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Portia de Rossi

• DeGeneres hosting 3rd variety show

  Philadelphia Inquirer - Found Jun. 27, 2009 A: No, I don't think we're [DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi] going to have kids. We have animals. We love them, and they don't talk back. TV Notes" DeGeneres just can't stop dancing even if she wanted to ... - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Ellen DeGeneres on her TV special, dancing and kids - Seattle Times DeGeneres to host Chicago variety show - Digital Spy Ellen's taste of Chicago debuts on TBS tonight - NWI Times Explore All

• Ellen DeGeneres, Portia De Rossi Not Planning on Starting a Family

  TheCelebrityCafe.com - Found Jun. 24, 2009 One celebrity couple not jumping on the Hollywood Baby Boom bandwagon is talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia De Rossi. Ellen DeGeneres ready to go bigger, longer, wider on TBS - USA Today TBS special - USA Today Ellen DeGeneres: 'We're Very Happily Married Without Children' - Starpulse No kids for Ellen, Portia - Daily Telegraph Australia Explore All

  Fresno Bee

• Ellen DeGeneres & Portia De Rossi 'Happily Married Without Children'

  People - Found Jun. 23, 2009 Don't expect Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi to become moms anytime soon.

• Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi named best celebrity babysitters

  NewKerala.com - Found May. 8, 2009 Washington, May 08 : TV chat show host Ellen DeGeneres and her Australian actress partner Portia de Rossi have topped a new poll that asked American

• Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi named best celebrity babysitters

  Yahoo! India - Found May. 8, 2009 Washington, May 08 (ANI): TV chat show host Ellen DeGeneres and her Australian actress partner Portia de Rossi have topped a new poll that asked

• Life's rosy for Portia de Rossi

  Brisbane Times - Found Apr. 15, 2009 As half of one of the most famous gay couples in the United States, Portia de Rossi is still working to decipher the mixed messages American...

• Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi named best celebrity babysitters

  Daily India - Found May. 8, 2009 Washington, May 08: TV chat show host Ellen DeGeneres and her Australian actress partner Portia de Rossi have topped a new poll that asked American ...

• Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi named best celebrity babysitters

  Malaysia Sun - Found May. 8, 2009 Washington, May 08 : TV chat show host Ellen DeGeneres and her Australian actress partner Portia de Rossi have topped a new poll that asked American

• Better Off Ted: "Bioshuffle" Review

  IGN.com - Found 8 hours ago Portia de Rossi's character, Veronica, is perhaps the best example because she can do both really well.

• Is she really going out with him?

  stuff.co.nz - Found 18 hours ago Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi - Really, the most surprising thing about this partnership was discovering that Portia preferred the...

Portia de Rossi extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Portia de Rossi
Portia de Rossi, February 2007
Born	Amanda Lee Rogers January 31, 1973 (1973-01-31) (age 36) Geelong, Victoria, Australia
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1994–present
Spouse(s)	Mel Metcalfe (1996–1999) Ellen DeGeneres (2008–present)

Portia de Rossi (born 31 January 1973) is an Australian actress, best known for her roles as lawyer Nelle Porter on the television series Ally McBeal and as Lindsay Bluth Fünke on the sitcom Arrested Development.¹² She currently portrays Veronica Palmer on the ABC sitcom Better Off Ted.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Personal life 2 Career 3 Filmography 4 References 5 External links

Biography

De Rossi was born Amanda Lee Rogers in Horsham, Victoria, Australia; the daughter of Margaret, a medical receptionist, and Barry Rogers.³ She was raised in Grovedale, a suburb of Geelong.⁴ As a child, she modelled for print and TV commercials. She adopted the name Portia de Rossi at a young age:

When I was 15, I changed it legally. In retrospect, I think it was largely due to my struggle about being gay. Everything just didn’t fit, and I was trying to find things I could identify myself with, and it started with my name. I picked Portia because I was a Shakespeare fan (Portia is the character in The Merchant of Venice who comes to the rescue of Antonio and Bassanio in their time of need). De Rossi because I was Australian and I thought that an exotic Italian name would somehow suit me more than Amanda Rogers. When you live in Australia, Europe is so far away and so fascinating, so stylish and cultured and sophisticated.⁵

She studied at Geelong Grammar School and Melbourne Girls Grammar School, then the University of Melbourne Law School, but left before finishing the course to pursue an acting career.

