Portia de Rossi

Portia de Rossi, born Amanda Lee Rogers, is an Australian actress who is best known for her role as lawyer Nelle Porter on the television series "Ally McBeal," and as Lindsay Bluth Fnke on the television series "Arrested Development."

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 Melbourne Law school 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 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 Fnke on Fox Television's critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning series "Arrested Development." She reprises her role in the Season 4 reboot of the "Arrested."

From 2007 to 2008, de Rossi appeared in the fifth season of "Nip/Tuck" as Julia McNamara's girlfriend Olivia Lord. In 2009 and 2010, de Rossi played the high-strung and controlling Veronica Palmer on the ABC show "Better Off Ted."

De Rossi, who was married for two years to documentary filmmaker Mel Metcalfe, is now openly gay. From 2000 to 2004, de Rossi dated singer Francesca Gregorini, daughter of actress Barbara Bach and stepchild of Ringo Starr.

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 No. 64 in Stuff's 100 Sexiest Women, No. 31 in Femme Fatales' Sexiest Women of 2003 list, No. 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 2010, de Rossi published the autobiography "Unbearable Lightness," which talks about the turmoil that she has experienced in her life, including suffering from anorexia nervosa and bulimia and being misdiagnosed with lupus. She had struggled with the eating disorders for four years while filming "Ally McBeal."

She supports Locks of Love, a group that makes wigs for children with medical hair loss. She has also supported fundraising efforts for FXB International, an African AIDS relief organisation, and The Art of Elysium, an art foundation for terminally ill children. An avid animal lover, de Rossi also supports Alley Cat Allies, an organization dedicated to protecting and improving the lives of cats. De Rossi and wife Ellen DeGeneres have also been vegan since 2008, and are strong supporters of the Gentle Barn, a California-based sanctuary for abused animals.