Oprah Winfrey became the first African American TV correspondent in Nashville.
Net worth: $2.9 billion (as of Sept. 2013)
Forbes Magazine says Oprah Winfrey has risen from poverty and a troubled youth to become the most powerful and influential woman in television. Though primarily recognized as a talk show hostess, Winfrey also occasionally acts in television movies and feature films. Winfrey's parents were teens when she was born in rural Mississippi and never married. She spent her childhood growing up in abject poverty on her deeply religious grandmother's farm.
