Portia de Rossi

Portia Lee James DeGeneres (born Amanda Lee Rogers; January 31, 1973), known professionally as Portia de Rossi, is an Australian actress, best known for her roles as lawyer Nelle Porter on the television series Ally McBeal and Lindsay Bluth Fünke on the sitcom Arrested Development. She also portrayed Veronica Palmer on the ABC sitcom Better Off Ted. She was born Amanda Lee Rogers in Horsham, 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 the age of 15, stating in 2005 that 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 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. 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 Nell Porter. She remained with the show until its end in 2002. n 2005, she opened up publicly about her sexual orientation in interviews with Details and The Advocate. She became engaged to Ellen 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 Beverly Hills home, with 19 guests including their respective mothers.

Also Known As: Amanda Lee Rogers