Ellen DeGeneres

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When hearing that a Rutgers University student flung himself off a bridge 2 1/2 years ago after he was outed on the Internet as gay, Ellen DeGeneres felt a familiar pain.
So she used the stage of her syndicated daytime talk show to deplore bullying, ticked off names of other gay teenagers who had committed suicide, then made an appeal to the scores of lonely kids who might be struggling with their identities: “Things will get easier, people’s minds will change,” she said, her voice breaking. Ever since, she has signed off each show with a simple plea to her audience: “Be kind to one another.”
And though it wasn’t premeditated, that tangible empathy has helped fuel DeGeneres’ growing popularity on multiple platforms, almost as though she made compassion cool again on TV.
The comedian who incited a riot in culture when she came out as gay 16 years ago on her ABC sitcom, has experienced a surge in popularity that has surprised many. Most TV shows lose their edge after five to seven years, and audiences drift away. But “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” now in its 10th year, is drawing its biggest audience ever. Its ratings among the important daytime demographic of women ages 25 to 54 have climbed 13% compared to last season.
DeGeneres also boasts the most-watched TV celebrity channel on YouTube, where clips from her show have been watched 1.7 billion times. She has 17 million followers on Twitter and, at age 55, she is the face of CoverGirl’s bestselling line of makeup.
Last week, Walt Disney Co.’s Pixar said it was planning a sequel to its blockbuster film, Finding Nemo,” starring DeGeneres who will reprise the voice of the befuddled blue tang fish. The film will be called Finding Dory.”
DeGeneres’ increased popularity can be attributed to several factors, television watchers say, including a softening of cultural attitudes and a growing fatigue among viewers for the coarse slap-downs and boundary-pushing behavior that has become a staple of daytime TV and reality shows. The departure of Oprah Winfrey left a gap for emotional fare in daytime television that DeGeneres’ show has begun to fill.
The Internet too has become a potent tool to engage younger audiences, who delight in DeGeneres’ goofball humor, her “oh, my goodness” charm and her message that it is OK to be yourself. People like DeGeneres because she’s nice.
“Ellen is an antidote for the times,” said Hilary Estey McLoughlin, president of Telepictures Productions, which produces the talk show. “She focuses on being kind to others in a bully culture.”
DeGeneres’ rise has helped modify Hollywood’s perception of a leading lady, inspiring a wave of characters that are both offbeat and nice. On NBC’s Parks and Recreation,” Amy Poehler plays a do-gooder city official. On CBS’ “Mike & Molly,” Melissa McCarthy is a sweet and tubby fourth-grade teacher. On ABC’s The Middle,” the klutzy teenager Sue brims with wide-eyed optimism.
“The Ellen DeGeneres Show” almost didn’t make it to the air. A decade ago, Warner Bros. struggled to license the show to TV station groups around the country. Station chiefs worried that DeGeneres’ humor would be “too dirty” for the middle-aged homemakers who watch daytime TV, Warner executives recalled. Producers sent DeGeneres to do her stand-up routine for station executives to demonstrate that her comedy was tame.
“I don’t know what they thought,” DeGeneres said. “That I would stand in front of a rainbow flag and play a heavy rotation of Melissa Etheridge, Indio Girls and k.d. lang?”
Her talk show’s audience has grown to 3.5 million viewers a day, including those watching digital video recorded playbacks, up from just more than 2 million in its inaugural season. “Judge Judy” and “Dr. Phil” continue to attract more viewers in daytime, but this season DeGeneres’ show edged into a first-place tie with “Dr. Phil” in the preferred audience demographic.
DeGeneres’ ratings also are up 10% among the more fickle crowd of women ages 18 to 34. At a time when broadcast networks are starved for viewers in prime time, daytime “comfort food” programming has experienced a ratings uptick this year.
DeGeneres has strongly outperformed a string of daytime challengers who have tried and failed to replace the longtime queen of television, Winfrey — CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Survivor” host Jeff Probst and former CBS News anchor Katie Couric.
Throngs of women crowd outside the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, gathering more than four hours before production begins. Inside, music pulsates through the cavernous soundstage. Studio audience members show off their dance moves en masse, some swiveling their hips, others punching the air.
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Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres, an American entertainer and prominent gay rights advocate, received the highest U.S. award for achievement in comedy on Monday.
Receiving the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center, the national showcase for arts, DeGeneres was praised as a pioneering female comic whose edgy variety show has helped define the format for daytime television in recent years.
But several guests also highlighted the comedian’s groundbreaking decision 15 years ago to go public with her sexual identity in a career-rattling move the comedian said was a necessary step for personal dignity.
“I did it for me and it happened to help a lot of other people and cause a big ruckus,” DeGeneres, 54, told reporters before the tribute, summarizing her decision in 1997 to come out publicly as gay in tandem with her on-screen character in a move that sparked controversy and prompted some advertisers to flee.
The Twain prize, named after the 19th century satirist, is the nation’s highest honor for achievements in comedy.
A native of New Orleans, DeGeneres spent her twenties as an itinerant comedian on the Los Angeles nightclub circuit until prominent spots on late night television led to her own prime time sitcom.
The original show, Ellen, featured DeGeneres in the lead role as a bookshop owner in an idiosyncratic neighborhood. While the show got a boost after the star came out of the closet, it was over a few years later.
She later returned to the standup stage, and hosted the 2001 Emmy awards, which was postponed twice after the Sept. 11 attacks – a somewhat subdued celebration that allowed her to try to lighten the national mood.
Several guests said that DeGeneres brought a compassion to her comedy that is rare in the field.
“The rest of us comics come from really messed-up, dark childhoods. She might have come from that, I don’t know. But it’s not what she puts forth,” said John Leguizamo, who joined the tributes. “She just puts out this beautiful goodwill.”
In the last 10 seasons on television, DeGeneres has left her mark with a daytime variety show which she often uses as a way to promote a commitment to gay equality.
“For a lot of people, Ellen is their only homosexual friend,” said late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
DeGeneres is the forth woman to receive the award since its inception in 1998.
Comedian and actor Will Ferrell won last year. Past award winners have included Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby.
from Reuters
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Ellen DeGeneres

