Portia de Rossi

Portia de Rossi : Role: Lindsay Bluth Fünke
Birthday : 31st January 1973
Birthplace : Horsham, Victoria, Australia
Recent Role : Veronica Palmer on Better Off Ted
Birth Name : Amanda Lee Rogers
Height : 5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
Gender : Female

Portia de Rossi was born as the daughter of Margaret and Barry Rogers. Her mother worked as a medical receptionist and she has one brother. She was brought up in She was raised in Grovedale, which is a suburb of Geelong. At the age of fifteen, she legally changed her name form Amanda Lee Rogers to Portia de Rogers.

Portia’s early education was done at Geelong Grammar School and later she attended the Melbourne Girls Grammar School. After completing her high school education, she went on to attend University of Melbourne, where she intended to study Law. However, Portia left her studies in between and went on to pursue a career in acting.
Being a lesbian, Portia has openly stated her sexual preferences. According to her, it was one of the major reasons that led her to changing her name. Her first marriage was to a male partner Mel Metcalfe, who is a documentary filmmaker, but it was mostly a marriage of convenience, done so that she could get a green card. She remained married to Mel from 1996 to 1999.

In 2000, Portia started dating singer Francesca Gregorini, who incidentally was the daughter of actress Barbara Bach. Most of her family and her co-actors were unaware about her being a lesbian until the pictures of Portia and Francesca were published in a tabloid. At that time, she found it difficult to talk about her relationship or her sexual orientation. Portia’s relationship with Francesca ended in late 2004.

Later Portia started dating Ellen DeGeneres, who is a comedian and talk show host. It was in 2005 that Portia finally came out clean about her sexual preference in public. She got married to Ellen in 2008, and the marriage was attended by her mother and brother and Ellen’s parents. The couple currently resides in Beverly Hills, California.

Both Ellen and Portia are vegetarians and Portia also supports a number of charity organizations including Locks of Love, which helps children, who suffer from medical hair loss problems, in buying wigs. In addition, she has also helped raise funds for FXB International that is an AIDS relief organization in Africa and The Art of Elysium which is an art foundation for kids who are mortally ill.
Portia got her first significant role when she portrayed the character of a young and impressionable model named Giddy in the Australian film Sirens. She then moved to Los Angeles where she started doing guest appearances on various TV shows and later went on to become leading actress. Her prominent shows on television include, Too Something, Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher, Ally, Ally McBeal, Mister Sterling, Arrested Development, Nip/Tuck, Better Off Ted, and many more.

On the big screen Portia has portrayed various characters in movies like, Scream 2, The Invisibles, Women in Film, I Witness, Dead & Breakfast, Cursed and various other flicks. She is also expected to be a part of the Arrested Development movie, which has recently been announced. In addition she has worked a s the writer and producer for an upcoming TV project named Butch and Fay, which is currently in production.

Portia has won three prestigious awards and has been nominated for five other awards. In 2004, she was nominated for the Golden Satellite Award of the Satellite Awards under the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Comedy or Musical for Arrested Development. In 2005, she won the same award for the same series under the category of Best Actress in a Series, Comedy or Musical.

In 1999, Portia along with her co-stars, won the Screen Actors Guild Award under the category of Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series for Ally McBeal. She has since then been nominated for the same award under the same category four times in 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2006, for her work in the shows Ally McBeal and Arrested Development.
In 2004, Portia along with the other cast members won the Future Classic Award at the TV Land Awards for Arrested Development.

Role In Arrested Development

In Arrested Development, Portia plays the role of Lindsay Bluth Fünke. Although she is the adopted daughter of the Bluth family, it is alleged that she is actually Michael’s twin sister. She is married to Tobias Fünke and is the mother of Maeby Fünke, whom she often ignores. Although, she considers herself to be a dedicated activist, she is in truth quite silly and phony. She supports only the current trendy causes to enhance her social status and give the impression that she is holding extravagant charity drives using the Bluth Company money. Even though she tries to be to be promiscuous and often flirts and engages in relationships with other men, she usually does not succeed in her endeavors.