on a sample of states that did not include Texas, Michigan, North Dakota, Kansas, or Alaska. The results suggest that in the sampled states, Winfrey's endorsement was responsible for the difference in the popular vote between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.[151] The governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, reported being so impressed by Winfrey's endorsement that he considered offering Winfrey Obama's vacant senate seat,describing Winfrey as "the most instrumental person in electing Barack Obama president", with "a voice larger than all 100 senators combined".[152] Winfrey responded by stating that although she was absolutely not interested, she did feel she could be a senator.[153]

text: In April 2014, Winfrey spoke for more than 20 minutes at a fundraiser in Arlington, Virginia, for Lavern Chatman, a candidate in a primary to nominate a Democratic Party candidate for election to the U.S. House of Representatives. Winfrey participated in the event even after reports had revealed that Chatman had been found liable in 2001 for her role in a scheme to defraud hundreds of District of Columbia nursing-home employees of at least $1.4 million in owed wages.[154]

text: In 2018, Winfrey donated $500,000 to the March for Our Lives student demonstration in favor of gun control in the United States.[155]

text: Spiritual leadership

text: In 2000, she was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.[156] In 2002, Christianity Today published an article called "The Church of O" in which they concluded that Winfrey had emerged as an influential spiritual leader. "Since 1994, when she abandoned traditional talk-show fare for more edifying content, and 1998, when she began 'Change Your Life TV', Oprah's most significant role has become that of a spiritual leader. To her audience of more than 22 million mostly female viewers, she has become a postmodern priestess—an icon of church-free spirituality."[131] The sentiment was echoed by Marcia Z. Nelson in her book The Gospel According to Oprah.[157] Since the mid-1990s, Winfrey's show has emphasized uplifting and inspirational topics and themes and some viewers say the show has motivated them to perform acts of altruism such as helping Congolese women and building an orphanage.[158] A scientific study by psychological scientists at the University of Cambridge, University of Plymouth, and University of California used an uplifting clip from The Oprah Winfrey Show in an experiment that discovered that watching the 'uplifting' clip caused subjects to become twice as helpful as subjects assigned to watch a British comedy or nature documentary.[159][160]

text: In 1998, Winfrey began an ongoing conversation with Gary Zukav, an American spiritual teacher, who appeared on her television show 35 times.[161] Winfrey has said she keeps a copy of Zukav's The Seat of the Soul at her bedside, a book that she says is one of her all-time favorites.[162]

text: On the season premier of Winfrey's 13th season, Roseanne Barr told Winfrey "you're the African Mother Goddess of us all" inspiring much enthusiasm from the studio audience. The animated series Futurama alluded to her spiritual influence by suggesting that "Oprahism" is a mainstream religion in 3000 AD.[163] Twelve days after the September 11 attacks, New York mayor Rudy Giuliani asked Winfrey to serve as host of a Prayer for America service at New York city's Yankee Stadium which was attended by former president Bill Clinton and New York senator Hillary Clinton.[164] Leading up to the U.S.-led 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, less than a month after the September 11 attacks, Winfrey aired a controversial show called "Islam 101" in which she portrayed Islam as a religion of peace, calling it "the most misunderstood of the three major religions".[165] In 2002, George W. Bush invited Winfrey to join a US delegation that included adviser Karen Hughes and Condoleezza Rice, planning to go to Afghanistan to celebrate the return of Afghan girls to school. The "Oprah strategy" was designed to portray the War on Terror in a positive light; however, when Winfrey refused to participate, the trip was postponed.[166]

text: Leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Winfrey's show received criticism for allegedly having an anti-war bias. Ben Shapiro of Townhall.com wrote: "Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful woman in America. She decides what makes The New York Times Best Seller lists. Her touchy-feely style sucks in audiences at the rate of 14 million viewers per day. But Oprah is far more than a cultural force, she's a dangerous political force as well, a woman with unpredictable and mercurial attitudes toward the major issues of the day."[167] In 2006, Winfrey recalled such controversies: "I once did a show titled Is War the Only Answer? In the history of my career, I've never received more hate mail – like 'Go back to Africa' hate mail. I was accused of being un-American for even raising the question."[168] Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore came to Winfrey's defence, praising her for showing antiwar footage no other media would show[169] and begging her to run for president.[170]

text: A February 2003 series, in which Winfrey showed clips from people all over the world asking America not to go to war, was interrupted in several east coast markets by network broadcasts of a press conference in which President George W. Bush and Colin Powell summarized the case for war.[171][172]

text: In 2007, Winfrey began to endorse the self-help program The Secret. The Secret claims that people can change their lives through positive thoughts or 'vibrations', which will then cause them to attract more positive vibrations that result in good things happening to them. Peter Birkenhead of Salon magazine argued that this idea is pseudoscience and psychologically damaging, as it trivializes important decisions and promotes a quick-fix material culture, and suggests Winfrey's promotion of it is irresponsible given her influence.[173] In 2007, skeptic and magician James Randi accused Winfrey of being deliberately deceptive and uncritical in how she handles paranormal claims on her show.[174] In 2008, Winfrey endorsed author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle and his book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, which sold several million extra copies after being selected for her book club. During a Webinar class, in which she promoted the book, Winfrey stated "God is a feeling experience and not a believing experience. If your religion is a believing experience [...] then that's not truly God."[175] Frank Pastore, a Christian radio talk show host on KKLA, was among the many Christian leaders who criticized Winfrey's views, saying "if she's a Christian, she's an ignorant one because Christianity is incompatible with New Age thought."[175]

text: Winfrey was named as the 2008 Person of the Year by animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for using her fame and listening audience to help the less fortunate, including animals. PETA praised Winfrey for using her talk show to uncover horrific cases of cruelty to animals in puppy mills and on factory farms, and Winfrey even used the show to highlight the cruelty-free vegan diet that she tried.[176] Winfrey also refuses to wear fur or feature it in her magazine.[177]

text: In 2009, Winfrey filmed a series of interviews in Denmark highlighting its citizens as the happiest people in the world. In 2010, Bill O'Reilly of Fox News criticized these shows for promoting a left-wing society.[178]

text: On using the N-word, Winfrey said, "You cannot be my friend and use that word around me. ... I always think of the...people who heard that as their last word as they were hanging from a tree."[179]

text: Fan base

text: The viewership for The Oprah Winfrey Show was highest during the 1991–92 season, when about 13.1 million U.S. viewers were watching each day. By 2003, ratings declined to 7.4 million daily viewers.[180] Ratings briefly rebounded to approximately 9 million in 2005 and then declined again to around 7.3 million viewers in 2008, though it remained the highest rated talk show.[181]

