THE COLOR PURPLE Movie Musical

 1984. I was a few years into my first professional TV job. I worked on the ABC affiliate in Milwaukee. I lived with a. groovy roommate in a groovy apartment on Milwaukee's East Side. On Prospect Avenue, to be exact. From where our apartment was situated, I could get one of the Chicago TV stations on my television. One morning, I watched A.M. Chicago, a local show that had long been in the basement, ratings-wise. The show had a studio audience and a set that looked like it cost about $49.95. 

One this particular morning, I watched the show with its new host. Her guests were Jackie Zeman, actress from daytime TV's GENERAL HOSPITAL, and a woman who wrote a pasta recipes cookbook. For the whole show, the three women talked and made pasta salads. I felt magnetized to the TV by the charisma, warmth, interest and spontaneity A.M. CHICAGO's new host. She was fresh. She was different. At a time when the typical female TV host was a perky young and slim Caucasian woman, this was a lively young Black woman with an unusual first name. Oprah. The show's ratings began to rise. DJs on morning radio shows were talking about her. Chicago residents were talking about her. She started getting terrific national publicity. The show got a new set and a new title. A.M. CHICAGO was renamed OPRAH. She was one of daytime TV's hottest new celebrities and the show was on the brink of going into what would be history-making syndication.

During this time, Oprah Winfrey had read and become obsessed with Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning 1982 novel, THE COLOR PURPLE. When she heard that Steven Spielberg would be directing a film adaptation, she was determined to get an audition for a role.

With all that in mind, watch the clip below with Oprah talking about her journey to an audition. Remember that, at the time, she was nationally popular, beloved in Chicago, and had her own daytime weekday talk show. But she was still a Black woman. Pay attention to what a casting director said to her.

TV host Oprah Winfrey got a part in Spielberg's 1985 film version of THE COLOR PURPLE.

Amongst the many Oscar nominations it received, which included Best Picture, Oprah Winfrey was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

In 2005, THE COLOR PURPLE became a Tony-winning Broadway musical. 

Now, that musical version has been adapted into a movie that opens in December. Watch this trailer.

The power of Oprah. I wonder if she ever got an apology from that rude casting director?