Ellen DeGeneres: Interesting facts

One of America's most well known comedians, Ellen DeGeneres, needs no introduction. From being a stand-up comedian, to an actress, to having a sitcom named after her, to hosting a talk show, this multi-talented personality has much more to her milestones. Ellen is also a prominent gay/lesbian icon. She's won herself the title of Funniest Person in Louisiana. We look at some lesser known facts about Ellen.

Personal life: Born on January 26, 1958 in Louisiana, Ellen DeGeneres became big as a stand-up comedian before starring on her own sitcom, Ellen. In 1997, she came out as a lesbian and has become a staunch advocate of LGBT rights. She married her girlfriend of four years, Portia de Rossi, in 2008. According to wikipedia, Ellen was named as the 46th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.

Stand-up comedian: Ellen began performing at a local coffee house at the age of 23. She got her big debut in 1986 when she acted on a tip from Jay Leno and was invited on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. She then began making regular appearances on the talk show circuit, including performances on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Later with Greg Kinnear, Larry King Live, and Good Morning, America.

Actress: Ellen acted in films and TV series too. Her work as an actress included roles in film Coneheads, series Open House, sitcom Laurie Hill, ABC pilot, These Friends of Mine and others. She starred in a series of films for a show named Ellen's Energy Adventure.

TV career: Ellen's first TV role was in a sitcom called Open House. This was followed by year 1994 sitcom Ellen which had her comedy material as base. The first season was titled These Friends of Mine during its first season. After Ellen made her homosexuality public on The Oprah Winfrey Show, her character on the sitcom came out of the closet. After Ellen discontinued, DeGeneres returned to the stand-up comedy circuit, and later re-established herself as a successful talk show host. She returned to series television in 2001 with The Ellen Show. In 2003, she launched The Ellen DeGeneres Show in September 2003. It was nominated for 11 Daytime Emmy Awards in its first season, winning four, including Best Talk Show. The show has won 25 Emmy Awards in its first three seasons on the air. Ellen replaced Paula Abdul as a judge of the ninth season of American Idol.

Awards: Ellen DeGeneres received wide exposure when she hosted the Emmy Awards in 2001. In 2005, she hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony. She also hosted the Grammy Awards in 1996 and in 1997. In 2006, she was selected to host the 79th Academy Awards ceremony. With this she became the first openly gay or lesbian person to have hosted the event. She was nominated for an Emmy Award as host of the Academy Awards broadcast. Ellen further hosted the Academy Awards in 2014 for the second time. A selfie orchestrated by her during the broadcast became the most retweeted image ever.The photo of twelve celebrities broke the previous retweet record within forty minutes, and was retweeted over 1.8 million times in the first hour. By the end of the ceremony it had been retweeted over 2 million times, less than 24 hours later, it had been retweeted over 2.8 million times.

Voiceover artist: Ellen lent her voice to the role of Dory, a fish with short-term memory loss, in the 2003 animated Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo. She won the Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films for Best Supporting Actress; Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards; and the Annie Award from the International Animated Film Association for Outstanding Voice Acting. She also did the voiceover for the dog in the prologue of the Eddie Murphy feature film Dr. Dolittle.

Animal rights activist: Animal lover Ellen is an animal rights activist and follows veganism herself. Her spouse Portia De Rossi is a vegan too. Ellen coordinates a website called Going Vegan With Ellen where she promotes and features vegan recipes. She was named the Woman of the Year by PETA in 2009.