Celebrities' First Jobs
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Chris, Oprah's first television boss, joins her via Skype to reminisce about their nightly newscasts. What Chris remembers most about Oprah are her eyelash mishaps.
In an attempt to look a little more like her '70s idol, Mary Tyler Moore, Oprah says she tied scarves around her neck and wore false eyelashes that she bought at Walgreens—the same brand she still wears today!
"I didn't know how to put them on very well," she says. "By the end of the newscast, my eyelash would be falling off."
"In a half-hour newscast, I think people were tuning in to see where [the eyelashes] were after the commercial break," Chris says.
Truthfully, Oprah says eyelashes weren't her only problem. "I wasn't a really good reporter," she says. "As a reporter, you're not supposed to empathize with the people that you're reporting on, and it's very difficult to be writing copy when somebody's been in an accident."
When Chris assigned Oprah stories that involved people who were hurt, he says she'd be too distraught to write the copy. "She spent all of her time on the telephone trying to find help for these people instead of writing the darned story to meet the deadline," he says. "It probably was very good she never got the message. Look at her today. I mean, come on. She has empathy for people. She wouldn't be Oprah without that."
In an attempt to look a little more like her '70s idol, Mary Tyler Moore, Oprah says she tied scarves around her neck and wore false eyelashes that she bought at Walgreens—the same brand she still wears today!
"I didn't know how to put them on very well," she says. "By the end of the newscast, my eyelash would be falling off."
"In a half-hour newscast, I think people were tuning in to see where [the eyelashes] were after the commercial break," Chris says.
Truthfully, Oprah says eyelashes weren't her only problem. "I wasn't a really good reporter," she says. "As a reporter, you're not supposed to empathize with the people that you're reporting on, and it's very difficult to be writing copy when somebody's been in an accident."
When Chris assigned Oprah stories that involved people who were hurt, he says she'd be too distraught to write the copy. "She spent all of her time on the telephone trying to find help for these people instead of writing the darned story to meet the deadline," he says. "It probably was very good she never got the message. Look at her today. I mean, come on. She has empathy for people. She wouldn't be Oprah without that."
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