Background

Ethnicity: Ellen is of French, English, German, and Irish descent.

Ellen Lee DeGeneres was born on January 26, 1958, in Metairie, Louisiana, United States, to Elizabeth Jane (née Pfeffer) and Elliott Everett DeGeneres. She was the second child in the family after her brother Vance, currently a musician and producer, and was raised as a Christian Scientist until age 13. In 1973, her parents filed for separation and were divorced the following year. Shortly after, Ellen's mother married Roy Gruessendorf, a salesman. After that, Ellen with her mother moved with Gruessendorf from the New Orleans area to Atlanta, Texas, while Vance stayed with his father.

Education

DeGeneres graduated from Atlanta High School in May 1976, after completing her first years of high school at Grace King High School in Metairie, Louisiana.

She then moved back to New Orleans, where she briefly attended the University of New Orleans, majoring in communications. However, after one semester, dissatisfied with university life, she left it.

Career

Before becoming famous, DeGeneres held a job selling clothes at the chain store the Merry-Go-Round at the Lakeside Shopping Center. Other working experiences included working at J. C. Penney, working as a waitress at TGI Friday's and another restaurant, working as a house painter, a hostess, and a bartender.

At the age of 23, DeGeneres began performing at a local coffeehouse. By the same year, she was already the emcee at Clyde's Comedy Club in New Orleans, and from that time on, started touring nationally and was named the funniest person in America after winning a competition sponsored by the cable network Showtime in 1982. She got her big debut in 1986 when, acting on a tip from Jay Leno, The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson sent a booking agent to catch her act at the Improv in Hollywood. As a result of that engagement, DeGeneres appeared on The Tonight Show and earned the distinction of being the only female comic to be invited by Johnny Carson to sit on the famed "couch" during her first visit.

Ellen's work in the late 1980s and early 1990s included the film Coneheads. DeGeneres starred in a series of films for a show named Ellen's Energy Adventure, which is part of the Universe of Energy attraction and pavilion at Walt Disney World's Epcot.

In 1992, producers Neal Marlens and Carol Black cast DeGeneres in their sitcom Laurie Hill, in the role of Nurse Nancy MacIntyre. The series was cancelled after only four episodes, but Marlens and Black were so impressed with DeGeneres' performance that they soon cast her in their next ABC pilot, These Friends of Mine, which they co-created with David S. Rosenthal and which was renamed into Ellen in 1994. From that point, the show evolved from its beginnings as an ensemble effort into a showcase for DeGeneres.

The next film had DeGeneres co-hosting an educational look at energy with Nye. The ride first opened on September 15, 1996, as Ellen's Energy Crisis, but was quickly given the more positive-sounding name Ellen's Energy Adventure.

DeGeneres' first regular TV role was in a short-lived Fox sitcom called Open House. During that year, she also starred in the film Mr Wrong, which was her biggest success as an actress during that time.

After that, DeGeneres began making regular appearances on the talk show circuit, including performances on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Later with Greg Kinnear, Larry King Live, and Good Morning, America. Her own show Ellen, however, faced strong criticism when, in April 1997, DeGeneres' character became the first lead in sitcom history to openly acknowledge her homosexuality on The Oprah Winfrey Show. And even though the coming-out episode, titled "The Puppy Episode", was one of the highest-rated episodes of the show, fearing controversy, some of the show's sponsors, Daimler Chrysler among them, withdrew advertisements and the fifth season experienced falling ratings due to ABC's cutting back on promoting the show. In May 1998, show Ellen was cancelled and DeGeneres returned to stand-up comedy.

From 1999 to 2000, DeGeneres appeared in the comedy EdTV (1999), starring Matthew McConaughey, and the television production of If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000), in which she shared a much-publicized love scene with Sharon Stone.

