Oprah Winfrey tops list of 'most generous' celebs

The celebrity talk show host beat late fashion designer Geoffrey Beene, singer Barbra Streisand and golfer Tiger Woods in the poll.

Oprah Winfrey has come top of a new survey to find the most generous celebrity philanthropists, donating more than $50 million of her fortune to charity last year.

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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 $58.3 million 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 $44 million to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center treatment and research center 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 $12 million 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 $9.5 million to several charities he sponsors.

Lifestyle guru Martha Stewart was seventh following a $5 million donation to New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, while Hollywood's golden couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were 11th with 2.4 million in donations. Pitt and Jolie's donations were spread between a school and community center in Namibia, and other organisations including Doctors Without Borders and Global Action for Children. Nicolas Cage was 12th on the list with a $2 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.