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See Oprah Winfrey as a teenager in star's incredible school photos

The famous chat show host is friends with everyone – from Meghan Markle to Michelle Obama

oprah winfrey
Hanna Fillingham
US Managing Editor
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Oprah Winfrey is one of the most successful chat show hosts in the US, and has interviewed everyone from Barack Obama to Barbra Streisand. The TV personality has been in the public eye for many years, but long before her life in the spotlight, she was a pupil at East Nashville High School. Photos from her school year book have been colourised by MyHeritage, where the star is pictured with many of the groups she belonged to, including the National Forensic League and the Honor Society. During her time at secondary school, Oprah was voted Most Popular Girl, and went on to secure a full scholarship to attend Tennessee State University, where she studied communication. The star started out her career working on radio station WVOL, where she read the news part-time while at school. Oprah went on to become the youngest news anchor and the first black female news anchor at Nashville's WLAC-TV.

oprah winfrey school photo

Oprah Winfrey was voted Most Popular Girl while at high school

In 1978, she worked as a co-host alongside Richard Sheer on local talk show, People Are Talking, and in 1984, after relocating to Chicago, she took over from AM Chicago. Within months, the show became the highest-rated talk show in the city. As a result of the success, the programme was re-named The Oprah Winfrey Show, which ran for 25 seasons between 1986 to 2011.

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During her time presenting her chat show, Oprah invited everyone from everyday people to household names to come and talk to her. Notable guests included Michael Jackson, Tom Cruise and Elizabeth Taylor, while Oprah's best friend Gayle King appeared on the show over 100 times.

oprah winfrey school photos

Oprah was part of the Honor Society before becoming a world-famous chat show host

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Oprah has many famous friends and is incredibly loyal to them. The star is close with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and attended their wedding in 2018. What's more, Oprah bought their son Archie the sweetest present when he was born in May 2019, choosing to gift the little boy the book Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, complete with a sticker reading 'Archie's Book Club'. OprahMag.com confirmed that the book was gifted to the family by the chat show host, and that it was a collector's item. The website added that all of the books sent to Archie from Oprah had the same sticker and that they are her "standard gift" for people she "really cares about".

Oprah's photos were used with the MyHeritage In Color™ tool, which automatically brings black-and-white photos to life. To use the tool, you simply need to upload your black-and-white image onto MyHeritage and it will automatically colourise the image in just a few seconds.

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