She returned to television in 2001 with a new CBS sitcom, The Ellen Show, but it was cancelled after 13 episodes. However, two years later, she tried again and became a big hit with daytime viewers with her self-titled talk show, Ellen DeGeneres Show. The new talk show crop was thick that year, but "Ellen" rose to the top and has been a show-stopper ever since. In many polls, she even topped Oprah Winfrey among fan favourites when the two shows ran simultaneously. During 2003, DeGeneres also lent her voice to the role of Dory, a friendly fish with short-term memory loss, in the 2003 animated Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo. She then also provided the voice of the dog in the prologue of the Eddie Murphy feature film Dr Dolittle and reprised the role of Dory from Finding Nemo in the 2016 sequel, Finding Dory.

DeGeneres is also the author of several books, including My Point ... and I Do Have One (1995), Seriously ... I'm Kidding (2011), and Home (2015). Her film work slowed after her talk show took off, but she's continued to work mostly behind the scenes as an executive producer of several television shows including Bethenny (2012-2014), Repeat After Me (2015), One Big Happy (2015), Little Big Shots (2015) and her HGTV reality competition show, Ellen's Design Challenge.

Juggling many roles in Hollywood, DeGeneres has continued building her empire. She owns her own record label called "eleveneleven," as well as a lifestyle brand called Ed by Ellen (launched in 2015) which sells shoes, home and baby items, accessories and a pet line.

In early 2018, as part of a 60th birthday gift from de Rossi, рук spouse, the TV personality learned of plans to create the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda, the first initiative of the new Ellen DeGeneres Wildlife Fund. The same year, her first comedy special in 15 years, Ellen DeGeneres: Relatable, premiered on Netflix.

Also, on August 15th, 2018, it was announced that DeGeneres would partner with Walmart to launch a fashion collection under the brand name EV1, a low-cost alternative to her ED Ellen DeGeneres product. The collection officially launched on September 10th, 2018 with price points under $30.

Achievements

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  Throughout her comic career, Ellen DeGeneres has been awarded recognition in various publications for her influential role in the media and as an activist. Among her recognitions are being named in the Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women, Entertainment Weekly’s 50 Most Powerful Entertainers, and Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. She was also voted "Funniest Person In America".
  
  Ellen has also had the honour of hosting several major awards shows in front of her peers. She has hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards three times, including the show that aired soon after the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001. Ellen also hosted the 57th Annual Emmy Awards a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina. She also hosted the Grammy Awards in 1996 and in 1997.
  
  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.
  
  In November 2004, DeGeneres appeared, dancing, in an ad campaign for American Express. Her most recent American Express commercial, a two-minute black-and-white spot in which she works with animals, debuted in November 2006 and was created by Ogilvy and Mather. In 2007, the commercial won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial.
  
  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 person to have hosted the event.
  
  In November 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named DeGeneres a Special Envoy for Global AIDS Awareness. During the period 2004-2014, she has won twenty-five Emmy Awards for her TV-show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show. She has also been the recipient of the Producers Guild of America Awards on two occasions.
  
  On September 4, 2012, Ellen DeGeneres was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood.

Works

More photos

• book

  • My Point...And I Do Have One 1996
  • The Funny Thing Is 2003
  • Seriously...I'm Kidding 2011
  • Home 2015

Religion

DeGeneres was raised in a devout Christian Science family, but is not currently a churchgoing member.

[Interviewer:] What are your spiritual beliefs?

[Ellen:] I was raised Christian Science, which is like 'mind over matter.' I think there is something to that. But I have a problem with a lot of the rules. I don't believe the god that I believe in is judgmental. I think whatever works for you is right. Heaven or hell is what you create right this minute where you are. You have a choice to live in joy or not. And that's my belief. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but I'm not hurting anybody.

Politics

In an interview, Ellen DeGeneres has said: "I'm not a political person, and that may be surprising to hear. I don't know enough about what's going on to say anything. It's probably fair to say that I'd support the Democratic candidate."

Views

DeGeneres is an LGBT activist and an ethical vegan who calls herself a "big animal lover." Currently, she coordinates a vegan outreach website titled 'Going Vegan with Ellen' and has opened a vegan tapas bar, Bokado, in Los Angeles.

Besides, 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.

DeGeneres is also a humanitarian. She has donated to a number of charities and organizations that are actively working to improve various social issues we must face today. Ellen supports the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, The Humane Society, Artists Against Racism, Malaria No More, the ONE Campaign and a number of other organizations.

