Oprah 'most generous'
2007-05-11 07:26
Los Angeles - Oprah Winfrey has topped a new survey to find the most generous celebrity philanthropists, donating more than $50m of her fortune to charity last year.
Los Angeles-based The Giving Back Fund, a group set up to encourage and advise on celebrity philanthropy, said the 53-year-old talk show queen gave $58.3m to her own charities and other groups.
Second on the fund's annual "Giving Back 30 list" was late fashion designer Geoffrey Beene, who left $44m to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre treatment and research centre in New York in his will.
The list was published on the Giving Back Fund's website (www.givingback.org).
Other celebrities to make the list included Barbra Streisand, who placed fourth after donating just under $12m to the foundation which carries her name as well various civil liberties and environmental groups.
World number one golfer Tiger Woods was fifth after giving $9.5m to several charities he sponsors.
Lifestyle guru Martha Stewart was seventh following a five million dollar donation to New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, while Hollywood's golden couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were 11th with $2.4m in donations.
Pitt and Jolie's donations were spread between a school and community centre in Namibia, and other organisations including Doctors Without Borders and Global Action for Children.
Nicolas Cage was 12th on the list with a two million dollar donation to human rights watchdog Amnesty International, joining former Beatle Paul McCartney and golf legend Arnold Palmer.
Other celebrities on the list included Andre Agassi, Denzel Washington, Lance Armstrong, Dolly Parton and Elizabeth Taylor.