text: In 2008, Winfrey's show was airing in 140 countries internationally and seen by an estimated 46 million people in the US weekly.[182][183] According to the Harris poll, Winfrey was America's favorite television personality in 1998, 2000, 2002–06, and 2009. Winfrey was especially popular among women, Democrats, political moderates, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Southern Americans, and East Coast Americans.[184]

text: Outside the U.S., Winfrey has become increasingly popular in the Arab world. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2007 that MBC 4, an Arab satellite channel, centered its entire programming around reruns of her show because it was drawing record numbers of female viewers in Saudi Arabia.[185] In 2008, The New York Times reported that The Oprah Winfrey Show, with Arabic subtitles, was broadcast twice each weekday on MBC 4. Winfrey's modest dress, combined with her attitude of triumph over adversity and abuse has caused some women in Saudi Arabia to idealize her.[186]

text: Philanthropy

text: In 2004, Winfrey became the first black person to rank among the 50 most generous Americans[187] and she remained among the top 50 until 2010.[188] By 2012, she had given away about $400 million to educational causes.[189]

text: As of 2012, Winfrey had also given over 400 scholarships to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.[103] Winfrey was the recipient of the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at 2002 Emmy Awards for services to television and film. To celebrate two decades on national TV, and to thank her employees for their hard work, Winfrey took her staff and their families (1065 people in total) on vacation to Hawaii in the summer of 2006.[190]

text: In 2013, Winfrey donated $12 million to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.[191] President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom later that same year.[192]

text: Oprah's Angel Network

text: In 1998, Winfrey created the Oprah's Angel Network, a charity that supported charitable projects and provided grants to nonprofit organizations around the world. Oprah's Angel Network raised more than $80,000,000 ($1 million of which was donated by Jon Bon Jovi). Winfrey personally covered all administrative costs associated with the charity, so 100% of all funds raised went to charity programs. In May 2010, with Oprah's show ending, the charity stopped accepting donations and was shut down.[193] [194]

text: In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Oprah created the Oprah Angel Network Katrina registry which raised more than $11 million for relief efforts. Winfrey personally gave $10 million to the cause.[195] Homes were built in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama before the one-year anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.[196]

text: South Africa

text: In 2004, Winfrey and her team filmed an episode of her show, Oprah's Christmas Kindness, in which Winfrey travelled to South Africa to bring attention to the plight of young children affected by poverty and AIDS. During the 21-day trip, Winfrey and her crew visited schools and orphanages in poverty-stricken areas, and distributed Christmas presents to 50,000 children,[197] with dolls for the girls and soccer balls for the boys, and school supplies. Throughout the show, Winfrey appealed to viewers to donate money to Oprah's Angel Network for poor and AIDS-affected children in Africa. From that show alone, viewers around the world donated over $7,000,000. Winfrey invested $40 million and some of her time establishing the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Henley on Klip south of Johannesburg, South Africa. The school set over 22 acres, opened in January 2007 with an enrollment of 150 pupils (increasing to 450) and features state-of-the-art classrooms, computer and science laboratories, a library, theatre, and beauty salon. Nelson Mandela praised Winfrey for overcoming her own disadvantaged youth to become a benefactor for others. Critics considered the school elitist and unnecessarily luxurious.[198] Winfrey rejected the claims, saying: "If you are surrounded by beautiful things and wonderful teachers who inspire you, that beauty brings out the beauty in you."[198] Winfrey, who has no surviving biological children, described maternal feelings towards the girls at Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.[199][200] Winfrey teaches a class at the school via satellite.[199]

text: Filmography

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: As actress

text:
Year
Title
Role
Notes

1985
The Color Purple
Sofia
Film debut
Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Nominated – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress

1986
Native Son
Mrs. Thomas

1989
The Women of Brewster Place
Mattie Michael
Television miniseries

1990
Brewster Place
Mattie Michael
Television series

1992
Lincoln
Elizabeth Keckley
Voice role; television movie (ABC)

There Are No Children Here
LaJoe Rivers
Television movie (ABC)

1997
Ellen
Therapist
"The Puppy Episode: Part 1" (#4.22)
"The Puppy Episode: Part 2" (#4.22)

Before Women Had Wings
Zora Willams
Also producer
Television movie (ABC)

1998
Beloved
Sethe
Also producer
Nominated – NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture

1999
Our Friend, Martin
Coretta Scott King
Voice role; direct-to-video film

2006
Charlotte's Web
Gussy the Goose
Voice role

2007
Bee Movie
Judge Bumbleton
Voice role

2009
The Princess and the Frog
Eudora
Voice role

2013
The Butler
Gloria Gaines
African-American Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Santa Barbara International Film Festival — Montecito Award
Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominated – Black Reel Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated – Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated – Denver Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated – NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Nominated – Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated – Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

2014
Selma
Annie Lee Cooper
Also producer
Women Film Critics Circle Award for Best Female Action Star
Nominated – Academy Award for Best Picture
Nominated – Independent Spirit Award for Best Film
Nominated – NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture

2016–2017
Greenleaf
Mavis McCready
Television series; also executive producer

2017
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks[201]
Deborah Lacks
Television movie; also executive producer
Nominated – NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie

2017
The Star
Deborah the Camel
Voice role[202]

2018
A Wrinkle in Time
Mrs. Which

text: As herself

text:
Year
Title
Role
Notes

1986
Saturday Night Live
Herself (host)
Episode: "Oprah Winfrey/Joe Jackson"

1986–2011
The Oprah Winfrey Show
Herself
Television talk show

1987
Throw Momma from the Train
Herself

1990
Gabriel's Fire
Herself
Episode: "Tis the Season"

1992
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Herself
Episode: "A Night at the Oprah"

1995
All-American Girl
Herself
Episode: "A Night at the Oprah"

1999
Home Improvement
Herself
Episode: "Home Alone"

The Hughleys
Herself
Episode: "Milsap Moves Up"

2005
Desperate Housewives: Oprah Winfrey Is the New Neighbor
Karen Stouffer / Herself
Segment shot for The Oprah Winfrey Show episode aired on February 3, 2005

2007
Ocean's Thirteen
Herself

2008
30 Rock
Herself / Pam
Episode: "Believe in the Stars"

