DeGeneres has hosted both the Academy Awards and the Primetime Emmys. As a film actress, she starred in Mr. Wrong, appeared in EDtv and The Love Letter, and provided the voice of Dory in the Disney-Pixar animated film Finding Nemo, for which she was awarded a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first and only time a voice performance won a Saturn Award. She was a judge on American Idol for one year, having joined the show in its ninth season. She also starred in two television sitcoms, Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and The Ellen Show from 2001 to 2002.
During the fourth season of Ellen in 1997, DeGeneres came out publicly as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Shortly afterwards, her character Ellen Morgan also came out to a therapist played by Winfrey, and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues including the coming out process. She has won thirteen Emmys and numerous other awards for her work and charitable efforts.
In November 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named her a Special Envoy for Global AIDS Awareness.
DeGeneres is an ethical vegan who calls herself a "big animal lover". The talk show host currently co-ordinates a vegan outreach website titled 'Going Vegan with Ellen' and has opened a vegan tapas bar, Bokado, in Los Angeles.
Ellen Lee DeGeneres (born January 26, 1958) is an American stand-up comedian, television host and actress. She hosts the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Since 2004, DeGeneres has had a relationship with Portia de Rossi. They became engaged when DeGeneres proposed with a 3-carat diamond ring. They were married at their Beverly Hills home on 16 August 2008 (during the brief window wherein same-sex marriage was legal in California), witnessed by their mothers and 19 other guests.
In 1997, DeGeneres came out as a lesbian. The bold disclosure of her sexual orientation sparked clamorous interest by American tabloids. The contentiousness of the media coverage stunted DeGeneres' professional career and left her "mired in depression". That same year, she began a romantic relationship with bisexual actress Anne Heche; they broke up in August 2000.
From 2001 to 2004, DeGeneres maintained a close affair with actress/director/photographer Alexandra Hedison. The couple appeared on the cover of The Advocate after their separation had already been announced to the media.
Since 2004, DeGeneres has had a relationship with Portia de Rossi. After the overturn of the same-sex marriage ban in California, DeGeneres announced on a May 2008 show that she and de Rossi were engaged, and gave de Rossi a three-carat pink diamond ring. They were married on August 16, 2008, at their home, with nineteen guests including their mothers. The passage of Proposition 8 cast doubt on the legal status of their marriage, but a subsequent California Supreme Court judgment validated it because it occurred before November 4, 2008.
DeGeneres and de Rossi live in Beverly Hills, with three dogs and four cats, and both are vegan. DeGeneres served as campaign ambassador to Farm Sanctuary's Adopt-A-Turkey Project in 2010, asking people to start "a new tradition by adopting a turkey instead of eating one" at Thanksgiving.
On August 6, 2010, de Rossi filed a petition to legally change her name to Portia Lee James DeGeneres. The petition was granted on September 23, 2010.
In her book Love, Ellen, DeGeneres's mother Betty DeGeneres describes being initially shocked when her daughter came out as a lesbian, but has become one of her strongest supporters, an active member of Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign's Coming Out Project.
In 2007, Forbes estimated DeGeneres's net worth at US$65 million.
She is a fan of the National Football League, and has shown particular support for the New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers. In 2011, she attended a Saints practice dressed as Packers Hall of Famer Don Hutson.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_DeGeneres
Born Amanda Lee Rogers in Horsham, Victoria, Australia, she is the daughter of Margaret, a medical receptionist, and Barry Rogers. Her father died when she was nine. She was raised in Grovedale, a suburb of Geelong in Victoria. As a child, she modelled for print and TV commercials. She adopted the name Portia de Rossi at the age of 15, stating in 2005 that she had intended to reinvent herself, using the given name of Portia, a character from William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and an Italian last name. Portia de Rossi was also the name of the mother of the famed Italian poet Torquato Tasso. (Picture: Ellen DeGeneres)
Her first significant role was playing a young and impressionable model in the Australian 1994 film Sirens. Soon afterwards she moved to Los Angeles and had guest roles on several TV shows, and a permanent role in Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher, before landing a role in the film Scream 2. During this time in the United States, de Rossi worked diligently to replace her native Australian accent with her current General American one.
