Oprah Winfrey signs movie deal with Disney

Jet, Nov 20, 1995

TV's No. 1 talk show host Oprah Winfrey is heading back to the silver screen after inking a five-year deal with Walt Disney Co.

She will produce and star in several motion pictures over the next five years, including an adaptation of author Toni Morrison's novel, Beloved, the story of a freed slave who kills her child.

"This is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for me," Ms. Winfrey says.

Joe Roth, chairman of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group said, "We are thrilled to be in business with Oprah. We have the utmost confidence in her company and her taste in films."

Ms. Winfrey starred in the TV movies, There Are No Children Here and The Women of Brewster Place and the highly-acclaimed motion picture The Color Purple, which won her an Oscar nomination.

Terms of the Disney deal were not disclosed.