2010
Sesame Street
O
Voice role; "The Camouflage Challenge"

2011–present
Oprah's Master Class
Herself
OWN reality show

2011–2014
Oprah's Lifeclass
Herself
OWN self-help show

2011–present
Super Soul Sunday
Herself
OWN spirituality show

2012–2015
Oprah Prime
Herself
OWN interview show

2012–present
Oprah: Where Are They Now?
Herself
OWN reality show

text: As producer

text:
1989 – The Oprah Winfrey Show (supervising producer – 8 episodes, 1989–2011)
1989 – The Women of Brewster Place (TV miniseries) (executive producer)
1992 – Nine (TV documentary) (executive producer)
1992 – Overexposed (TV movie) (executive producer)
1993 – ABC Afterschool Specials (TV series) (producer – 1 episode "Shades of a Single Protein") (producer)
1993 – Michael Jackson Talks to... Oprah Live (TV special) (executive producer)
1997 – Before Women Had Wings (TV movie) (producer)
1998 – The Wedding (TV miniseries) (executive producer)
1998 – Beloved (producer)
1998 – David and Lisa (TV movie) (executive producer)
1999 – Tuesdays with Morrie (TV movie) (executive producer)
2001 – Amy & Isabelle (TV movie) (executive producer, producer)
2002 – Oprah After the Show (TV series) (executive producer)
2005 – Their Eyes Were Watching God (TV movie) (executive producer)
2006 – Legends Ball (TV documentary) (executive producer)
2007 – Oprah's Big Give (TV series) (executive producer)
2007 – The Oprah Winfrey Oscar Special (TV movie) (executive producer)
2007 – Building a Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy (TV documentary) (executive producer)
2007 – Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day (TV movie) (executive producer)
2007 – The Great Debaters (producer)
2009 – The Dr. Oz Show (TV series) (executive producer)
2009 – Precious (executive producer)
2009 – Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special (TV special) (executive producer)
2010 – The Oprah Winfrey Oscar Special (TV movie) (executive producer)
2011 – Your OWN Show (TV series) (executive producer)
2011 – Extraordinary Mom (TV documentary) (executive producer)
2011 – Serving Life (TV documentary) (executive producer)
2014 – The Hundred-Foot Journey (producer)
2014 – Selma (producer)
2016–present – Queen Sugar[203] (co-creator and executive producer)
2016–present – Greenleaf (executive producer)
2017 – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (TV movie) (executive producer)
Untitled Richard Pryor Biopic (executive producer)[204]

tag: ul

text: Bibliography

text:
Cooper, Irene (2007). Oprah Winfrey. Viking. ISBN 0-670-06162-X.
Mair, George (2001). Oprah Winfrey: The Real Story. Citadel Press. ISBN 1-55972-250-9.
Moore, Michael (2003). Dude, Where's My Country? Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-53223-1.


document_title: Oz the Great and Powerful

question_text: who plays oz in the wizard of oz

question_tokens: who plays oz in the wizard of oz

root

text: Oz the Great and Powerful

text: Plot[edit]

text: In 1905 Kansas, Oscar Diggs works as a magician in a traveling circus. As a storm approaches, the circus strongman learns Oscar has flirted with his wife and threatens him. Oscar escapes in a hot air balloon, but is sucked into a tornado that takes him to the Land of Oz. There he encounters the beautiful yet naïve witch Theodora, who believes him to be a wizard prophesied to become King of Oz by destroying the Wicked Witch who killed the previous king; the idea of being an immensely wealthy monarch makes Oscar immediately accept. En route to the Emerald City, Theodora falls in love with Oscar, though he does not reciprocate her feelings. They encounter the flying monkey Finley, who pledges a life debt to Oscar when he saves him from a lion. Oscar reveals his deception to Finley, forcing him to maintain the lie that he is a wizard.

tag: p

text: At the Emerald City, Oscar meets Theodora's beautiful older sister, Evanora, who tells him that the Wicked Witch resides in the Dark Forest and can be killed by destroying her wand. Oscar and Finley are joined en route to the forest by China Girl, a young, living china doll whose village and family were destroyed by the Wicked Witch. The three reach the forest and, upon retrieving the wand, discover the "Wicked Witch" is Glinda the Good Witch, who identifies herself as the late king's daughter and Evanora as the true Wicked Witch. Evanora sees this with her crystal ball and tricks Theodora into thinking he is trying to court all three witches at once. She offers Theodora a magic apple she says will remove her heartache; Theodora bites it and turns into a hideous green-skinned witch.

text: Glinda brings Oscar's group to her domain to escape Evanora's army of Winkies and flying baboons. She confides in Oscar that she knows he is not a wizard, but still believes he can help stop Evanora. He reluctantly takes charge of an "army" of Quadlings, Tinkers, and Munchkins. Theodora enters Glinda's domain and angrily reveals her new, hideous appearance to Oscar before threatening to kill him and his allies with the Emerald City's well-prepared army. Oscar despairs at his chances of victory, but after telling China Girl about the exploits of his hero Thomas Edison, he conceives a plan that relies on trickery and makes preparations with Glinda and his group.

text: Glinda and her subjects mount a fake attack on the Emerald City using a pulley-rig army of scarecrow puppets hidden by thick fog. The witches are tricked into sending their flying baboons through a poppy field that puts them to sleep. However, two baboons manage to capture Glinda, who is brought to the city square and chained. Meanwhile, Oscar infiltrates the Emerald City with his allies, but appears to abandon them in a hot air balloon loaded with gold, which Theodora destroys with a fireball. As the wicked sisters prepare to execute Glinda, Oscar appears before his friends, having faked his betrayal and death. Using a hidden smoke machine and image projector, he presents a giant image of his face as his "true" form, and a fireworks display to intimidate the Wicked Witches. Evanora fearfully hides in her castle while Theodora flees on her broom, unable to hurt the "invincible" wizard; Oscar calls to Theodora, offering her to return should she overcome her wickedness, which is met with defiance from Theodora, who flies away to the West while cackling evilly, leaving Oscar saddened. China Girl frees Glinda, who engages Evanora in a magical duel. During the fight, Glinda destroys Evanora's emerald necklace, revealing she's actually an old hag, and banishes her. Evanora is carried off by the two remaining flying baboons as she vows revenge.

text: Oscar, now ruler of Oz, uses his projector to sustain the belief he is a powerful wizard. He also presents gifts to his friends: Master Tinker, who helped build his machines, receives Oscar's camping-tool jackknife; Knuck, the grumpy Munchkin herald, receives a mask with a smiley face; the long-suffering Finley receives Oscar's friendship along with his top hat; and China Girl accepts her friends as her new family. Finally, Oscar takes Glinda behind the curtains of his projector, thanking her for making him a better person, and they kiss.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
James Franco as Oscar Diggs, or "Oz", a philandering con artist, a stage magician, and a barnstormer[8] who is part of a traveling circus in the Midwest. He is whisked in a hot air balloon by a tornado to the Land of Oz, where he is believed to be a wizard destined to bring peace to the land, forcing him to overcome his dubious ethics to convince his peers he is the hero needed by the people of Oz. He eventually becomes what is known as the Wizard of Oz.
Michelle Williams as Glinda, the daughter of the late king. She rules and protects a peaceful kingdom in Oz inhabited by kind Quadlings, tinkers, and Munchkins. Oscar originally believed her to be the Wicked Witch responsible for terrorizing the land. She guides Oscar to achieve his destiny of defeating Evanora, becoming his love interest in the process.

