If you weren't there, you're not a celebrity. Or maybe you're dead.

Oprah Winfrey wiped away tears as celebrity after celebrity Wednesday surprised her during a farewell double-episode taping of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that will precede her finale next week.

"Thank you is not enough, but thank you," Winfrey told the crowd of 13,000 gathered at Chicago's United Center on Tuesday night for "Surprise Oprah! A Farewell Spectacular." "For your love and your support, thank you."

No Oprah, thank you "... for inviting us. Oh, right, you didn't.

The crowd gave Winfrey a standing ovation. Then Aretha Franklin sang "Amazing Grace." Tom Hanks was host, Jerry Seinfeld did comedy, Michael Jordan and Madonna told Winfrey she inspires them, and Tom Cruise didn't jump on a couch.

Winfrey announced in November 2009 that she would end her popular talk show after 25 years. Tuesday's taping will air Monday and Tuesday, before Winfrey's final show airs Wednesday.

Grammy winner John Legend was beamed in from New Orleans. Josh Groban and Patti LaBelle sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and Jamie Foxx and Stevie Wonder sang "Isn't She Lovely." Simon Cowell made an appearance, then told Foxx he was off-key.

Maria Shriver appeared the same day news broke her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, fathered a child with a woman on his household staff more than a decade ago. Shriver did not mention her husband during the taping. Well, not

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"You have given me love, support, wisdom and most of all the truth," Shriver told Winfrey, using a word there at the end that was totally, positively, absolutely coincidental, but still drew cheers from the crowd.

Other stars in attendance included Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Halle Berry, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, Dakota Fanning and Diane Sawyer.

When they ran out of live celebrities, Tupac Shakur sent a congratulatory message from the other side.

C'MON, YOU'RE STILL PUNKING US: Ashton Kutcher, who took advantage of Charlie Sheen's epic implosion to replace him on "Two and a Half Men," was officially introduced by CBS Wednesday afternoon during the network's upfront presentation in New York.

"In my 13 years in show business, I've never received more emails and phone calls from people congratulating me for this job," said Kutcher, who will receive $1 million an episode. "You almost think I've won the lotto "... which I kind of did."

CBS executives, who unveiled five new shows for the upcoming season, declined to give any details about how Kutcher will be written in to the series, or how Sheen will be written out.

ROTH WINS MAN BOOKER PRIZE: American Philip Roth won the Man Booker International Prize, defeating 12 other finalists for the literary award of 60,000 pounds ($97,600). The prize is awarded every two years to recognize a living author's achievement in fiction and literary excellence.

A judging panel led by Rick Gekoski honored Roth in a news conference at the Sydney Opera House during the Sydney Writers' Festival in Australia, the contest organizers said in a statement.

"For more than 50 years Philip Roth's books have stimulated, provoked and amused an enormous, and still expanding, audience," Gekoski said in the release. "His imagination has not only recast our idea of Jewish identity, it has also reanimated fiction."

One of the three judges, Australian author Carmen Callil, later voiced criticism of the decision, telling the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper that Roth "goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book."

Roth, 78, scooped up the National Book Award for fiction with his first published work, "Goodbye, Columbus." He went on to score best-selling notoriety in 1969 with "Portnoy's Complaint." In 1979, he introduced his fictional alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, in "The Ghost Writer," the first in a series of autobiographical novels.

TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Thursday, May 19, the 139th day of 2011. There are 226 days left in the year.
  • 1536: Anne Boleyn, second wife of England's King Henry VIII, was beheaded after being convicted of adultery.
  • 1921: Congress passed, and President Warren G. Harding signed, the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.
  • 1935: T.E. Lawrence, also known as "Lawrence of Arabia," died in Dorset, England, six days after being injured in a motorcycle crash.
  • 1962: During a Democratic fundraiser at New York's Madison Square Garden, actress Marilyn Monroe sang "Happy Birthday to You" to guest-of-honor President John F. Kennedy.
  • 1964: The State Department disclosed that 40 hidden microphones had been found in the U.S. embassy in Moscow.
  • 1971: Poet Ogden Nash, known for his humorous light verses, died in Baltimore at age 68.
  • 1994: Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died in New York at age 64.
    BIRTHDAYS
    PBS newscaster Jim Lehrer (77), TV personality David Hartman (76), actor James Fox (72), actress Nancy Kwan (72), author-director Nora Ephron (70), actor Peter Mayhew (67), rock singer-composer Pete Townshend of the Who (66), concert pianist David Helfgott (64), rock singer-musician Dusty Hill of ZZ Top (62), singer-actress Grace Jones (59), rock musician Phil Rudd of AC-DC (57), actor Steven Ford (55), rock singer Jenny Berggren of Ace of Base (39).
    -- Associated Press