Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [124]
Eventually Harpo would consist of six buildings, and her real estate corporation would purchase an additional building nearby for the Oprah Store, a 5,500-square-foot emporium that opened in 2008 to sell Oprah merchandise to Oprah fans, with all proceeds going to Oprah’s Angel Network and the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation. Almost everything in the store is marked, stitched, embossed, or imprinted with an O. During the Christmas holidays the store sells a snow globe of The Oprah Winfrey Show that contains eighty-eight Os, including snowmen made of Os. Year-round there are O pajamas, O candles, O metallic purses, O canvas bags, O caps, O mugs, O place mats, even grocery bags marked “grOceries.” In one corner of the store is “Oprah’s Closet,” which contains Oprah’s hand-me-downs, ranging in size from ten to eighteen. Each item, including her used Prada skirt ($400) and Ferré boots ($300), contains a tag: “Harpo Inc. hereby certifies that the item to which this tag is attached is a genuine garment from the closet of Oprah Winfrey.” The Oprah Store also sells chartreuse boxes of little Oprah note cards containing Oprah’s inspirational sayings:
The work of your life is to discover your purpose and get on with the business of living it.
Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes and step out and dance.
What you do today creates every tomorrow.
Everything you do and say shows the world who you really are. Live your truth.
Live your own dreams.
The joy of living well is the greatest reward.
The only courage you need is the courage to follow your passion.
The love you give = the love you get.
After Harpo was built, the Near West Side of Chicago became gentrified. Developers moved into the area to build apartments and condominiums, thanks in large part to the substantial investment of Oprah in her production studio.
During the time she was building Harpo, Oprah flew to Los Angeles to film The Women of Brewster Place, based on the novel by Gloria Naylor about seven black women who bond to overcome the ghetto setbacks life has dealt them. “This will be the best miniseries any television network has done to date,” Oprah told reporters. “Do you hear me? The best. You can quote me on that.”
This was her first starring role and her first movie as executive producer. “After The Color Purple I wanted to prove my acting wasn’t a fluke,” she said. She chose Naylor’s book of broken dreams, betrayal, and bitterness because she felt it made a statement about surviving with dignity in a world that tries to strip you of it. But all three networks turned the project down. “They said it was too womanish,” said Oprah, who finally exercised her clout with ABC by flying to Los Angeles to meet directly with Brandon Stoddard, president of network entertainment. “Basically I got it on the air,” she said later. “My participation convinced ABC to do it.”
She then helped assemble the cast, including Cicely Tyson, Robin Givens, Jackée Harry, Lynn Whitfield, Lonette McKee, Olivia Cole, and Paula Kelly. “This is the first time [in my memory] that television has ever presented a drama dealing with the lives of black women,” said the casting director, Reuben Cannon, a close friend of Oprah’s.
The Gloria Naylor novel, like The Color Purple by Alice Walker, had been criticized for its treatment of black men, so Oprah softened some of the male characters to make them less menacing, but she refused a request from the NAACP to review the script. “I just don’t think you can allow yourself to be controlled,” she said. “[Besides] I’m insulted. I am more conscious of my legacy as a black person than anybody. I realize I didn’t get here by myself, that I’ve crossed over on the backs of black people whose names made the history books, and a whole lot of them who did not. I have a responsibility not only as a black woman but as a human being to do good work. I am just as concerned about the images of black men as anybody, but there are black men who abuse their families,