Michelle Williams also plays Annie, an old flame of Oscar's and the future mother of Dorothy Gale.[9]

Rachel Weisz as Evanora, the protector of the Emerald City. Being the Wicked Witch of the East, she has a hideous form which she hides by wearing a necklace that gives her the appearance of a young woman. She deceives Oscar by framing Glinda for the King's murder and telling Oscar that Glinda is the Wicked Witch rather than herself.
Mila Kunis as Theodora, a naïve good witch who has the Land of Oz's best interests at her heart. She believes that Oscar is the wizard prophesied to defeat the seemingly evil Glinda from the Dark Forest, developing an attraction to him in the process. Evanora gradually manipulates Theodora into thinking Oscar has betrayed her for Glinda, ushering her transformation into the Wicked Witch of the West.[10]
Zach Braff as the voice of Finley, a winged monkey who pledges an irrevocable life debt to Oscar, believing him to be the prophesied wizard, for saving him from the Cowardly Lion.[11] He quickly regrets his decision when Oscar reveals he is not a wizard, but nonetheless becomes his loyal ally.

Braff also plays Frank, Oscar's long-suffering yet loyal assistant in Kansas.

Bill Cobbs as the Master Tinker, the leader of the tinkers who are ruled by Glinda. He would later build the Tin Woodman.
Joey King as the voice of China Girl, a young, living china doll from China Town where everything, including its inhabitants, is made of china. Her home is destroyed by Evanora, leaving her its only survivor when she is found by Oscar, with whom she forms a strong friendship after he uses glue to fix her legs.

King also plays a girl in a wheelchair visiting Oscar's magic show in Kansas.

Tony Cox plays Knuck, the quick-tempered herald and fanfare player of Emerald City who is allied with Glinda.

text: Stephen R. Hart and Bruce Campbell play Winkie guards at the Emerald City.[12] Abigail Spencer plays May, Oscar's temporary magic assistant in Kansas and one of his several fleeting loves in the film.[12] Tim Holmes plays the strongman who attacks Oscar for trying to court his wife (played by Toni Wynne), prompting Oscar to take the hot air balloon that sends him to the Land of Oz.

text: Raimi, who often casts friends and actor-regulars in cameo roles, cast his brother Ted Raimi as a small-town skeptic at Oscar's magic show who yells "I see a wire!", two of his former teachers—Jim Moll and Jim Bird—as Emerald City townspeople, and the three actresses from his 1981 directorial debut The Evil Dead—Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker and Theresa Tilly— as Quadling townspeople.[13]

text: Continuity[edit]

text: Oz the Great and Powerful features several artistic allusions, homages, and technical parallels to Baum's novels and the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, The Wizard of Oz.

text: The film's opening sequence is presented in black and white. When Oscar is caught up in the tornado, the audio switches from monaural to stereo and eventually surround sound.[14] The film shifts to full color when Oscar arrives in Oz; additionally, the aspect ratio gradually widens from 4:3 Academy ratio to 2.35:1 widescreen.[15][16] As in the 1939 film, Glinda travels in giant bubbles, and the Emerald City is actually emerald; in the novel, characters wear tinted glasses to make it appear so. However, during the battle preparations sequence Oz can be seen wearing emerald goggles. The iconic green look of the Wicked Witch of the West is closer to her look in the classic film, as the Witch is a short, one-eyed crone in the novel. The Wicked Witches are portrayed as sisters, an idea which originated in the 1939 film. Also from the 1939 film is that several actors who play Oz characters make cameos in the Kansas segments, such as Frank (Zach Braff), Oscar's assistant whom he refers to as his "trained monkey" (Frank's "Oz" counterpart is the winged monkey Finley) and a young girl in a wheelchair (Joey King) who serves as the Kansas counterpart to China Girl (in Kansas, Oscar is unable to make the wheelchair-bound young girl walk, and gets a chance to do so when he repairs China Girl's broken legs). Annie (Michelle Williams), a woman wearing a gingham dress who inspires Oscar to be a good and great person, informs him that she has been proposed to by John Gale, presumably hinting at Dorothy Gale's parental lineage (Annie's "Oz" counterpart, Glinda, also inspires Oscar to be a better person).[17] Theodora (Mila Kunis), who became the Wicked Witch of the West after suffering from a "broken heart" caused by Oscar's "betrayal", has no Kansas counterpart. However, an unnamed woman who worked as Oscar's assistant at the time and suddenly left after suffering from a "broken heart", may be a possible reference to the existence of Theodora's unknown counterpart. The character of Miss Almira Gulch, who did not exist in Baum's novel, is the Kansas counterpart of the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film.

text: Other referenced characters include the Scarecrow, who is built by the townspeople as a scare tactic, and the Tin Woodman, whose creator is the Master Tinker that can build "anything".[11] Similarly, various other races of Oz are depicted besides the Munchkins; the Quadlings, the china doll inhabitants of Dainty China Country, and the Winkies (who went unnamed in the classic film). Similarly, Glinda is referred to by her title in the novel (the Good Witch of the South), unlike the 1939 film, where her character's title is "Good Witch of the North" (due to her character being merged with the Good Witch of the North). Glinda is also the daughter of the late King of Oz, though in the novels, Ozma is the King's daughter. Theodora's tears leave streaks of scars on her face, reflecting her weakness to water in the original novel/film. Also, Oz is presented as a real place as it is in the novel, and not as a possible dream as the 1939 film implies.[18] Finally, the lion that attacks Finley but was warded off by Oz is a reference to the Cowardly Lion in the original novel/film.

text: Production[edit]

text: Disney's history with Oz[edit]

text: After the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, Walt Disney planned to produce an animated film based on the first of L. Frank Baum's Oz books. Roy O. Disney, chairman of the Walt Disney Productions, was informed by Baum's estate that they had sold the film rights to the first book to Samuel Goldwyn, who re-sold it to Louis B. Mayer in 1938.[19] The film was ironically approved due to the success of Snow White.[20] The project was developed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer into the well-known musical adaptation released the following year.