She attracted international attention when she joined the main cast of the Ally McBeal TV series in 1998, playing lawyer Nelle Porter. She remained with the show until its end in 2002. In 2001, she starred in Who Is Cletis Tout? with Christian Slater.
From 2003–2006, de Rossi starred as Lindsay Bluth Fünke on Fox Television's critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning series Arrested Development.
She also portrayed John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, in the made for TV movie America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story in 2003. In 2005 she portrayed a fortune-teller named Zela in the Wes Craven thriller Cursed. From 2007–2008, de Rossi appeared in Nip/Tuck's fifth season as Julia McNamara's girlfriend Olivia Lord.
In 2009 and 2010, de Rossi played the high-strung and controlling Veronica Palmer on the ABC show Better Off Ted. In 2011 she appeared in Better Off Ted cast member Malcolm Barrett's music video for "Revenge of the Nerds", spoofing her character Veronica in a cameo (alongside other cast members of the cancelled series).
She ranked 69th in Stuff's 100 Sexiest Women, 31 in Femme Fatales' Sexiest Women of 2003 list, 24 in Maxim's 100 Sexiest Women List in 2004, and in late 2006, the magazine Blender listed her as one of the hottest women of film and TV. In May 2007, she was featured as one of 100 Most Beautiful in a People magazine special edition. TV Guide included her and Ellen DeGeneres in their Power A-List couples in 2007.
In February 2012 it was announced that ABC had ordered a pilot for a new drama series The Smart One, executive produced by Ellen DeGeneres which would feature de Rossi in a leading role. The actress will star as a "brilliant and successful woman who begrudgingly goes to work for her less-brainy but more popular sister – a former beauty queen, weather girl and now big-city Mayor."
De Rossi was married to documentary film-maker Mel Metcalfe from 1996 to 1999, initially part of a plan to get a green card, but she did not go through with it. She said that "it just obviously wasn't right for me". In a 2010 interview on Good Morning America, she explained that as a young actress, she was fearful of being exposed as a lesbian.
From 2000 to 2004, de Rossi dated singer Francesca Gregorini, the daughter of Barbara Bach and the stepdaughter of Ringo Starr. She said that most of her family and Ally McBeal castmates did not know she was a lesbian until tabloid pictures of the couple were published. She declined to publicly discuss the relationship or her sexual orientation at the time.
De Rossi and Gregorini broke up in late 2004 because de Rossi began dating Ellen DeGeneres, whom she met backstage at an awards show. In 2005, she opened up publicly about her sexual orientation in interviews with Details and The Advocate. She became engaged when DeGeneres proposed with a 3-carat diamond ring. They were married at their Beverly Hills home on 16 August 2008 (during the brief window wherein same-sex marriage was legal in California), witnessed by their mothers and 19 other guests. On 6 August 2010, Portia filed a petition to legally change her name to Portia Lee James DeGeneres. The petition was granted on 23 September 2010. She became a US citizen in September 2011.
In 2010, de Rossi published the autobiography Unbearable Lightness which talks about the turmoil that she has experienced in her life, including suffering from anorexia and being misdiagnosed with lupus. To promote the book, she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
De Rossi supports a variety of charitable organizations, including Locks of Love, a group that provides human hair wigs (made from donated ponytails) either free of charge or on a sliding scale based on their own guidelines for children with alopecia and other medical conditions that cause hair loss. She has also supported fundraising efforts for FXB International, an African AIDS relief organisation, and The Art of Elysium, an art foundation for terminally ill children. An avid animal lover, de Rossi also supports Alley Cat Allies, an organisation dedicated to protecting and improving the lives of cats. De Rossi and wife Ellen DeGeneres have also been vegan since 2008, and are strong supporters of the Gentle Barn, a California-based sanctuary for abused animals.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_de_Rossi
Further Readings:
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: It Books (April 26, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0688176887
ISBN-13: 978-0688176884
Amazon: Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey
"Mom, I'm gay." With three little words, gay sons and daughters can change their parents' lives forever. Twenty years ago, during a walk on a Mississippi beach, Ellen DeGeneres spoke those simple, powerful words to her mother. That emotional moment eventually brought mother and daughter closer than ever, but it was not without a struggle. In Love, Ellen, Betty DeGeneres tells her story: the complicated path to acceptance and the deepening of her friendship with her daughter, the media's scrutiny of their family life, and the painful and often inspiring stories she's heard on the road as the first nongay spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign's National Coming Out Project.
