Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [105]
Most viewers found the chemistry between Oprah and her guests to favor women over men, especially those with an issue she shared. “Because she was obsessed with losing weight, I booked Suzy Prudden, with her book MetaFitness, which was some kind of mumbo jumbo about using your mind to change your body through guided imagery and hypnosis,” said Behrman. “Oprah fell for that one hook, line, and sinker.… Suzy had already done Oprah a few times in Baltimore, with People Are Talking, and then A.M. Chicago, so she wasn’t such a tough sell for the national show.”
Suzy Prudden’s appearance on Oprah was so successful that one of the tabloids offered her a weekly column, in which she was promoted as “Oprah’s diet guru.”
“I became persona non grata after that,” Prudden said years later. “Oprah was furious at me, and rightfully so, although I wasn’t responsible for advertising myself that way.… I apologized and apologized, but it did no good. She never spoke to me again.… It was a horrible experience.… At first I was highly regarded by Oprah, and then I was dirt.… It wasn’t that she said anything or screamed and yelled.… It was that the door once open to me was closed and it never opened again.… It was one of the worst experiences in my life.”
The publicist, too, fell out of favor, which he attributed to “my troubles with the law” (a felony conviction for defrauding an art dealer). After serving five months in prison and five months house arrest, Behrman went back into public relations but was no longer able to book clients on Oprah’s show. “I can’t even get through to a secretary of the secretary of the secretary,” he said with a laugh. “But it was a good run while it lasted.”
The closing of Oprah’s door wounded others who found themselves suddenly banned without explanation. Mark Mathabane, who wrote Kaffir Boy, appeared on her show in 1987 to discuss his memoir about growing up in South Africa under the barbaric system of apartheid. Oprah told reporters she had found the book in paperback. “It went from the sale table to Number 5 on The New York Times best-seller list, and I know it was because of being on my show that the book made the list,” she said. Moved by his story, she befriended the young man, flew his family from South Africa the following year for a reunion on her show, and even accompanied him to the airport to meet them with a film crew. As she said, her support made Mathabane’s book a bestseller in paperback for thirteen weeks, reaching as high as number three. She invited the author and his wife to parties, optioned the film rights to his book, and announced that Kaffir Boy would be one of Harpo’s first film productions. “She is the most compassionate human being I’ve ever met,” said Mathabane. Then the door suddenly closed without explanation or avenue for apology. Oprah did not renew her option for Kaffir Boy, and she never spoke to the writer again.
“I remember very strongly the sense of hurt and confusion his wife exuded,” said a New York editor after meeting Mark Mathabane and his wife, Gail Ernsberger. “She understood that they had done something to offend Oprah, but it was relatively minor. I can’t remember if it was asking for a book blurb or talking to a magazine. What Gail seemed so blindsided by was that someone who had been so helpful, so involved with her husband’s life, could suddenly cut him off without a word of explanation.”
Oprah does not slam her door in fury, but rather with chilling resolve. Even those who have tried to help her have been shut out. When Eppie Lederer, the renowned