Mary Elizabeth Ellis
American actress
Mary Elizabeth Ellis (born May 11, 1979) is an American actress. She is best known for her recurring roles as The Waitress on the FX comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005–present), Caroline in the Fox sitcom New Girl (2011–2018), and Lisa Palmer on the Netflix horror-comedy Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2019). She starred as Amy in the shortlived NBC sitcom Perfect Couples (2010–2011) and Debbie Sanderson in the Fox sitcom The Grinder (2015–2016). More recently, she played Anita in Licorice Pizza (2021), directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Early life and education
Mary Elizabeth Ellis was born on May 11, 1979, in Laurel, Mississippi.
She graduated from Southern Methodist University in 2001.
Career
TV and film
Since the first season of the FX/FXX comedy series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia began airing in 2005, Ellis has been mostly known for her role as The Waitress.
In 2008, she co-wrote and starred as Olive in the independent film A Quiet Little Marriage. Ellis was a series regular on the NBC romantic comedy series Perfect Couples, which ran for one season in 2011.
In 2015, she got her first main role as Debbie Sanderson, co-starring with Fred Savage and Rob Lowe in The Grinder.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Mary Elizabeth Ellis” as american actress. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american actress. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1103579. VIAF identifies the subject as 168947981. The Library of Congress control number is no2011048629. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979, 2005, 2011 and 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mary Elizabeth Ellis” 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.