Ellen DeGeneres
American comedian, television host, actress, and writer (born 1958)
Ellen Lee DeGeneres ( də-JEN-ər-əs; born January 26, 1958) is an American comedian, actress, television host, writer, and producer. She began her career in stand-up comedy in the early 1980s, gaining national attention with a 1986 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She starred in the television sitcoms Ellen (1994–1998) and The Ellen Show (2001–2002). She also hosted the syndicated television talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003–2022), for which she received 33 Daytime Emmy Awards.
In April 1997, DeGeneres publicly came out as a lesbian on the cover of Time with the words "Yep, I'm gay" and after "The Puppy Episode", became the first openly gay lead character on an American network television show. DeGeneres also had a successful film career, starring in Mr. Wrong (1996), EDtv (1999), The Love Letter (1999), and most notably voicing the character Dory in Finding Nemo (2003) and Finding Dory (2016); for her performance in Finding Nemo, DeGeneres won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her other accolades include the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, 20 People's Choice Awards—more than any other individual—and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. In 2020, she became the second-ever recipient of the Carol Burnett Award for her contributions to television.
DeGeneres has also released several stand-up specials, including HBO's The Beginning (2000) and Here and Now (2003), and Netflix's Relatable (2018) and For Your Approval (2024).
“Ellen DeGeneres” enters the record as american comedian, television host, actress, and writer (born 1958). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ellen, DeGeneres and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q483325. VIAF identifies the subject as 118902220. The Library of Congress control number is no94034051. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1958, 1986, 1994 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ellen DeGeneres” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.