OF COURSE JEFF LILES HAS MET OPRAH

Who is the most interesting man in Oak Cliff?

He was the first DJ in Texas to play NWA on the radio. He saw Willie Nelson jam with Supertramp at the Ritz. Once in 1982, he played pinball all night with Kirk Hammett of Metallica at a bus station in downtown Austin. He’s been nominated for a Grammy.

And yes, of course, Jeffrey Liles has met Oprah.

Liles, artistic director of the Kessler Theater, was on an episode of “Oprah” in the early ’80s about parents who are highly successful but have children who are out of control.

“My parents had just been divorced, and my dad was living in Chicago,” he says.

These were Oprah’s early years when a Chicago radio station would announce themes of the following weeks’ shows, so listeners could call in to see if their stories fit the topic. Allen Liles, a retired Southland Corp.

executive who wrote the book on 7-Eleven, called in.

“I don’t know if he did it as a joke or not,” Jeff Liles says. “He has a real deep sense of humor.”

The show flew the 22-year-old Liles up from Dallas, where he’d just been out of rehab for marijuana.

“Oprah” put him up at the Nikko, and he invited all of his Chicago friends over for an all-night party in his room the night before taping.

Oprah, he says, was a sweetheart. Before taping, she came out and spoke to each guest of the show until they felt comfortable being on set. She was professional and lovely and, well she’s Oprah.

“Some doctor had written a book. That’s what the show was about,” Liles says.

He says he never even saw his episode of “Oprah.” His great aunt did catch it, and she called up his grandmother to say, “I didn’t know Jeff was in rehab!”