Ellen Lee DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres was born on January 26, 1958 in Metairie, Louisiana. She has one brother, Vance DeGeneres and they were raised in a Christian family. When their parents divorced, Ellen moved with her mom, Betty, and Vance stayed with their dad.

Later Ellen graduated for Atlanta high school in the May of 1976. She then moved to New Orleans to attend the University of New Orleans and majored in communication studies. She only went for one semester then dropped out to be in a law firm with her cousin, Laura Gillen.

Ellen’s many different jobs have found a way to be applied to her current comedic work. She started off with stand-up comedy and her parties. That then led to performing at small clubs and coffee houses. At this time her influences were Woody Allen and Steve Martin.

After touring nationally in the 1980’s she was named the funniest person in America In 1994-1998 she made her own television show and named it after herself. For the first three seasons on air she won twenty-five Emmy Awards. The show is known for her dancing and singing with the audience at the beginning of the show and during commercial breaks. Ellen gives away many free prizes and trips to the studio audience. Later on she tore a ligament in her back and she continued hosting from a hospital bed while guests sat in the hospital with her and back at her studio. She also played the role of a fish named Dory in the Disney movie (And one of my favorites) Finding Nemo. The director, Andrew Stanton, chose her for this short-term memory loss fish because she changed the subject five times before one sentence had finished on her show. She had won many awards for this.

There have been many inspiring and funny speeches by her. Once she went as a surprise speaker back at the Tulane University commencement in New Orleans. She followed President George W. Bush and Bill Clinton dressed in a bathrobe and furry slippers. “They told me everyone would be wearing robes.” She said. Ellen also spoke at the 79th academy awards saying: “What a wonderful night, such diversity in the room, in a year when there’s been so many negative things said about people’s race, religion, and sexual orientation, and I want to put this out there: if there went blacks, Jews and gays, there would be no Oscars, or anyone named Oscar, when you think about that.”

Ellen First went public with her homosexuality in 1997 on . When she started dating and actress, Portia De Rossi, California banned gay marriages. Then announced they were engaged in 2008. They finally got married on august 16, 2008 at their all-year home in Beverly Hills California, with only nineteen guests.

The reason Ellen is my hero is because she isn’t afraid to put herself out there, and when she does put herself out there she is only doing it for others. Also when she came out with being gay she wasn’t embarrassed, she was proud of who she was and didn’t let anyone get to her. The main reason why she is my hero is because she is very caring. She will do anything to make people’s lives better. For her graduating class reunion, she flew them all to California to be on her show, and whenever a family is in need, someone will write in to her show and Ellen will fly them out there and give them whatever they need and more to help them out. Ellen has also made very unique charity fundraisers like for the game WeTopia where you can play free to give to charities around the world and locally. She also loves to help new artists grow so she made a recording label, eleveneleven. She is a very big animal lover and gives a lot to them too. There is nothing bad you could say about Ellen, she does too many caring things. Ellen is truly a hero.

Work Cited

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"Ellen DeGeneres." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 24 Jan 2012. Web. 22 Feb 2013. "Ellen DeGeneres Biography." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Advameg, Inc., 24 Jan 2012. Web. 22 Feb 2013. Shanks, Michael. "Background on Ellen DeGeneres." Michael Shanks: Archaeologist. N.p.. Web. 22 Feb 2013.