AKA Amanda Lee Rogers

Born: 31-Jan-1973
Birthplace: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Lesbian
Occupation: Actor
Nationality: Australia
Executive summary: Nelle Porter on Ally
Husband: Mel Metcalfe (film industry, m. 1996, div. 1999)
Girlfriend: Francesca Gregorini (musician, step-daughter of Ringo Starr, b. 1968, dated 2001-04)
Wife: Ellen DeGeneres (dated and cohabited 2004-08, m. 16-Aug-2008)
Born in Melbourne, Victoria, de Rossi was raised in Grovedale, a suburb of Geelong. As a child she modeled for print and TV commercials. She took 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). 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.”
An extremely gifted student, she left the lecture theaters of the University of Melbourne Law school to pursue an acting career. She supports Locks of Love, a group that makes wigs for children with medical hair loss.
De Rossi, who was married for two years to documentary filmmaker Mel Metcalfe (to get a green card), is now openly gay. From 2000 to 2004, de Rossi dated singer Francesca Gregorini, daughter of actress Barbara Bach and stepchild of Ringo Starr. Portia dodged media questions about her sexual orientation and the relationship during this period. Portia was rarely pictured with Gregorini in public.
In a September 2005 magazine interview with The Advocate, de Rossi said that most of her family and Ally McBeal cast mates learned she was gay because of tabloid pictures of de Rossi and Gregorini in 2001. The couple broke up in late 2004 as de Rossi began dating comedian Ellen DeGeneres. In 2005, de Rossi officially came out and opened up about being gay in interviews with Details and The Advocate.
Portia de Rossi was named number 64 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.
Portia de Rossi is also a recovering anorexic whose low weight was 82lbs for her five foot seven height. Photos from her in this time are often seen on pro-ana websites.
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 TV shows 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 to 2006, de Rossi starred as Lindsay Bluth Fünke on Fox Television's critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning series Arrested Development.
Portia was strongly considered to play Christina Ricci's role in the film Black Snake Moan co-starring Samuel L. Jackson.
In Nip/Tuck's 5th season, which is to start in October 2007, de Rossi will join the L.A. scene as an acupuncturist.
She also portrayed John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, in a made for TV movie. (TBS)
Personal life
De Rossi is openly lesbian. She was married to a man, documentary filmmaker Mel Metcalfe, from 1996 to 1999, as part of 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 cast mates 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. In 2005, de Rossi opened up publicly about her sexual orientation in interviews with Details and The Advocate. She became engaged to DeGeneres after the talk show host proposed to her with a three-carat pink diamond ring. They were married on August 16, 2008 at their home, with 19 guests including their respective mothers. They are both vegan.
She struggled with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa for four years while filming Ally McBeal.
De Rossi supports a variety of charitable organizations, including Locks of Love, a group that sells human hair wigs to children with complete alopecia. She has also supported fundraising efforts for FXB International, an African AIDS relief organization; and The Art of Elysium, an art foundation for terminally ill children.