Arrested Development Turns 20: On Set With Michael Cera, Jason Bateman and Portia de Rossi
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Portia Lee James DeGeneres, known professionally as Portia de Rossi, is an Australian-American businesswoman, philanthropist, and former model and actress.
Portia de Rossi was born Amanda Lee Rogers in Horsham, Victoria, Australia, the daughter of Margaret, a medical receptionist, and Barry Rogers, who was part Jewish. Her father died when she was nine years old. She grew up in Grovedale, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, and modelled for print and TV commercials as a child.
In 1988, at age 15, Rogers adopted the name Portia de Rossi, by which she remains best known. In 2005, she explained 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. She was educated at Geelong Grammar School and the University of Melbourne, where she studied law.
De Rossi’s first significant role was as a young and impressionable maid in the Australian 1994 film Sirens. Soon afterward, she moved to Los Angeles and won guest roles on several TV shows and a permanent role in Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher, before landing a part in the film Scream 2. During her time in the United States, de Rossi worked to drop her Australian accent.
De Rossi garnered international attention when she joined the main cast of Ally McBeal 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? alongside Christian Slater. From 2003 to 2006, de Rossi starred as Lindsay Bluth Fünke on Fox Television’s Arrested Development. She next 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. That same year, she portrayed an Australian reporter who inspires a protest against Frank Sinatra during a concert tour in The Night We Called It a Day.
In 2005 de Rossi portrayed Zela, a fortune-teller, in the Wes Craven thriller Cursed. From 2007 to 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 in a cameo alongside other cast members of the series.
Six years after the series was canceled by Fox, filming for a revived fourth season of Arrested Development began in August 2012, and de Rossi reprised her role as Lindsay Bluth Fünke.
In July 2014, ABC confirmed that de Rossi was joining season 4 of Scandal, in the role of Elizabeth North. De Rossi joined Scandal in the fourth season in a recurring role, before being upped to a series regular for the fifth season. In April 2017, in season six, de Rossi’s character was killed off in a golf club attack. De Rossi herself made the decision to depart the series.
In May 2018, de Rossi announced on The Ellen DeGeneres Show that she would be retiring from acting, though she later elaborated that she would make an exception for future seasons of Arrested Development.
De Rossi was married to documentary filmmaker Mel Metcalfe from 1996 to 1999. From 2001 to 2004, de Rossi dated director Francesca Gregorini, the daughter of Barbara Bach and the stepdaughter of Ringo Starr.
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 and DeGeneres became engaged when DeGeneres proposed in 2008. They were married at their Beverly Hills home on 16 August 2008, witnessed by their mothers and 17 other guests. On 6 August 2010, de Rossi filed a petition to legally change her name to Portia Lee James DeGeneres. The petition was granted on 23 September 2010. She became a United States citizen in September 2011.
In 2010, de Rossi published her autobiography, titled Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, within which she wrote about the turmoil that she had experienced in her life, including suffering from anorexia nervosa and bulimia and being misdiagnosed with lupus. She had struggled with the eating disorders for four years while filming Ally McBeal. To promote the book, she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
DeGeneres and de Rossi both became vegans in 2008, though DeGeneres subsequently stated that she is no longer vegan in December 2018. They have adopted several rescue animals.
In 2017, de Rossi tweeted that actor Steven Seagal exposed himself to her while she was auditioning for one of his films.
Portia de Rossi is 51 years old (birth date January 31, 1973).
Portia de Rossi was born in Horsham, Australia.
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Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi …