Watch: Oprah Visits Her Father’s Barber Shop on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”
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Thirty years ago, Oprah took viewers of The Oprah Winfrey Show back to Nashville, where she grew up, to meet her dad, Vernon Winfrey. In remembrance of Mr. Winfrey, who passed away at age 89 on July 8, we’re throwing it back to this 1992 visit. Above, watch Oprah take a walk down memory lane—through her father’s barbershop, the store where she used to work, and even her childhood home.
First, Oprah takes viewers to the barbershop. Standing outside, she mentions that the street where it resides has been renamed to Vernon Winfrey Avenue. Entering the shop, Oprah introduces the viewers to Mr. Winfrey—before telling him he looks skinnier than he did during her previous visit. When Oprah asks Mr. Winfrey about the prices of his haircuts, he tells her that he charges $6 for children and $7 for adults. However, if someone can’t quite afford that, he’ll never turn them away. Aside from the jaw-dropping difference in ’90s-era pricing, it’s clear that Mr. Winfrey had his values in the right place. “You always were that kind of dad,” Oprah tells him.
Next, Oprah brings us to the store where she had her first job. It’s close to her dad’s barbershop, but back in 1970 when Oprah worked there, she “hated it with a passion.” Yet, true to the work ethic from her father, she would stand behind the counter for hours on end. “My father and his partner, Mr. Eddins, they never closed the store,” she says. “Not one day in 17 years—births, deaths, marriages, they never closed the store.”
Finally, Oprah got a job that set her on a new career path. “The only thing that got me out of the store was the fact that I got myself a job in radio broadcasting,” she says before taking viewers to that very studio: the WVOL radio station. There, Oprah reunites with Clarence Kilcrease, the man who first hired her, and the two flip through old pictures. (Oprah in a Miss Fire Prevention, a Miss VOL, and a Miss Black America contest? You have to see it to believe it.)
Afterward, Oprah takes us to the Nashville house she lived in with her father. “It’s a very small house, but when I first arrived at this house, I thought it was a mansion,” she says. “I thought, My God; I’d never lived in a full brick house.” Bringing viewers inside, she comments on how things had changed since she lived there—including the once-plastic-wrapped couch that used to stick to her legs in the summertime.
Lastly, Oprah revisits the station where she had her first break in television (at just 19 years old). There to surprise her is Chris Clark, the anchor she originally auditioned for at WTVF. “I didn't know anything about television, but I thought if I just pretended to be Barbara Walters, that everything would work out,” Oprah says. Clearly it did—thanks, in part, to the work ethic Vernon Winfrey instilled in her, as Oprah shared in her most recent “The Life You Want” Class.
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