Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [123]
“First meeting we showed her something natural to the surroundings—alpine timbers and logs,” said one of the architects. “She dismissed it entirely. ‘I want something that when people drive up they will say WOW.’ So we went back to the drawing boards and gave her Tara on a ski slope with marble and white columns and sweeping verandas. When she came back and saw the plans, she said, ‘I wanted a house that would make people say WOW. Not Holy shit!’ ” The house was never built.
Oprah wanted her Harpo Studios to become the major production center in the Midwest, with state-of-the-art facilities for television, commercials, and film production. “With cost factors being less here than in Hollywood, we hope to keep existing production and attract new production to Chicago, which will create new jobs and other economic benefits,” she said. “It is a joy for me to be able to invest in the city whose people have been so supportive of my work.”
Harpo’s opulent facility covers one entire square block and contains three soundstages; office suites; conference rooms; control rooms; production and editing rooms; a screening room with a popcorn machine; a private dining room with an in-house chef; a gymnasium stocked with Nautilus bicycles, treadmills, and ellipticals; a beauty salon with hairdressers, makeup artists, and manicurists; plus a staff cafeteria. Oprah said she wanted “to create an environment so stimulating and comfortable that people will love coming to work.” However, as one woman noted, Oprah did not build a day-care center for the children of her employees “because at Harpo it’s full steam ahead for Oprah and only for Oprah, and of course, for her dogs.”
She said she considered her cocker spaniels Sophie and Solomon to be her children, and allowed them to roam freely through the hallways of Harpo. “They are allowed to prowl through the offices,” said a former employee. “Solomon wears a cone around his neck. Poor thing was walking into walls, always banging himself.” Oprah occasionally included her dogs on her show. Once she teased an upcoming segment (May 2005) by announcing, “Stedman and I have a daughter. She has issues and I think it’s my fault.” The “daughter” was their dog Sophie.
Reflecting Oprah’s fear of assassination, her studio is a fortress. In addition to the phalanx of security guards who pass a wand over the studio audiences at the entrance, checking all purses and packages, there is a private code that Harpo employees must punch into a computer at each steel door to be admitted. All guests must be scheduled and present identification. There is no access for visitors.
Harpo contains three different green rooms, two for ordinary guests—“We need two because sometimes we have to keep guests separated before they go on the air,” said one employee. Ordinary guests get served fruit, muffins, and water. The VIP green room—for celebrity guests such as John Travolta, Tom Cruise, and Julia Roberts—has its own private side door leading into a lush area of soft leather chairs, a large television, fabulous foods, and a private bathroom filled with Molton Brown products. “The difference between the ordinary green rooms and the VIP green room is the difference between the Marriott and the Ritz,” said a woman who has spent time in both.
In addition, Harpo also contains warehouse space the length of five football fields packed with Oprah’s fan art, done and sent by viewers: crochet doilies of Oprah, oil paintings of Oprah as an angel or a Madonna, ceramic figurines of Oprah, rhinestone replicas of Oprah as queen of the world, watercolors of Oprah eating mashed potatoes (her favorite food), oil paintings of Stedman and Oprah on a wedding cake. “It was funny, interesting, quirky,” said an art director who toured the space with Oprah. “I told her, ‘This is really very touching.’ She said, ‘Well,