TODAY’S BIRTHDAY: Ellen DeGeneris: 1958. She made her own bit of history in 1997 during the fourth season of her sitcom, Ellen, when she came out publicly as a lesbian on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Her character soon came out on her sitcom, and that coming out episode was one of the highest rated episodes of her series. That episode won her her first Emmy, but the show’s popularity dropped soon afterward and was cancelled. Ellen withdrew form television and returned to her roots in stand-up comedy (and taking on a voice-acting stint for the 2003 film Finding Nemo) before re-establishing herself as a popular talk show host on Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneris Show, where she often talks about Portia de Rossi, her wife of four years. Her show is very popular with housewives and not a few gay men, with her popularity undoubtedly helped along with segments like these: In 2008 at the age of fifty, Degeneres became the spokesperson for Cover Girl cosmetics. In 2012, she became the spokesperson for J.C. Penney, much to the consternation of the American Family Association, whose astroturf front organization One Million Moms is all kinds of upset because her mere presence is an affront to their manufactured moms. In 2012, Degeneres was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 22:57:55 +0000
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