text: In 1954, when the film rights to Baum's remaining thirteen Oz books were made available, Walt Disney Productions acquired them[21] for use in Walt Disney's television series Disneyland which lead to the live-action film Rainbow Road to Oz, which was abandoned and never completed.[22] Disney's history with the Oz series continued with the 1985 film Return to Oz, which performed poorly, both critically and commercially,[23][24][25] but has developed a cult following since its release.[26][27] After Return to Oz, Disney lost the film rights to the Oz books and they were subsequently reverted to the public domain.[28]

text: Development[edit]

text: Screenwriter Mitchell Kapner was intrigued by the prospect of exploring the origins of the Wizard of Oz character which he discussed in many meetings. After Wicked came out, Kapner felt he missed his window of opportunity.[29] In 2009, Kapner met with Joe Roth, who turned down his current pitches, request any other ideas he had. The discussion turned to what Kapner was reading which he indicated he was reading the Oz series to his kids. Roth was interested as he only knew about the first book. Kapner went through the plot of the novels, when Roth stopped him on the sixth novel in the series, The Emerald City of Oz, which had some of back story of the Wizard.[30] Producer Joe Roth became involved for nearly the same reason as Kapner, stating that "... during the years that I spent running Walt Disney Studios -- I learned about how hard it was to find a fairy tale with a good strong male protagonist. You've got your Sleeping Beauties, your Cinderellas and your Alices. But a fairy tale with a male protagonist is very hard to come by. But with the origin story of the Wizard of Oz, here was a fairy tale story with a natural male protagonist. Which is why I knew that this was an idea for a movie that was genuinely worth pursuing."[30] Kapner and co-writer Palak Patel presented the idea to Sony Pictures but were turned down.[29] In 2009, the project was set up at Walt Disney Pictures when the studio's president of production, Sean Bailey commissioned Oz the Great and Powerful under the working title Brick during the tenure of then Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook, who was succeeded by Rich Ross and later Alan Horn, a succession in management that a major studio release is rare to survive.[29] David Lindsay-Abaire was later hired to do a re-write.[28]

text: Roth initially sought out Robert Downey Jr. for the titular role of the Wizard in April 2010.[31] By summer of that year, Sam Raimi was hired to direct the film from a shortlist that reportedly included directors Sam Mendes and Adam Shankman.[31] In January 2011, Raimi met with Downey, but did not secure his casting.[29] With Downey's disinterest acknowledged, Johnny Depp was then approached due to his previous collaboration with the studio in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and Alice in Wonderland.[32] Depp liked the role but declined involvement, citing his commitment to another Disney tentpole film, The Lone Ranger.[29] The film was without a lead until February when James Franco entered final negotiations to star in the film (including a $7 million salary), five months before filming was scheduled to begin.[29] Franco and Raimi had previously worked together on the Spider-Man trilogy.[33] Franco received training with magician Lance Burton to prepare for the role.[29]

text: Screenwriter Kapner adopted information about the Wizard from L. Frank Baum's novels to conceptualize an original story. Raimi made sure that the film would also "nod lovingly" to the 1939 film and inserted several references and homages to that film.[34] Disney wanted to reduce the film's production budget to be approximately $200 million.[33] Casting calls were put out for local actors in Michigan.[35]

text: In June 2011, composer Danny Elfman was chosen to score Oz the Great and Powerful, despite Elfman and Raimi having had a falling-out over Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Elfman declaring that they would never again work together.[36]

text: Filming[edit]

text: Principal photography for Oz the Great and Powerful began July 25, 2011, at Raleigh Michigan Studios in Pontiac, Michigan, employing 3D cameras.[37]

text: Raimi opted to use practical sets in conjunction with computer-generated imagery during filming.[38] Physical sets were constructed so the actors could have a visual reference, as opposed to using green screen technology for every scene. Chroma key compositing was only used for background pieces.[37] Zach Braff and Joey King were on set, recording their dialogue simultaneously with the other actors, whenever their CG characters were present in a scene. Puppetry was employed for a physical version of the China Girl to serve as a visual key-point for actors to manipulate.[39] Braff wore a blue motion capture suit to create Finley's movements and had a camera close to his face for the flying sequences to obtain facial movements.

text: Art director Robert Stromberg, who worked on Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, drew inspiration from the films of Frank Capra and James Wong Howe to achieve the Art Deco design he envisioned for the Emerald City. Stromberg contrasted the colorful tonal qualities of Oz with the restrained appearance of Alice, affirming that although both films explore similar fantasy worlds, the overall atmosphere and landscape of each "are completely different."[40] In 2011, Stromberg and his team visited the Walt Disney archives during the pre-production phase to reference production art from Disney's animated films such as Pinocchio, Bambi, Fantasia, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, drawing from designs and textures, in order to give certain settings in the film an affectionate nod to the classic Disney style.[41] Costume designer Gary Jones focused on authenticity with his wardrobe designs: "We started by doing a lot of research and having ideas of the ways (costumes) should look in order to be (historically accurate) but as we went on, we really began creating a whole new world."[42]

text:
My first instinct was, there are such iconic images in the Wizard of Oz movie, it would be wrong for us to re-create the Yellow Brick Road or the Emerald City in a different way. We had to go 180 degrees in the other direction. We're just going to have to make our own Oz.

Sam Raimi on recreating the Land of Oz under legalities.[29]

tag: div

text: The film was technically a prequel to the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, The Wizard of Oz, but it was not allowed to be considered as such. The filmmakers had to toe a fine line between calling the film to mind but not infringing upon it. To that end, they had a copyright expert on set to ensure no infringement occurred. The production team worked under the constraint of abiding by the stipulations set forth by Warner Bros., the legal owner of the rights to iconic elements of the 1939 film (via its Turner Entertainment subsidiary which purchased the MGM film library in 1986), including the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland. Therefore, Disney was unable to use them nor any character likenesses from that particular film.[43] This extended to the green of the Wicked Witch's skin, for which Disney used what its legal department considered a sufficiently different shade dubbed "Theostein" (a portmanteau of "Theodora" and "Frankenstein").[44] Additionally, the studio could not use the signature chin mole of Margaret Hamilton's portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West, nor could they employ the yellow brick road's swirl design for Munchkinland.[39] The expert also ensured that the Emerald City was not too close in appearance to the Emerald City in the 1939 film.[citation needed]

text: While WB and Disney did not engage in copyright battle, they did file rival trademarks. Disney filed a trademark on "Oz the Great and Powerful." One week later, WB filed its own trademarks for "The Great and Powerful Oz." The US Patent and Trademark Office suspended WB's attempt at a trademark because Disney had filed basically the same one a week earlier.[citation needed]

text: In addition to the legal issues, the film was also faced with delays when several cast members went on hiatus due to unrelated commitments and circumstances. Rachel Weisz left halfway through the shoot to film her entire role in The Bourne Legacy, Michelle Williams was required to promote the release of My Week with Marilyn, and Franco's father died during production. Roth compared the task of managing overlapping schedules to "being an air-traffic controller."[29] Mila Kunis's makeup and prosthetics were supervised by Greg Nicotero and demanded four hours to apply and another hour to remove, with Kunis taking nearly two months to fully recover from the subsequent removal of the makeup from her skin.[29][45] Raimi had to edit the frightening nature of several scenes to secure Disney's desired PG rating from the MPAA.[29] Sony Pictures Imageworks was contracted to create the film's visual effects.[46]

