Ellen DeGeneres

COMEDIAN & ACTRESS
Named Showtime's "Funniest Person in America" in 1982, and invited to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1986
Produced and starred in the hit TV show Ellen, which ran for four seasons
Came out publicly as gay in 1997, and her character on Ellen did the same (to a character played by Oprah Winfrey) to a record-breaking audience of 46 million viewers, becoming the FIRST openly gay lead character on TV
For some context, the Defense of Marriage Act, legally defining marriage as between a man and a woman, was signed into law in 1996
DeGeneres won an Emmy and was featured on the cover of Time magazine (with the headline "Yep, I'm gay"), but after the reveal, ratings for Ellen dropped and advertisers refused to support the show because of her sexuality, so it was cancelled in 1998
Starred as the voice of Dory in Disney's Finding Nemo and Finding Dory
Host of the Emmy-winning Ellen DeGeneres Show for 16 years (and counting)
Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
In 2018, her wife surprised her with a birthday present of the creation of The Ellen Fund, which supports wildlife conservation. The first project the Fund undertook was building a permanent research facility for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda

Photo via flickr (cropped): https://www.flickr.com/photos/ 33170765@N04/3371640116

Bibliography: Imani, Blair. Modern Herstory: Stories of Women and Nonbinary People Rewriting History. New York: Ten Speed Press, 2018. Print.
Marciniak, Kristin. Women in Arts and Entertainment. Minneapolis: Abdo Publishing, 2017. Print.
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International / FAQ. https://gorillafund.org/who-we-are/faq-on-ellen-degeneres-campus/

Support these organizations dedicated to preserving her mission:

The Ellen Fund

Books by this Awesome Woman

Biographies for Kids and Young Adults

(board book)

Research

Ellen: The Real Story of Ellen Degeneres

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gorilla stuffed animal wearing an Ellen Fund shirt

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