Ellen DeGeneres

Why her show was important-culturally (between when she had her sitcom & when she had her talk show) How she was alienated in hollywood.

Career History (IMBd):
Ellen DeGeneres held a wide variety of jobs until she turned to stand-up comedy, making her bones at small clubs and coffeehouses before working her way up to emcee Clyde's Comedy Club by 1981. Her comedy was described as a distaff version of Bob Newhart. Beginning in the early 1980s, she toured nationally and was named the funniest person in America after winning a competition sponsored by the cable network Showtime. This led to better gigs, including her first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) in 1986. Though DeGeneres's early forays into series television were not successful (she appeared as a supporting player in two short-lived TV situation comedies in the period 1989-92, Open House (1989) and Laurie Hill (1992)), she scored a hit headlining her own 1994 sitcom on ABC "These Friends of Mine" (later renamed Ellen (1994) after its first season). She made TV history in April 1997 when her character, and DeGeneres herself personally, revealed that she was a lesbian. However, the show was canceled the following season due to declining ratings, after which DeGeneres returned to the stand-up circuit. In 2001, DeGeneres launched a new series, The Ellen Show (2001), on CBS, but it suffered from poor ratings and was canceled.

Notes:

• When she came out as a lesbian, Ellen was discriminated against in the industry and in the public.
• This had a big affect on her career as a comedian and talk show host.
• She eventually "redeemed herself" to society because despite all of this that she has been through she charged through and was determined to be successful.