Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [61]
Having grown up watching The Donna Reed Show, Oprah gently pricked the fantasy balloon of girls like herself who imagined themselves growing up, becoming Donna Reed, and living happily ever after as wives and mothers. She told them not to believe that Mr. Right was the answer to their prayers. She recited a Carolyn Rodgers poem about lonely women who are powerless because they judge their self-worth by the kind of man they attract. She spoke of the inequities facing women in the marketplace, making less money than men in the same jobs. Having experienced a secret and unwanted pregnancy, she chided the men who made policies that denied women the right to choose what to do with their own bodies. She did not use the word abortion, but she said those same men were denying women equality, rendering them powerless. Her wealthy white audience cheered when she repeated the words of slaves: “Ain’t nobody free til we all is free.” She recited Maya Angelou’s poem “Phenomenal Woman,” and concluded with the proud words of Sojourner Truth: “Everywhere I go people wants to talk to me about this women’s rights. I tells them just like I’m telling you now. It seems to me if one woman, Eve, was able to turn this world upside down all by herself, then all of us womens in here together ought to be able to turn it right side up! And now that we’s askin’ to do it, y’all mens better let us.” The ovation was long and loud and deserved. While Oprah would deliver many more commencement addresses over the years, none would be as heartfelt as that first one at Goucher College.
Around this time Oprah and Judy Colteryahn had to deal with the news of their lover getting his wife, Donna, pregnant and having a second son. Later, Tim Watts would have another child with a woman not his wife. Court records indicate that he had two children out of wedlock, plus two children with Donna, who eventually divorced him. “When his daughter was born on Oprah’s birthday [January 29], Tim told me that Oprah took it as a sign she had been forgiven by God,” said Judy Colteryahn. She had had to terminate a pregnancy and assumed that Oprah did as well. “She became the child’s honorary godmother, and when her dog had puppies, she flew Tim and the little girl to New York City to give them a puppy. Tim showed me the pictures of all of them standing outside the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.”
In spite of her previous resolve, Oprah resumed her rocky relationship with Watts in 1981, but this time she tried to protect herself with a workload that would leave less time to think about him. “I remember waiting for phone calls and being afraid to run the bathwater because I wouldn’t hear the phone,” she said. Still, she woke up on her twenty-eighth birthday and wept for hours because she had no one with whom to share her life. From 1982 to 1983 she appeared on the air three times a day. “She did the early-morning news, the hour talk show, and then the noon news,” said Eileen Solomon. “That’s an incredible amount of work every day, but she did it, and she won all her time slots against the competition.”
By 1983, Oprah had to decide whether to renew her contract with WJZ and stay a big star in a small sky, or try to find another job. She was torn, especially after Debra DiMaio, one of her favorite producers, left for Chicago. When Oprah was poised to sign a new contract, DiMaio called and begged her to hold off. She said a great job was opening up because Robb Weller was leaving A.M. Chicago. “For God’s sakes, don’t sign yet.” DiMaio urged her to send a tape and résumé to WLS, and on Labor Day, Oprah flew to Chicago for a formal interview.
Beforehand, she sat in her hotel room and watched the show. “I’d never seen it before,” she said, adding that she was not impressed. “They baked cookies and gave you the latest in mascara techniques.” When she went for her interview, she told WLS management their show was no good. “Too frivolous! I’m best at combinations: A sexual surrogate one day, Donny and Marie Osmond the next day. Then the Klan.”
The general manager, Dennis Swanson, had