text: Music[edit]

text: Composer Danny Elfman noted that the film's score was accessibly quick to produce, with a majority of the music being written in six weeks.[47] Regarding the tonal quality of the score, Elfman stated, "We're going to take an approach that's old school but not self-consciously old-fashioned. Let the melodrama be melodrama, let everything be what it is. I also think there's the advantage that I'm able to write narratively, and when I'm able to write narratively I can also move quicker because that's my natural instincts, I can tell a story in the music."[48]

text: American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey recorded a promotional Pop single called "Almost Home" written by Carey, Simone Porter, Justin Gray, Lindsey Ray, Tor Erik Hermansen, and Mikkel Eriksen (a.k.a. Stargate) for the soundtrack of the film. The single was released on February 19, 2013 by Island Records.[49]

text: Soundtrack[edit]

text: The original soundtrack to Oz the Great and Powerful was released digitally and physically by Walt Disney Records on March 5, 2013.[50] The physical CD release was in association with Intrada Records.[51]

text:
Oz the Great and Powerful (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Film score by Danny Elfman

Released
March 5, 2013 (2013-03-05)

Recorded
2012

Studio
Sony Scoring Stage

Genre
Film score

Length
1:06:19

Label
Walt Disney

tag: table

text: All music composed by Danny Elfman.

text:
No.
Title
Length

1.
"Main Titles"
2:57

2.
"A Serious Talk"
2:23

3.
"Oz Revealed"
1:58

4.
"A Strange World"
1:48

5.
"Where Am I?/Schmooze-A-Witch"
2:05

6.
"Fireside Dance"
1:19

7.
"Meeting Finley"
1:57

8.
"The Emerald Palace"
0:47

9.
"Amanece, Amanece / Dios de Pactos"
2:56

10.
"China Town"
3:07

11.
"A Con Job"
1:47

12.
"Glinda Revealed"
1:43

13.
"The Munchkin Welcome Song"
0:41

14.
"Bad Witch"
4:32

15.
"The Bubble Voyage"
2:48

16.
"Great Expectations/The Apple"
4:58

17.
"Meeting the Troops"
1:18

18.
"What Army"
0:29

19.
"Theodora's Entrance/Puppet Waltz"
1:51

20.
"A Threat"
2:07

21.
"Bedtime/The Preparation Montage"
7:00

22.
"Call to Arms"
2:13

23.
"Destruction"
2:38

24.
"Oz the Great and Powerful"
1:25

25.
"Fireworks/Witch Fight"
1:39

26.
"Time for Gifts"
5:54

27.
"End Credits from Oz"
1:59

Total length:
1:06:19

text: Release[edit]

text: In May 2011 before filming began, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures gave Oz the Great and Powerful a March 8, 2013 North American theatrical release date.[52] The film had its world premiere at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood on February 14, 2013.[12] Disney opened the film in wide release in 3,912 theaters.[53]

text: To promote the film, Disney partnered with the IMAX Corporation and HSN to coordinate a hot air balloon campaign across the United States beginning in California at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, stopping at four locations; the El Capitan Theater during the world premiere, the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, the Daytona International Speedway in Florida and Central Park in New York City.[54] Disney also promoted the film through its theme parks; Epcot's International Flower and Garden Festival featured a multi-purpose garden and play area themed to the film and Disney California Adventure hosted sample viewings inside the Muppet*Vision 3D theatre.[55][56] The estimated marketing campaign cost upwards of $100 million.[29]

text: Home media[edit]

text: Oz the Great and Powerful was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD and digital download on June 11, 2013.[57] The film is Disney's first home media release to exclude a physical digital copy disc and instead provides only a digital code for the download.[58] Oz the Great and Powerful debuted at number one in its first week of home media release in overall disc sales with 46% of its first week sales from Blu-ray disc.[59] The film has earned $52 million in sales.[60]

text: Reception[edit]

text: Box office[edit]

text: Oz the Great and Powerful earned $234.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $258.4 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $493.3 million.[3] Worldwide, it was the thirteenth highest-grossing film of 2013.[61] Calculating in all expenses, Deadline.com estimated that the film made a profit of $36.4 million.[62] It topped the box office on its worldwide opening weekend with $149 million.[63] Before its theatrical release, several media outlets reported that Oz the Great and Powerful was expected to duplicate the box office performance of 2010's Alice in Wonderland.[64][65][66] However, Oz accumulated less than half of Alice's worldwide gross.[67]

text: Preliminary reports had the film tracking for an $80–$100 million debut in North America.[68] The movie earned $2 million from 9 p.m. showings on Thursday night.[69] For its opening day, Oz the Great and Powerful grossed $24.1 million, the fourth-highest March opening day.[70] During its opening weekend, the film topped the box office with $79.1 million, the third-highest March opening weekend.[71] Despite the film's solid debut, which was larger than nearly all comparable titles, it clearly lagged behind Alice in Wonderland's opening ($116.1 million). The film's 3-D share of the opening weekend was 53%. Females made up 52% of the audience. Surprisingly, though, families only represented 41% of attendance, while couples accounted for 43%.[71] The film retained first place at the box office during its second weekend with $41.3 million.[72]

text: Outside North America, the film earned $69.9 million on its opening weekend from 46 territories. Among all markets, its highest-grossing debuts were achieved in Russia and the CIS ($14.7 million), China ($9.06 million)[73] and France and the Maghreb region ($5.77 million).[74] The film's openings trailed Alice in Wonderland in all major markets except Russia and the CIS.[75] It retained first place at the box office outside North America for a second weekend.[76] In total grosses, Oz's largest countries are Russia and the CIS ($27.4 million), China ($25.9 million) and the UK, Ireland and Malta ($23.4 million).[74]

text: Critical response[edit]

