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Just one year ago, the idea that Ellen DeGeneres
would be garnering rave reviews across the country
for her television show probably would have seemed farfetched. But
in the past year, she has achieved an incredible comeback from the
homophobic backlash that exploded after she came out in 1997. After
years of living under intense scrutiny and criticism from both the
straight and gay press, Ellen has survived two failed television sitcoms
and a highly public relationship that ended with Anne Heche wandering
in the desert like someone out of a science fiction movie. With a
combination of dogged determination and sheer luck, she has managed
to rebuild herself and her career with her sense of humor firmly intact.
Born
in New Orleans in 1958, Ellen’s parents divorced when she
was thirteen, causing her and her mother, Betty, to move to a small
town in Texas. In an interview with Emmy Magazine this month, Ellen
explains that her sense of humor came in part from dealing with
the difficult times that followed her parents’ divorce. “[A]fter
my mother and father divorced when I was thirteen, my mom went through
a hard time and was very, very sad. I would try to cheer her up….I
saw how great it is to be able to make somebody feel good.”
After
graduating from high school, Ellen moved back to New Orleans, where
she took on a variety of odd jobs including oyster shucking and
selling vacuums, before beginning her career as a comedian in local
comedy clubs. In 1982 she won Showtime’s “Funniest Person
in America” contest, and by 1986 she was invited to appear
on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. After performing a monologue
called “Phone Call to God,” which originated in the
experience of her girlfriend’s death in a car accident several
years before, Ellen became the only female comedian ever to be invited
to sit down and talk with Carson after her performance.
In
1993 Ellen joined the cast of a new ABC
sitcom titled These Friends of Mine, playing
the role of Ellen Morgan, a slightly wacky but endearing bookstore
owner. A year later the show was retitled Ellen and recentered
on Ellen’s character. When ratings for the show began to slide
a few years later and Ellen began to feel frustrated with her closeted
life, she and the show’s producers decided to do what became
a defining moment in the representation of gays on television: Ellen
and her sitcom alter-ego both came out.
The
media frenzy that followed landed Ellen on the cover of Time Magazine
with the famous tag line “Yep, I’m gay,” and made
her into a reluctant leader for the gay and lesbian community. In
her 1997 interview with Time she insisted, “I never wanted
to be ‘the lesbian actress.’ I never wanted to be the
spokesperson for the gay community. Ever. I did it for my own truth.”
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