Time Magazine: 100 Women of the Year Oprah Winfrey

By the time Oprah Winfrey became the first black woman to make it onto the Forbes billionaire list, in 2003, she was already the most successful talk-show host in TV history and a producer, media mogul, actor, author and philanthropist of unparalleled cultural clout. But it wasn’t until the following year, when she gave away Pontiacs to her entire studio audience, that she ascended to something like secular-saint status.