Dispatches

By Christopher John Farley, in Chicago

"We might be poor," says Oprah Winfrey, "but we ain't sellin' our soul to the devil today." The cameras are rolling as Winfrey, a TV talk-show host who is said to earn more than $40 million a year, tackles her newest role, that of LaJoe Rivers, an impoverished mother of eight children struggling to survive in the Henry Horner Homes, a violent Chicago housing project. The movie, which will air on ABC in November, is the first serious film from Harpo, Winfrey's production company. It's based on the nonfiction best seller There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz, which details the life of Rivers and two of her sons, Pharoah and Lafayette. The real Pharoah, now 15, is in the studio today with Kotlowitz, whom he sometimes visits. Pharoah says the set doesn't look much like his former home, and he would have liked to see himself played by Emmanuel Lewis (Webster). "But the actors they got are fantastic," he says.

During a break, Winfrey, dressed in the shabby blue housecoat of her character, also talks about casting. "Originally ABC wanted Diana Ross ((as Rivers)) ... Diana said she didn't want to do it because it didn't offer enough hope. I felt the book was reality," says Winfrey. "There's always hope. I didn't grow up in the projects, but I am the perfect example of someone who came up from zip, I mean zippola, Mrs. Outhouse herself here." Despite this commitment to unvarnished truth, Winfrey abruptly postponed publication of her own memoirs because they were not inspirational enough. "When I read the manuscript, it wasn't about empowering anybody," she says. "I wanted to do more than release the details of my life. That is the real reason why there isn't a book."

The production spent six days on location at the projects, employing Horner kids as extras. Betsy Bottando, the location manager, knows a policeman with relatives in the local gangs, and he met with them to ensure that the filming would take place undisturbed. Bottando says one scene was set at nearby Chicago Stadium before a Bulls game, but the building's manager called the extras "animals" and refused to open the stadium doors. "I know the guy's family," says Bottando. "They're from Evergreen Park" -- a middle-class village near Chicago -- "Ever-WHITE Park, just like I am." The scene was filmed with the doors shut. (The Chicago Stadium manager didn't return phone calls to his office, and a man answering his home phone, when asked about the incident, said, "Don't know a thing about it," and hung up.)

The movie has wrapped, and reality has set back in at Horner. Calvin Mitchell, 10, a boy Winfrey befriended, says, "They had a shooting just yesterday, near where I live. It's tough ((Horner)), but if you mind your business, you'll be all right." He wants to win the scholarship Winfrey's endowing with her salary from the movie: "I know I can do it, and can't nobody tell me anything different." There's always hope.