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Oz the Great and Powerful received an approval rating of 59% based on 247 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It suffers from some tonal inconsistency and a deflated sense of wonder, but Oz the Great and Powerful still packs enough visual dazzle and clever wit to be entertaining in its own right."[77] On Metacritic the film holds a score of 44 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "mixed to average reviews".[78] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[79]

text: Kim Newman, writing for Empire, gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and said, "If there are post-Harry Potter children who don't know or care about The Wizard Of Oz, they might be at sea with this story about a not-very-nice grownup in a magic land, but long-term Oz watchers will be enchanted and enthralled ... Mila Kunis gets a gold star for excellence in bewitchery and Sam Raimi can settle securely behind the curtain as a mature master of illusion."[80] Critic Alonso Duralde also admired the movie: "That Oz the Great and Powerful is so thoroughly effective both on its own terms and as a prequel to one of the most beloved movies ever made indicates that this team has magic to match any witch or wizard."[81] Leonard Maltin on IndieWire claimed that "No movie ever can, or will, replace 1939's The Wizard Of Oz, but taken on its own terms, this eye-filling fantasy is an entertaining riff on how the Wizard of that immortal film found his way to Oz."[82] IGN rated the film 7.8 and said, "The film is expansive and larger-than-life in scope and so are the performances, overall. Franco in particular hams it up and is often playing to the balcony ... The 3D is utilized just as it should be in a children's fantasy epic such as this – overtly, but with skill. Snowflakes, music boxes and mysterious animals all leap through the screen towards the audience as the story unfolds."[83]

text: Justin Chang of Variety had a mixed reaction, writing that the film "gets some mileage out of its game performances, luscious production design and the unfettered enthusiasm director Sam Raimi brings to a thin, simplistic origin story."[84] He also compared the film's scale with the Star Wars prequel trilogy adding, "In a real sense, Oz the Great and Powerful has a certain kinship with George Lucas' Star Wars prequels, in the way it presents a beautiful but borderline-sterile digital update of a world that was richer, purer and a lot more fun in lower-tech form. Here, too, the actors often look artificially superimposed against their CG backdrops, though the intensity of the fakery generates its own visual fascination."[84] /Film rated the film 7 out of 10, saying it had "many charms" while considering it to be "basically Army of Darkness: (Normal guy lands in magical land, is forced to go on quest to save that land.) But just when you see Raimi's kinetic, signature style starting to unleash, the story forces the film back into its Disney shell to play to the masses. We're left with a film that's entertaining, a little scarier than you'd expect, but extremely inconsistent."[85]

text: Richard Roeper, writing for Roger Ebert, noted the film's omnipresent visual effects but was largely disappointed by the performance of some cast members; "... to see Williams so bland and sugary as Glinda, and Kunis so flat and ineffectual as the heartsick Theodora ..."[86] Marshall Fine of The Huffington Post was unimpressed, writing, "Oh, it's exciting enough for a six-year-old; anyone older, however, will already have been exposed to so much on TV, at the movies and on the Internet that this will seem like so much visual cotton-candy. Even a sophisticated grade-schooler will find these doings weak and overblown."[87] Similarly, Todd McCarthy criticized the characterization, writing that the film's supporting cast "can't begin to compare with their equivalents in the original ... so the burden rests entirely upon Franco and Williams, whose dialogue exchanges are repetitive and feel tentative."[88] Entertainment Weekly agreed, giving the film a C+ and saying that the "miscast" Franco "lacks the humor, charm, and gee-whiz wonder we're meant to feel as he trades wisecracks with a flying monkey ... and soars above a field of poppies in a giant soap bubble. If he's not enchanted, how are we supposed to be?" and complaining that "while Raimi's Oz is like retinal crack, he never seduces our hearts and minds."[8] Alisha Coelho of in.com gave the movie 2.5 stars, saying "Oz The Great and Powerful doesn't leave a lasting impression, but is an a-ok watch."[89]

text: Accolades[edit]

text:
Awards

Award
Date of ceremony
Category
Recipient and nominees
Result

Costume Designers Guild[90]
February 22, 2014
Excellence in Fantasy Film
Gary Jones and Michael Kutsche
Nominated

Golden Trailer Awards[91]
May 5, 2013
Best Animation/Family
"Witches"
Nominated

Best Animation/Family TV Spot
"Super Hybrid"
Nominated

"Music Box"
Nominated

Kids' Choice Awards[92]
March 29, 2014
Favorite Movie

Nominated

Favorite Movie Actress
Mila Kunis
Nominated

MTV Movie Awards[93]
April 13, 2014
Best Villain
Mila Kunis
Won

People's Choice Awards[94]
January 8, 2014
Best Family Film

Nominated

Phoenix Film Critics Society
December 17, 2013
Best Live Action Family Film

Won

Best Production Design
Robert Stromberg
Nominated

Satellite Awards[95]
February 24, 2014
Best Visual Effects
James Schwalm, Scott Stokdyk, Troy Saliba
Nominated

Best Art Direction and Production Design
Nancy Haigh, Robert Stromberg
Nominated

Best Costume Design
Gary Jones
Nominated

Saturn Awards
June 2014
Best Fantasy Film

Nominated

Best Music
Danny Elfman
Nominated

Best Production Design
Robert Stromberg
Nominated

Best Costume
Gary Jones
Nominated

Teen Choice Awards
August 11, 2013
Choice Movie – Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Nominated

Choice Movie Actor – Sci-Fi/Fantasy
James Franco
Nominated

Choice Movie Actress – Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Mila Kunis
Nominated

Michelle Williams
Nominated

Visual Effects Society
February 12, 2014
Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture
Troy Saliba, In-Ah Roediger, Carolyn Vale, Kevin Souls for "China Girl"
Nominated

text: Sequel[edit]

text: On March 7, 2013, Variety confirmed that Disney has already approved plans for a sequel, with Mitchell Kapner and Joe Roth returning as screenwriter and producer respectively.[96] Mila Kunis said during an interview with E! News, "We're all signed on for sequels."[97] On March 8, 2013, Sam Raimi told Bleeding Cool that he has no plans to direct the sequel, saying, "I did leave some loose ends for another director if they want to make the picture," and that "I was attracted to this story but I don't think the second one would have the thing I would need to get me interested."[98] On March 11, 2013, Kapner and Roth have said to the Los Angeles Times that the sequel will "absolutely not" involve Dorothy Gale, with Kapner pointing out that there are twenty years between the events of the first film and Dorothy's arrival, and "a lot can happen in that time."[99]


document_title: List of NBA championship head coaches

question_text: who has the most nba rings coach or player

text: List of NBA championship head coaches

text: Key[edit]

text:
Yrs
Number of years coached

GC
Games coached

W
Wins

L
Losses

Win%
Winning percentage

^
Denotes coach who is currently coaching an NBA team

*
Elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach

*^
Active NBA coach who has been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

text: List[edit]

text: Note: Statistics are correct through the end of the 2016–17 season.

text:
Number won
Coach
Team(s) won with (years)[a]
Coaching career[b]
Yrs
GC
W
L
Win%
GC
W
L
Win%
Ref.

