CTE College and Career Readiness Workshop 1Famous People Biographies
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah is Emmy Award-winning television talk-show host, actress and producer. Her Oprah Winfrey
Show (debut 1986) is the highest-rated talk show in syndication history. Her book-of-the-month
feature on the show regularly raises books from obscurity to national bestsellers. She owns a
production company, Harpo, and is one of the highest-paid celebrities in the world. She appeared in
the film The Color Purple (1985), and was producer and actress in the television movie The Women of
Brewster Place (1989) as well as the film of Toni Morrison's Beloved (1998), and has produced a
number of television movies. In April 2000 she launched O magazine, which became one of the most
successful new magazines in publishing history. In 2003, the Forbes magazine list of American
billionaires included Winfrey—the first African-American women to reach billionaire status.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor was born on June 25, 1954 in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York to
Juan Sotomayor and the former Celina Baez. Both of her parents were born in Puerto Rico - where
she visits relatives once or twice a year on average - and a young Sotomayor grew up in a bilingual
household and did not learn to speak English fluently until after the death of her father, who only
spoke Spanish, when she was 9-years-old. Sotomayor's mother, a retired nurse, raised Sonia and her
brother Juan - a physician who lives in Syracuse, NY- as a single working mother.
Sotomayor was attracted to the law at an early age. She says she was inspired to become a prosecutor
by an episode of the legal drama "Perry Mason" in which a character playing a prosecutor claimed
that serving justice meant losing cases where the defendant was innocent. "I noticed that Perry
Mason was involved in a lot of the same kinds of investigative work that I had been fascinated with
reading Nancy Drew, so I decided to become a lawyer."
Jimmy Smits
A second generation American of mixed ancestry (his mother was Puerto Rican, and his father was
Dutch), Smits was raised primarily in Brooklyn. He attended Thomas Jefferson High School, where he
was both an athlete and actor of considerable talent. He continued his education at Brooklyn College,
receiving a B.A. degree in theatre, and earning an M.F.A. from Cornell University in 1982. After
considerable stage success he was cast in several movie and TV projects. In 1986, Smits landed his
first big screen role as a drug dealer in Running Scared. Later that year, he found his niche in
television when he was signed to play attorney Victor Sifuentes on the weekly series L.A. Law. In
1991the producers of the gritty police drama N.Y.P.D. Blue offered Smits the series' lead role (after
David Caruso's departure). In the fall of 1994, he debuted on N.Y.P.D. Blue as detective Bobby Simone,
staging a sensational comeback and winning the hearts of a skeptical audience. He remained with the
show until 1998, when he delivered a heart-wrenching performance in the season finale. During his
run on the show, Smits earned five Emmy nominations as Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
Hillary Clinton
During her school years Hillary was known for her willingness to work hard. While most girls talked
about boys and makeup, Hillary was already "political" even at the stage when it was not considered
cool. She was involved in almost all school activities: student government, school newspaper… She
rewrote the student assembly constitution and, in eleventh grade, became a class vice president.
Even in these years she was an impressive debater. One of her favorite heroes at that time was
Margaret Chase Smith, a senator from Maine, the first woman to be elected to both houses of
Congress. At the time when seventeen-year-old Hillary Rodham left Park Ridge, Illinois, for Wellesley
College, her character had been already formed: a combination of intelligence and inquiring mind,
ambition and idealism, reliance on financial independence and belief in the public service. After
Wellesley, Hillary attended Yale, where she earned her Law degree. After college, she became a
practicing attorney, married Bill Clinton, became the First Lady of the United States, after her time in
the White House Hillary became a US Senator, and currently she is serving as the Secretary of State in
Barack Obama’s administration.
Maya Angelou
A poet, writer, actress, director, playwright, civil rights activist, composer, polyglot- so many different
terms describing one person only. Maya was a true Renaissance woman. She went through the mill
from a being a little black girl discriminated against in the white society to an artist respected in the
whole world, from childhood marked by traumatic experiences to adulthood filled with wisdom and
good. Maya Angelou impresses with her inner strength and self-awareness, and draws attention of
bigger and bigger masses of readers and fans. She is author of ten best-selling books and laureate of
many awards from different fields. She received fifty honorary degrees from various colleges.
Angelou read her poems at the inaugurations of President Clinton in 1993 and President Obama in
2009.
