Ellen Degeneres

Ellen Degeneres
Emmy-winning talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres is one of the most successful female stand-ups of her generation. She has parlayed her club success into television, movies, records and even books, later making history for her portrayal of TV's first openly gay lead character.

After graduating high school DeGeneres (born January 26, 1958) worked a variety of odd jobs in the New Orleans area before making her stand-up debut at an area coffee house's amateur hour in 1981. A year later, she won a "Funniest Person in America" competition sponsored by the Showtime cable network; buoyed by her success, DeGeneres moved to San Francisco-- at the time a hotbed of stand-up clubs -- and launched a comedy career largely steeped in observational humor.

In 1994 her successful television sitcom Ellen premiered on ABC, initially titled These Friends of Mine. In 1997, a special episode featured Ellen's character, Ellen Morgan, announcing "I'm gay." Ellen (of French, Irish, English, and German descent) came out on the cover of Time magazine, proclaiming, "Yep, I'm gay." This historic event caused both praise and scorn and cast Ellen into a limelight she never wanted. "I never wanted to be a spokesperson for the gay community," she said in Time. At the same time, DeGeneres came out publicly as being in love with her actor girlfriend, Anne Heche. Heche and Degeneres were a couple until their break-up in 2000. Ellen began dating photographer Alexandra Hedison in 2001. Alex and Ellen broke-up in late 2004 and Ellen began dating Portia de Rossi with whom she currently lives in Santa Barbara with 3 dogs and 3 cats. In 2001, DeGeneres launched a new series; "The Ellen Show" (2001), on CBS, but it suffered from poor ratings and was canceled.

DeGeneres restarted her stand-up career with concert tours and TV specials. She also lent her voice to the role of Dory, a fish with short-term memory loss, in the summer 2003 hit animated Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo. The film's director, Andrew Stanton, claimed that he chose her because she "changed the subject five times before one sentence had finished" on her show. The movie returned DeGeneres to the limelight, with critics giving her rave reviews. She also provided the voice of the dog in the prologue of the Eddie Murphy film Dr. Dolittle.

In 2003 DeGeneres' daytime talk show, "Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show" resurfaced and proved to be both a critical hit and a commercial success this time. Along with good ratings, the show has won unprecedented kudos from the industry. It was nominated for 11 Daytime Emmy Awards in its first season, winning four, including Best Talk Show. The show has won 15 Emmy Awards in its first three seasons on the air. The Ellen DeGeneres Show is the first talk show in television history to win the Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show for its first three seasons on the air. DeGeneres is known for her dancing and singing with the audience at the beginning of the show and during commercial breaks. She often gives away free prizes and trips to her studio audience with the help of her sponsors. On November 17, 2005, the show was played in reverse.

DeGeneres has also made a name for herself as a host of awards shows. She hosted the Grammy Awards in 1996 and 1997, as well as the Primetime Emmy Awards in 2001 and 2005. On September 7, 2006, DeGeneres was selected to host the 79th Academy Awards ceremony, which took place on February 25, 2007. This makes her the first openly gay or lesbian person to have hosted the event. During the Awards show DeGeneres said, "What a wonderful night, such diversity in the room, in a year when there's been so many negative things said about people's race, religion and sexual orientation. And I want to put this out there: if there weren't Blacks, Jews and gays, there would be no Oscars, or anyone named Oscar, when you think about that."