Regular season
Playoffs

7001110000000000000♠ 11
Jackson, PhilPhil Jackson*
Chicago Bulls (1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998)
Los Angeles Lakers (2000, 2001, 2002, 2009, 2010)
1989–1998, 1999–2004, 2005–2011
20
1,640
1,155
485
.704
333
229
104
.688
[6]

7000900000000000000♠ 9
Auerbach, RedRed Auerbach*
Boston Celtics (1957, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966)
1946–1966
20
1,417
938
479
.662
168
99
69
.589
[7]

7000500000000000000♠ 5
Kundla, JohnJohn Kundla*
Minneapolis Lakers (1949, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1954)
1948–1958, 1958–1959
11
725
423
302
.583
95
60
35
.632
[8]

7000500000000000000♠ 5
Riley, PatPat Riley*
Los Angeles Lakers (1982, 1985, 1987, 1988)
Miami Heat (2006)
1981–2003, 2005–2008
24
1,904
1,210
694
.636
282
171
111
.606
[9]

7000400000000000000♠ 5
Popovich, GreggGregg Popovich^
San Antonio Spurs (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2014)
1996–present
21
1,656
1,150
506
.694
272
166
106
.610
[10]

7000200000000000000♠ 2
Daly, ChuckChuck Daly*
Detroit Pistons (1989, 1990)
1981–1994, 1997–1999
14
1,075
638
437
.593
126
75
51
.595
[11]

7000200000000000000♠ 2
Hannum, AlexAlex Hannum*
St. Louis Hawks (1958)
Philadelphia 76ers (1967)
1956–1958, 1960–1968, 1969–1971
12
883
471
412
.533
81
47
34
.580
[12]

7000200000000000000♠ 2
Heinsohn, TomTom Heinsohn*
Boston Celtics (1974, 1976)
1969–1978
9
690
427
263
.619
80
47
33
.588
[13]

7000200000000000000♠ 2
Holzman, RedRed Holzman*
New York Knicks (1970, 1973)
1954–1957, 1967–1977, 1978–1982
18
1,300
696
604
.535
106
58
48
.547
[14]

7000200000000000000♠ 2
Jones, K. C.K. C. Jones
Boston Celtics (1984, 1986)
1974–1976, 1983–1988, 1990–1992
10
774
522
252
.674
138
81
57
.587
[15]

7000200000000000000♠ 2
Russell, BillBill Russell
Boston Celtics (1968, 1969)
1966–1969, 1973–1977, 1987–1988
8
631
341
290
.540
61
34
27
.557
[16]

7000200000000000000♠ 2
Tomjanovich, RudyRudy Tomjanovich
Houston Rockets (1994, 1995)
1992–2003, 2004–2005
13
943
527
416
.559
90
51
39
.567
[17]

7000100000000000000♠ 2
Spoelstra, ErikErik Spoelstra^
Miami Heat (2012, 2013)
2008–present
9
722
440
282
.609
113
70
43
.619
[18]

7000100000000000000♠ 2
Kerr, SteveSteve Kerr^
Golden State Warriors (2015, 2017)
2014–present
3
246
207
39
.841
62
47
15
.758
[19]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Attles, AlAl Attles
Golden State Warriors (1975)
1969–1983
14
1,075
557
518
.518
61
31
30
.508
[20]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Brown, LarryLarry Brown*
Detroit Pistons (2004)
1976–1979, 1981–1983, 1988–2006, 2008–2010
27
2,002
1,098
904
.548
193
100
93
.518
[21]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Carlisle, RickRick Carlisle^
Dallas Mavericks (2011)
2001–2007, 2008–present
15
1,214
694
520
.572
120
58
62
.483
[22]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Cervi, AlAl Cervi
Syracuse Nationals (1955)
1949–1956, 1958–1959
9
567
326
241
.575
60
34
26
.567
[23]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Costello, LarryLarry Costello
Milwaukee Bucks (1971)
1968–1976, 1978–1979
10
730
430
300
.589
60
37
23
.617
[24]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Cunningham, BillyBilly Cunningham
Philadelphia 76ers (1983)
1977–1985
8
650
454
196
.698
105
66
39
.629
[25]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Fitch, BillBill Fitch
Boston Celtics (1981)
1970–1988, 1989–1992, 1994–1998
25
2,050
944
1,106
.460
109
55
54
.505
[26]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Gottlieb, EdwardEdward Gottlieb
Philadelphia Warriors (1947)
1946–1955
9
581
263
318
.453
32
15
17
.469
[27]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Harrison, LesterLester Harrison
Rochester Royals (1951)
1948–1955
7
476
295
181
.620
38
19
19
.500
[28]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Jeannette, BuddyBuddy Jeannette
Baltimore Bullets (1948)
1947–1952, 1964–1966, 1966–1968
7
354
151
203
.427
24
14
10
.583
[29]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Lue, TyronnTyronn Lue^
Cleveland Cavaliers (2016)
2016–present
2
123
78
45
.634
39
29
10
.744
[30]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Motta, DickDick Motta
Washington Bullets (1978)
1968–1980, 1980–1987, 1990–1991, 1994–1997
25
1,952
935
1,017
.479
126
56
70
.444
[31]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Ramsay, JackJack Ramsay*
Portland Trail Blazers (1977)
1969–1972, 1973–1988
21
1,647
864
783
.525
102
44
58
.431
[32]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Rivers, DocDoc Rivers^
Boston Celtics (2008)
1999–2003, 2004–2013, 2013–present
18
1,388
804
584
.579
161
82
79
.509
[33]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Senesky, GeorgeGeorge Senesky
Philadelphia Warriors (1956)
1955–1958
3
216
119
97
.551
20
10
10
.500
[34]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Sharman, BillBill Sharman*
Los Angeles Lakers (1972)
1966–1968, 1971–1977
7
573
333
240
.581
62
35
27
.565
[35]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Westhead, PaulPaul Westhead
Los Angeles Lakers (1980)
1979–1981, 1982–1983, 1990–1992
6
407
183
224
.450
19
13
6
.684
[36]

7000100000000000000♠ 1
Wilkens, LennyLenny Wilkens*
Seattle SuperSonics (1979)
1969–1972, 1974–1976, 1977–1985, 1986–2003, 2004–2005
32
2,487
1,332
1,155
.536
178
80
98
.449
[37]


document_title: Jean Massieu

question_text: who said gratitude is the memory of the heart

text: Jean Massieu

text: Film[edit]

text: Jean Massieu is portrayed in the fictional film Sign Gene, the superhero film about deaf mutants who have superpowers through the use of sign language, as the fourth great-grandfather of Kate Massieu (played by Carola Insolera) the girlfriend of the leading character Tom Clerc, descendant of Laurent Clerc. The film is written and produced by Emilio Insolera and was screened in cinemas in September 2017.[1]

text: Quotes attributed to him[edit]

text:
"Let the Englishman have his coffee, and let me have my ham."—Jean Massieu
"Gratitude is the memory of the heart", which has become a proverb in the French language.