Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [179]
Midway through the third week of the trial, Oprah took the stand to testify. She ascended the steps of the courthouse clutching the hand of Maya Angelou, who whispered in her ear as she stood to walk to the witness stand. Stedman arrived a few days later to take over from Maya, who returned home and sent a group of preachers to church to pray around the clock for Oprah.
For three days Oprah was examined about her negligence in not double-checking Lyman’s claims and not doing something about her producer’s careless editing. At one point she lost her patience, sighed loudly, and tossed her hair over her shoulder. When asked about her huge viewership, she said, “My show has been built around people who are just regular people with a story to tell.” Then she added, “I have talked to everybody I have ever wanted to, except for the pope.” After repetitive questioning, she leaned in to the microphone and in a commanding voice said, “I provide a forum for people to express their opinions.… This is the United States of America. We are allowed to do this in the United States of America.… I come from a people who have struggled and died in order to have a voice in this country, and I refuse to be muzzled.” She said if the guests on her show believe what they say is true and sign a statement to that effect, then truth is established for her, and accountability rests largely with the guests. “This is not the evening news,” she said. “I’m a talk show where free expression is encouraged.… This is the United States and we are allowed to do that in the United States.” When she was asked about her integrity, she said, “I am a black woman in America, having gotten here believing in a power greater than myself. I cannot be bought. I answer to the spirit of God that lives in us all.” She said her influence was not enough to drive Americans away from beef. “If I had that kind of power, I’d go on the air and heal people.”
Her attorney pleaded with the jury in his final argument. “You have an opportunity to silence one of the powerful voices of good in this country. She is here to validate our right to free speech.” Describing Oprah as “a shining light” for millions of Americans, he said, “Her show reflects the right of the people in this country to have free speech … and robust debate.”
After five and a half hours’ deliberation over two days, the all-white jury of eight women and four men cleared Oprah, her production company, and Howard Lyman of knowingly making false and disparaging statements about beef. “We didn’t like what we had to do,” said the jury forewoman, “but we had to decide for the First Amendment.” Hearing the verdict, Oprah lowered her head and wept. Moments later she appeared on the courthouse steps in sunglasses and flung her fists to the sky. “Free speech not only lives,” she yelled, “it rocks.”
OPRAH NEVER gave up her dream of becoming a marquee movie star, and by 1997 she felt she finally had the vehicle to put her name in lights. For nine years she had been trying to develop Beloved, Toni Morrison’s novel about the effects of slavery. But even with a finished script, her own financing, and Disney as the distributor, she had been rejected by ten directors, including Jodie Foster (Little Man Tate), who said the book was too difficult to be filmed; Jane Campion (The Piano), who said she did not know enough about the black experience; and Peter Weir (Witness, Dead Poets Society), who said he did not want Oprah to play the lead of Sethe, the mother who kills her daughter rather than send her into enslavement.
“[He] couldn’t quite see me in it,” Oprah sarcastically told the writer Jonathan Van Meter. Mocking Weir’s Australian accent, she said, “And would I please just trust him and if he felt that I could be in it he would certainly make every effort.”
Although she had appeared