Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [188]
Yet what sounded loopy to critics resonated with many in Oprah’s audience, who shared her hunger for greater meaning in their lives. “I was a rural mail carrier in Stem, North Carolina,” said Susan Karns, who runs the beauty shop at Hillcrest Convalescent Center in Durham, “and if it wasn’t for Oprah and her ‘Change Your Life’ television, I would never have gone to beauty school at night and gotten this great job.… It was scary to change my life but I’m so glad I did. I love what I do now because I make people feel good every day and they are so grateful.”
While some questioned Oprah’s common sense, none doubted her sincerity. “I want people to see things on our show that makes them think differently about their lives,” she said. “To be a light for people. To make a difference … to open their minds and see things differently … how to get in touch with the spiritual part of their life.” However, she disliked being called a “New Ager.” She told one woman in her audience, “I am not New Age anything and I resent being called that. I am just trying to open a door so that people can see themselves more clearly and perhaps be the light to get them to God, whatever they may call that. I don’t see spirits in the trees and I don’t sit in the room with crystals.”
“Oh, but she does invoke spirits,” insisted Peter A. Colasante, owner of L’Enfant Gallery in Washington, D.C. He then added facetiously, “She probably speaks in tongues, too.… I do know she waves her hands above her head like a Pentecostal when she says she feels vibrations. At least that’s been my personal experience with her.”
After buying some oil paintings through her decorator Anthony Browne, Oprah wanted to purchase more by the same artist [John Kirthian Court], so she contacted the L’Enfant Gallery directly. “Her people from Harpo called endlessly to set up an appointment on the same day she was going to Deborah Gore Dean’s shop, across the street from mine in Georgetown. We were both told to deliver photos of what Oprah wanted to see, and the photos were to be awaiting her arrival at the Four Seasons Hotel the night before. We were told to have our galleries ready for her arrival and her viewing because she did not have much time … We were told that Oprah is micromanaged to the minute, like the president of the United States. We received a partial schedule:
2:17 P.M.: Oprah’s limousine arrives at L’Enfant Gallery
2:20 P.M.: Oprah walks into gallery
2:30 P.M.: Oprah views paintings
3:00 P.M.: Oprah leaves L’Enfant Gallery
“Well, you don’t just consign a few paintings by John Kirthian Court for a viewing. He’s the grand-nephew of James McNeill Whistler two times removed and is considered a great painter and portraitist in his own right. He lives in San Miguel. You must buy his paintings outright [$60,000–$80,000 average price] and then sell them after you’ve air-freighted them from Portugal and insured their transport for hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s what I did: I purchased three paintings for Oprah’s two thirty viewing.” The gallery owner admitted feeling tentative about the investment because he’d had “trouble getting paid for the first three paintings” he had sold to Oprah a year or so before. “But I went ahead and did it,” he said.
“Because her secretaries told me she only had a few minutes and would be gone by three p.m., I made a three thirty p.m. appointment with another client. The day arrived and we waited and waited and waited for Oprah. Finally, we saw her two limousines pull up to Deborah’s shop at two thirty-five p.m. Time was passing, so around two fifty-five p.m. I went across the street, where Oprah was bellowing at Deborah for not having had her photos delivered to the hotel the night before. Apparently, when she walked