Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [121]
“All my life, I have done dramatic interpretations of black women. Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer are all a part of me. I’ve always felt that my life is their life fulfilled, that they are bridges that I crossed over on. They never dreamed it could be this good. I still feel that they’re all with me, going, ‘Go, girl. Go for it.’ ”
A week later the Sun-Times columnist Daniel Ruth was still sputtering. Declaring that Oprah’s ego had gone on “a Falstaffian, gluttonous binge,” he wrote, “Don’t worry, Oprah. Just because you can turn pap into cash, you needn’t fret too much about comparisons to Christ.… I have a hard time believing Sojourner Truth spent a lot of time wrestling with subjects like ‘Victims of Freeloaders’ (Oprah show: July 5, 1988), ‘Soap Opera Stars and Their Fans’ (Oprah show: June 29, 1988) or ‘Dressing Sexy’ (Oprah show: July 28, 1988).” To be fair, Ruth gave Oprah credit for covering a few substantial subjects, such as “Race Relations” (August 4, 1988), the controversy over the film The Last Temptation of Christ (August 16, 1988), and a debate on AIDS (July 15, 1988). But then he lambasted her: “Please, dearest Oprah, don’t presume to place yourself in a class with genuine intellects, leaders, and such pioneering black women as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, Leontyne Price, and especially Rosa Parks, who earned their rightful acclaim through commitment, quality, and courage.”
Once Oprah owned her own show, Jeff Jacobs began looking for a production studio, and within months he found a $4 million property (one hundred thousand square feet) on the Near West Side of the city, then a run-down area of scabby storefronts and vacant lots. Realizing that downtown Chicago could expand only in that direction, he advised Oprah to make the investment. He told her it would be her field of dreams. If she built it, they would come. She could produce her talk show there, as well as make movies for herself and others. “It’s security,” he said. “It’s control of our destiny.” He told reporters, “Harpo will be the studio between the coasts and enable Oprah to do whatever it is she wants to do, economically and under her own control.” Jacobs and King World put up 20 percent of the purchase price, giving Oprah 80 percent ownership. She became chairman of Harpo Productions, Inc., and Jacobs became president and chief operating officer.
This acquisition made her the first African American woman to own her own film studio, and only the third woman in history to do so (the first two were Mary Pickford and Lucille Ball). However, Oprah was the only one to do it completely on her own, without a husband, although she did have the shrewd counsel of her lawyer/agent, who encouraged her to bet on herself. “Don’t be talent for hire,” Jacobs said. “Own yourself. Don’t take a salary. Take a piece of the action.” At that point in her life Oprah described Jeff Jacobs as “a gift” and kept his photo in a sterling-silver frame on her desk, next to pictures of Bill Cosby, Quincy Jones, Stedman, and Gayle. “Jeff released me from slave mentality,” she said. “He helped me to see that I really could have control.”
Control was vital to Oprah, perhaps because of her terribly vulnerable childhood in Milwaukee, but Jacobs still had to push her into the concept of ownership. He assured her that her companies need never go public, so she would not have to contend with scrutiny, which she detested. Nor would she have to answer to a board of directors, or trustees, or oversight committees. “My vision of control [then] was not having people tell me what to do,” she said. “[Until then] I was still thinking like a slave. I was thinking like talent. You have to go to another level of things to say, ‘I want to own it.’ ” Fortuitously for Jacobs, her wants outweighed her reservations.
He described his job as Oprah’s counselor. “I present research, options, and opinions to her. We discuss them, and then she makes the decisions. I work for