Oprah and Danny sizzle in their fist love scenes in the powerful film 'Beloved.'

Ebony, Nov, 1998 by Laura B. Randolph

Demme's response? "He said, `Okay, we'll keep that in mind, but you know the scene is not about breasts so we'll just find another way to do it,'" Oprah recalls. "So we had to come up with other ways to have love scenes that didn't involve us humping in bed."

One of Oprah's favorite love scenes occurs not in bed but in the living room. "When Sethe comes in the house and Danny is in that tub...," she says, shaking her head, her voice trailing off. "Danny shot that scene on his 50th birthday, and when he rose up out of that tub [naked], we all just looked at each other and went, `The high and the mighty! Good God, Danny. What have you been doing?' And we're all trying to act like it ain't happening when all the while we're thinking nice butt. `How do you get buns like that at 50?'"

That night, when she recounted the day's events for Stedman, he let his silences speak for him. "I said, `Well, today I spent the day in a G-string with Danny,'" Oprah recalls. "`It's just an odd way to make a living. You come in your robe, you crawl in the bed and you're just kind of there on top of each other all day.' And Stedman said, `How are Sophie and Solomon [Oprah's American cocker spanieis]?' I said, `Did you hear me?' And he said, `Did you take Sophie to the doctor?' I said, `Okay, you don't want to talk about this.'"

For Oprah, turning Toni Morrison's masterpiece into a feature film required much more than getting over breast anxiety. Ten years in the making, the film required as much belief in the power of the book on which it is based as it did patience and talent. Which is why, the day Oprah read Beloved, she did the unthinkable: She offered Toni Morrison a blank check for the movie rights.

"I was haunted by the story," she explains. "The first day I read it, I felt ruined, overwhelmed and redeemed, all at the same time. And I called Toni Morrison up that day. I found her through the fire department in her town and somehow convinced them that they should give me her telephone number. I told her I wanted to do this movie, and she laughed at me. Then she said, `Well, if you're serious, have somebody call me.'"

The following day Oprah instructed her attorneys not only to call Morrison, but to give her whatever she asked for. "I said to my attorneys, `Do not try to negotiate with her,'" Oprah recalls. "I said, `Whatever she asks, that is what I'm paying.' Of course, they said, `That is crazy. People don't expect to get what they are asking.' And I said, "Toni Morrison should get exactly what she wants, and it will be a privilege for me to pay it to her.' The day I wrote the cheek, I wrote in my journal it was a privilege, as one Black woman to another, to be able to say, `Name your price. Whatever you want, I am happy to give it to you, Sister, because you deserve it.'"

Morrison's reaction to the film delighted Oprah. "On the actors -- a beautifully bejeweled performance," says Morrison. "I was amazed and pleased -- from the first showing, even when I was anticipating what was going to happen -- it's unprecedented. Spectacular -- It has teeth and doesn't bite its tongue."