In 1985 Quincy Jones (1933–) saw Winfrey on television and thought she would make a fine actress in a movie he was coproducing with director Steven Spielberg (1946–). The film was based on the Alice Walker (1944–) novel The Color Purple. Her only acting experience until then had been in a one-woman show, The History of Black Women Through Drama and Song, which she performed during an African American theater festival in 1978.