Portia de Rossi
6.5
8 votes
Astrological Zodiac sign: Aquarius
Age: 40
Portia de Rossi 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. She currently portrays Veronica on the ABC sitcom Better Off Ted.
De Rossi was born Amanda Lee Rogers in Geelong, Victoria, Australia; the daughter of Margaret, a medical receptionist, and Barry Rogers. She was raised in Grovedale, a suburb of Geelong. 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.
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.
De Rossi is openly lesbian. 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. 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. 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. In 2005, de Rossi opened up publicly about her sexual orientation in interviews with Details and The Advocate. She and DeGeneres married in August 2008 and live in Beverly Hills, California. They are both vegan.
She struggled with the eating disorder anorexia for four years while filming Ally McBeal, at one point weighing as little as 82 pounds.
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 International, an African AIDS relief organisation; and The Art of Elysium, an art foundation for terminally ill children.
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 2009's film adaptation of Arrested Development.
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. 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.
See also: Model, Actress, Australian, Ally McBeal, Arrested Development, Better Off Ted
