Oprah Gail Winfrey, born January 29, 1954, is an American
media proprietor,
talk show host, actress, producer, and
philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show
The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and is currently (2015) North America's only black billionaire. Several assessments regard her as the most influential woman in the world. In 2013, she was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom by President
Barack Obama and honorary doctorate degrees from
Duke and
Harvard.