Quotations: "Actually, there's nothing I know for sure because I know for sure that things change", "I learned compassion from being discriminated against. Everything bad that's ever happened to me has taught me compassion", "Find out who you are and be that person. That's what your soul was put on this Earth to be. Find that truth, live that truth and everything else will come."

"I'm glad I'm funny. I'm glad I make people happy because that's very important. But I'm most proud to be known as a kind person...Because kindness spreads, and the world is a little nicer out there."

"I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her."

"I was raised around heterosexuals, as all heterosexuals are. That's where us gay people come from - you heterosexuals."

On hosting the Emmys after the 9/11 tragedy (November 4, 2001): "We're told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win, and really, what would upset the Taliban more than a gay woman wearing a suit in front of a room full of Jews?"

"Sometimes the greatest things are the most embarrassing."

Membership

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  American Federation of Television and Radio Artists , United States

• Writers Guild of America , United States

Personality

DeGeneres is a positive and lively person who generally has an invigorating, inspiring, and energizing effect on others. Boredom or staying anchored in old habits is not a problem for Ellen DeGeneres since she has numerous interests and the energy to pursue many of them. She is very idealistic and frequently disappointed that she does not live in a perfect world, but it is through the vision and energy of people like Ellen DeGeneres that new ideas are introduced and positive changes made. Ellen has trouble dealing with emotions - both her own and those of others. Ellen DeGeneres often ignores or discounts feelings and the emotional reality of a situation, thus seeming insensitive or uncaring to others.

As a host of her show, Ellen has given the daytime show her signature touch – a lighthearted, carefree romp that begs its audience to forget their troubles and enjoy the conversation. She marks each show with dance and many thanks at the end, often getting her audience involved in the action.

Physical Characteristics: Ellen has short blonde hair, perfect smile and blue eyes. He height is 5' 7½" (1,71 m).

Interests

• Artists

  Steve Martin, Woody Allen, Bob Newhart and Johnny Carson

• Sport & Clubs

  Fan of the National Football League and supporter of the New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers

Connections

For several years, DeGeneres dated actress Anne Heche and, in 1999, the couple bought a home together in Los Angeles. Although at one point they publicly announced their desire to be married, the couple broke up in August 2000.

DeGeneres then dated Alexandra Hedison for a few years before becoming involved with actress Portia de Rossi in December 2004. DeGeneres married de Rossi on August 16, 2008, in what was perhaps the highest-profile gay marriage after California legalized the unions.

Father:

Elliott Everett DeGeneres

Mother:

Betty DeGeneres

Elizabeth Jane DeGeneres is an American LGBT rights activist. She is the first non-gay spokeswoman for the Human Rights Campaign's National Coming Out Project and an active member of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). She gained notability following her daughter Ellen's highly publicized coming out in 1997.

Spouse:

Portia de Rossi

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 and DeGeneres became engaged when DeGeneres proposed with a three-carat pink diamond ring. They were married at their Beverly Hills home on 16 August 2008, witnessed by their mothers and 17 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.

Brother:

Vance DeGeneres

Vance Elliott DeGeneres (born September 2, 1954, in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American actor, musician, film producer and screenwriter, known for his work in television.

former partner:

Anne Heche

Heche's relationship with comedienne Ellen DeGeneres and the events following their breakup became subjects of widespread media interest.The couple started dating in 1997, and at one point, said they would get a civil union if such became legal in Vermont. They broke up in August 2000.Heche has stated that all of her other romantic relationships have been with men

former partner:

Alexandra Hedison

Hedison was in a relationship with Ellen DeGeneres from 2001 to 2004.

References

• Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey
  2000
• The Wit and Wisdom of Ellen DeGeneres
  2011
• Ellen DeGeneres: A Biography
  2012
• Ellen DeGeneres: Groundbreaking Television Star
  2018
• Ellen DeGeneres: Groundbreaking Entertainer
  2017
• Ellen DeGeneres: A Biography
  2008
• Ellen DeGeneres… From Beginning to Now
  2012