Personal life

De Rossi is openly lesbian.⁵ She was married to (male) documentary filmmaker Mel Metcalfe from 1996 to 1999, in part as a plan to get a green card, but says that "it just obviously wasn't right" for her.⁵ From 2000 to 2004, de Rossi dated singer Francesca Gregorini, daughter of actress Barbara Bach and stepchild of Ringo Starr. De Rossi says most of her family and Ally McBeal castmates did not know she was gay until tabloid pictures of the couple were published.⁵ She declined to publicly discuss the relationship or her sexual orientation at the time.

De Rossi and Gregorini broke up in late 2004 as de Rossi began dating talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres, whom she met backstage at an awards show.⁶ In 2005, de Rossi opened up publicly about her sexual orientation in interviews with Details and The Advocate. She and DeGeneres married in August 2008⁷ and live in Beverly Hills, California. They are both vegan.⁸

She struggled with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa for four years while filming Ally McBeal,⁹ at one point weighing as little as 82 pounds.⁶

Portia supports a variety of charitable organisations, including Locks of Love, a group that buys wigs for children with medical hair loss. Portia has also supported fundraising efforts for FXB International¹⁰, an African AIDS relief organisation; and The Art of Elysium¹¹, an art foundation for terminally ill children.

Career

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. 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 a made for TV movie.

From 2007-2008, de Rossi appears in Nip/Tuck's fifth season as Julia McNamara's girlfriend Olivia Lord.

She will reprise her role as Lindsay Bluth Fünke in 2010's film adaptation of Arrested Development¹².

De Rossi was named number 67 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.¹³ In May 2007, she was featured as one of 100 Most Beautiful in People Magazine special edition. TV Guide included de Rossi and DeGeneres in their Power A-List couples in 2007.

Filmography

• 1994: Sirens (AUS, UK) as Giddy
• 1995: The Woman in the Moon (USA)
• 1995: Too Something (aka New York Daze) (USA) (TV series) as Maria Hunter
• 1997: Veronica's Closet (USA) (TV series) (episode S01 E05) as Carolyn
• 1997: Scream 2 (USA) as Sorority Sister Murphy
• 1998–2002: Ally McBeal (USA) (TV series) (seasons 2–5) as Morgan 'Nelle' Porter
• 1998: Astoria (USA) (TV)
• 1998: Girl (USA) as Carla Sparrow
• 1998: Perfect Assassins (aka A Breed Apart) (USA) (TV) as Lana Collins
• 1999: The Invisibles (USA) as Joy
• 1999: American Intellectuals (USA) as Sarah
• 1999: Stigmata (USA) as Jennifer Kelliho
• 2001: Women in Film (USA) as Gina
• 2001: Who is Cletis Tout? (USA, CAN) as Tess Donnelly
• 2002: The Glow (USA) (TV) as Jackie Lawrence
• 2002: The Twilight Zone (USA) (TV series) (episode S01 E08) as Laurel Janus
• 2003: Two Girls from Leemore (USA)
• 2003–2006: Arrested Development (TV series) (USA) (TV series) as Lindsay Bluth Fünke
• 2003: America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story (USA) (TV) as Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy
• 2003: Mister Sterling (USA) (TV series) (episodes S01 E08-E09) as Lauren Barnes
• 2003: I Witness (USA, GER) as Emily Thompson
• 2003: The Night We Called It A Day (aka All The Way/aka All The Way: The Kidnapping Of A Music Legend) (AUS, USA) as Hilary Hunter
• 2004: Dead & Breakfast (USA) as Kelly
• 2005: Cursed (USA, GER) as Zela
• 2007: Nip/Tuck (USA) (TV series) (episodes S05 E02-E08, E13-E14) as Olivia Lord
• 2008: Ambition To Meaning (Film) as Denise
• 2009: Better Off Ted (USA) (TV series) as Veronica Palmer
• 2010: Arrested Development as Lindsay Bluth Fünke
• 2011: Tatiana the Love of My Life (film) by Dami

References

External links

Wikinews has related news: Portia de Rossi talks about Ellen DeGeneres, sexuality

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• Portia de Rossi at the Internet Movie Database
• Portia de Rossi at Yahoo! Movies
• Portia de Rossi at Allmovie
• Portia de Rossi at TV.com
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