Insightful, universally touching, and uncommonly wise, Love, Ellen is a story of friendship between mother and daughter and a lesson in understanding for all parents and their children.
"Mom, I'm gay." With three little words, gay children can change their parents' lives forever. Yet at the same times it's a chance for those parents to realize nothing, really, has changed at all; same kid, same life, same bond of enduring love.
Twenty years ago, during a walk on a Mississippi beach, Ellen DeGeneres spoke those simple, powerful words to her mother. That emotional moment eventually brought mother and daughter closer than ever, but not without a struggle. Coming from a republican family with conservative values, Betty needed time and education to understand her daughter's homosexuality -- but her ultimate acceptance would set the stage for a far more public coming out, one that would change history.
In Love, Ellen, Betty DeGeneres tells her story; the complicated path to acceptance and the deepening of her friendship with her daughter; the media's scrutiny of their family life; the painful and often inspiring stories she's heard on the road as the first non-gay spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaigns National Coming Out Project.
With a mother's love, clear minded common sense, and hard won wisdom, Betty DeGeneres offers up her own very personal memoir to help parents understand their gay children, and to help sons and daughters who have been rejected by their families feel less alone."Mom, I'm gay." With three little words, gay children can change their parents' lives forever. Yet at the same times it's a chance for those parents to realize nothing, really, has changed at all; same kid, same life, same bond of enduring love.
Twenty years ago, during a walk on a Mississippi beach, Ellen DeGeneres spoke those simple, powerful words to her mother. That emotional moment eventually brought mother and daughter closer than ever, but not without a struggle. Coming from a republican family with conservative values, Betty needed time and education to understand her daughter's homosexuality -- but her ultimate acceptance would set the stage for a far more public coming out, one that would change history.
In Love, Ellen, Betty DeGeneres tells her story; the complicated path to acceptance and the deepening of her friendship with her daughter; the media's scrutiny of their family life; the painful and often inspiring stories she's heard on the road as the first non-gay spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaigns National Coming Out Project.
With a mother's love, clear minded common sense, and hard won wisdom, Betty DeGeneres offers up her own very personal memoir to help parents understand their gay children, and to help sons and daughters who have been rejected by their families feel less alone
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Atria Books; Reprint edition (July 5, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1439177791
Amazon: Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain
Now in paperback, the New York Times bestselling memoir from Portia de Rossi explores the truth of her long battle to overcome anorexia and bulimia—“an unusually fresh and engrossing memoir of both Hollywood and modern womanhood” ( Los Angeles Times, 5 stars).
In this groundbreaking memoir, Portia de Rossi reveals the pain and illness that haunted her for decades, from the time she was a twelve-year-old girl working as a model in Australia, through her early rise to fame as a cast member of the hit television show Ally McBeal . All the while terrified that the truth of her sexuality would be exposed in the tabloids, Portia alternately starved herself and binged, putting her life in danger and concealing from herself and everyone around her the seriousness of her illness.
She describes the elaborate rituals around food that came to dominate hours of every day and explores the pivotal moments of her childhood that set her on the road to illness. She reveals the heartache and fear that accompany a life lived in the closet, a sense of isolation that was only magnified by her unrelenting desire to be ever thinner, ever more in control of her body and the number of calories she consumed and spent.
From her lowest point, Portia began the painful climb back to a life of health and honesty, falling in love and marrying Ellen DeGeneres and emerging as an outspoken and articulate advocate for gay rights and women’s health issues. In this remarkable and landmark book, she has given the world a story that inspires hope and nourishes the spirit.
More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance
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