Portia de Rossi

Portia Lee James DeGeneres (born  Amanda Lee Rogers; 31 January 1973), known professionally as  Portia de Rossi ( pron.: /ˈpɔərʃə də ˈrɒsi/ ), is an Australian actress, best known for her roles as lawyer  Nelle Porter on the television series  Ally McBeal and  Lindsay Fünke on the sitcom  Arrested Development<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> She also portrayed Veronica Palmer on the ABC sitcom Better Off Ted<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> and  Olivia Lord<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> on  Nip/Tuck<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">.

Early life
<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">Born  Amanda Lee Rogers<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> in  Horsham<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">,  Victoria<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">,  Australia<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">she is the daughter of Margaret, a medical receptionist, and Barry Rogers. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> Her father died when she was nine. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> She was raised in  Grovedale<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, a suburb of  Geelong<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, Victoria. As a child, she modelled for print and TV commercials. She adopted the name Portia de Rossi at the age of 15, stating in 2005 that she had intended to reinvent herself, using the given name of  Portia<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, a character from  William Shakespeare<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">'s  The Merchant of Venice<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, and an Italian last name. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> Portia de Rossi was also the name of the mother of the famed Italian poet  Torquato Tasso<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">.

Career
<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Her first significant role was playing a young and impressionable model in the Australian 1994 film Sirens. Soon afterwards she moved to Los Angeles, USA 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. During this time in the United States, de Rossi worked diligently to replace her native Australian accent with her current General American one.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">From 2003–2006, de Rossi starred as Lindsay Bluth Fünke on Fox Television's critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning series Arrested Development.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">She also portrayed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy,_Jr. 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. In 2005 she portrayed a fortune-teller named Zela in the Wes Craven thrillerCursed. From 2007–2008, de Rossi appeared in Nip/Tuck's fifth season as Julia McNamara's girlfriend Olivia Lord.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">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 Veronica in a cameo (alongside other cast members of the cancelled series).

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">She ranked 69th 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 a People magazine special edition. TV Guide included her and Ellen DeGeneres in their Power A-List couples in 2007.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In February 2012, it was announced that ABC had ordered a pilot for a new drama series The Smart One, executive produced by Ellen DeGeneres, and featured de Rossi in a leading role. The actress was to star as a "brilliant and successful woman who begrudgingly goes to work for her less-brainy but more popular sister – a former beauty queen, weather girl and now big-city Mayor." The show was not picked up to series for the 2012-2013 season