Ellen DeGeneres
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
Within months DeGeneres was a headliner on the national stand-up circuit, and she soon starred on a number of cable specials. In 1988 she accepted a supporting role on the Fox sitcom Duet, and as her stature as a comic continued to grow she was besieged by other television offers. After rejecting a role on the series which became the blockbuster Friends, she accepted a starring role in the sitcom These Friends of Mine, a series clearly modelled on the success of Seinfeld. By the following season, the show had undergone a complete supporting cast overhaul and also received a new title, Ellen. While not the smash many expected the program to be, DeGeneres became a star; she headlined a romantic film comedy, 1996s Mr. Wrong, and even authored a best-selling book, My Point...And I Do Have One. She also recorded a comedy LP, Taste This. However, nothing in DeGeneres career ever earned so many headlines or sparked so much controversy as decision to out her Ellen TV character as a lesbian, the first homosexual lead character ever depicted in an ongoing series. At the peak of the media frenzy, the real-life DeGeneres also admitted to being gay in a Time magazine cover story, ending months of media speculation; she soon began a very public romance with actress Anne Heche.