Barack Obama (there are no “short” Biographies on President Obama)
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Born: August 4, 1961 (Hawaii)
Lives in: Chicago, Illinois
Zodiac Sign: Leo
Height: 6′ 1″ (1.87m)
Family: Married wife Michelle in 1992, 2 daughters Malia and Sasha
Parents: Barack Obama, Sr. (from Kenya) and Ann Dunham (from Kansas)
Religion: United Church of Christ
Drives a: Ford Escape hybrid, Chrysler 300C
Education:
– Graduated: Columbia University (1983) - Major: Political Science
– Law Degree from Harvard (1991) - Major: J.D. - Magna Cum Laude
– Attended: Occidental College
Career:
–U.S. President - inaugurated January 20, 2009
–U.S. Senator from Illinois, 2005-2008
Government Committees:
– Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
– Foreign Relations Committee
– Veterans Affairs Committee
– 2005 and 2006: served on the Environment and Public Works Committee
Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg developed an interest in computers at an early age; when he was about 12, he used Atari
BASIC to create a messaging program he named "Zucknet." His father used the program in his dental
office, so that the receptionist could inform him of a new patient without yelling across the room. The
family also used Zucknet to communicate within the house. Together with his friends, he also created
computer games just for fun. "I had a bunch of friends who were artists," he said. "They'd come over,
draw stuff, and I'd build a game out of it."
After graduating from Exeter in 2002, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University. By his sophomore
year at the Ivy League institution, he had developed a reputation as the go-to software developer on
campus. It was at that time that he built a program called CourseMatch, which helped students
choose their classes based on the course selections of other users. He also invented Facemash, which
compared the pictures of two students on campus and allowed users to vote on which one was more
attractive. The program became wildly popular, but was later shut down by the school
administration after it was deemed inappropriate.
Zuckerberg and his friends created a site that allowed users to create their own profiles, upload
photos, and communicate with other users. The group ran the site—first called The Facebook—out of
a dorm room at Harvard until June 2004. After his sophomore year, Zuckerberg dropped out of
college to devote himself to Facebook full time, moving the company to Palo Alto, California. By the
end of 2004, Facebook had 1 million users.
In 2005, Zuckerberg's enterprise received a huge boost from the venture capital firm Accel Partners.
Accel invested $12.7 million into the network, which at the time was open only to ivy league
students. Zuckerberg's company then granted access to other colleges, high school and international
schools, pushing the site's membership to more than 5.5 million users by December 2005.
Russell Simmons
Entrepreneur, philanthropist. Born October 4, 1957 in New York City. After a brief stint at City
College of New York, Russell Simmons left school to promote local musicians, including Kurtis Blow
and Run-D.M.C. In 1984, he and partner Rick Rubin founded Def Jam Recordings, creating the
foundation for the cultural revolution known as hip hop. Def Jam signed the forerunners of the hip
hop movement, including the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Public Enemy and Run-D.M.C.
An ambitious entrepreneur, Simmons saw Def Jam as just part of his hip hop empire. His Rush
Communications firm also included Phat Farm clothing company, television shows, a management
company, a magazine and an advertising agency. His movie production house has produced such
films as Krush Groove and The Nutty Professor. In 1999, he sold his stake in Def Jam Records to
Universal Music Group for $100 million. In 2004, he sold Phat Farm for $140 million.
Chris Gardner
Born February 9, 1954 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Christopher Paul Gardner’s childhood was marked
by poverty, domestic violence, alcoholism, sexual abuse and family illiteracy. Gardner published his
autobiography out of a desire to shed light on these universal issues and show they do not have to
define you. Gardner never knew his father, and lived with his beloved mother, Bettye Jean Triplett
(nee Gardner), when not in foster homes. Gardner is indebted to Bettye Jean for his success as she
provided him with strong “spiritual genetics” and taught him that in spite of where he came from, he
could chart another path and attain whatever goals he set for himself.
Gardner joined the Navy out of high school and then moved to San Francisco where he worked as a
medical research associate and for a scientific medical supply distributor. In 1981, as a new father to
son Christopher Gardner Jr., he was determined to find a career that would be both lucrative and
fulfilling. Fascinated by finance, but without connections, an MBA or even a college degree, Gardner
applied for training programs at brokerages, willing to live on next to nothing while he learned a new
trade. Chris Jr.‘s mother left and Gardner, despite his circumstances, fought to keep his son because,
as he says, “I made up my mind as a young kid that when I had children they were going to know who
their father is, and that he isn’t going anywhere.”
The amazing story of Gardner’s life was published as an autobiography, The Pursuit of Happyness,
(Amistad/Harper Collins) in May 2006, and became a New York Times and Washington Post #1
bestseller. In paperback, the book spent over twenty weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and
has been translated into fourteen languages. Gardner was also the inspiration for the movie “The
Pursuit of Happyness,” released by Columbia Pictures in December 2006. The movie is the #2 alltime domestic grossing drama. Will Smith starred as Gardner and received Academy Award, Golden
Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for his performance. Gardner was an associate producer
on the film.
Gardner’s second book, Start Where You Are: Life Lessons in Getting From Where You Are to Where
You Want to Be was published in 2009.