When psychologist Phil McGraw met Oprah Winfrey while helping her prep for a libel trial in 1996, it was the beginning of a relationship that would eventually make McGraw one of America’s most popular self-help experts. Oprah was taken to court by the cattle industry in 1996, after claims one of her programs on mad cow disease prompted an $11 million downturn in the industry. Oprah was vindicated, but the real winner of the case was the young head of the trial consulting firm Oprah hired to assist her legal team. So taken was Oprah with McGraw that she invited him on her program in 1998, shortly after the trial ended. McGraw, rebranded as Dr. Phil, proved one of Oprah’s most popular guests, earning himself a weekly time slot, and in 2002, his own syndicated TV show, Dr. Phil, produced by Oprah’s Harpo Productions.
Top 10 Oprah Protégés
The New York Post has reported that Dr. Anne Dranitsaris, a Toronto psychotherapist, could be in line to become Oprah's next media darling. If the tabloid is right, she's just the latest in a long line of professionals whose career has been made (or broken) by the talk-show dynamo