HOLLYWOOD – Ellen DeGeneres received the 2,477th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Tuesday, being honored for entertaining audiences as a talk show host, comedian, prime-time television star and the voice of Dory, a regal tang with short-term memory loss in the Pixar animated film “Finding Nemo.”
“American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest and ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel joined DeGeneres in speaking in the 11:30 a.m. ceremony in front of the W Hollywood Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard.
“I’m so excited to be inducted into the Walk of Fame,” DeGeneres wrote on her show’s Facebook page on June 26, four days after it was announced she would be receiving a star. “I always thought people liked my dancing best. I guess my walk is pretty good too.”
The ceremony comes six days before the start of the 10th season of her nationally syndicated afternoon talk show, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which has six Daytime Emmy Awards as outstanding talk show while DeGeneres has won four as outstanding talk show host.
DeGeneres’ career began as an emcee at a comedy club in her hometown of New Orleans. Her videotaped club performances won her Showtime’s “Funniest Person in America” honor in 1982.
DeGeneres then moved to Los Angeles, taping her first HBO special, “The Young Comedians All-Star Reunion” in 1986. Also in 1986, DeGeneres became the first female comedian to be summoned by Johnny Carson to come to the guest couch after making her debut stand-up performance on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”
DeGeneres began her acting career portraying a man-hungry receptionist on the Fox comedy “Open House,” which ran in the 1989-90 season.
In 1992, DeGeneres played flaky nurse Nancy MacIntyre on the ABC comedy “Laurie Hill,” which aired for four episodes before being canceled. Its creators Neal Marlens and Carol Black, went on to create “These Friends of Mine,” which debuted in 1994 and starred DeGeneres. It was retitled “Ellen” in its second season and ran until 1998.
The series made television history in 1997 when DeGeneres’ character came out as a lesbian shortly after she did the same in real life.
DeGeneres received four Primetime Emmy nominations as outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for “Ellen,” and shared an Emmy for outstanding writing for a comedy series for “The Puppy Episode” when her character came out as a lesbian.
DeGeneres also starred in the CBS comedy “The Ellen Show,” which ran in the 2001-2002 season, hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards in 2001 and 2005, the Academy Awards in 2007 and was a judge on the Fox singing competition “American Idol” for the 2010 season.
from CBS Los Angeles
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Portia De Rossi & Ellen DeGeneres

ABC is getting into business with Ellen DeGeneres.
The network has handed a pilot order to half-hour, multicamera comedy The Smart One, written by Don Todd and starring Portia De Rossi.
The Smart One, one of two projects DeGeneres has in development, centers on a brilliant and successful woman who begrudginly goes to work for her less-brainy but more popular sister — a former beauty queen, weather girl and now mayor of a big city. De Rossi will play one of the two sisters.
The Warner Bros. TV-A Very Good Production project will be executive produced by DeGeneres and Lauren Corrao.
In October, the project was originally given a pilot order at NBC and marks De Rossi’s first TV gig since ABC’s Better Off Ted.
from The Hollywood Reporter

Ellen DeGeneres

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres said she was “proud and happy” that retail store J.C. Penney had stood by her in the face of a conservative anti-gay campaign, and said there was no such thing as a “pro-gay bandwagon.”
Breaking her silence on the furor, DeGeneres, one of America’s best known gay celebrities, also poked fun at the One Million Moms group who had urged J.C. Penney to drop her as a spokeswoman because she is a lesbian and said they would boycott the store.
“For those of you are just tuning in for the first time, it’s true. I’m gay. I hope you were sitting down,” DeGeneres told viewers of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
“They (One Million Moms) wanted to get me fired and I am proud and happy to say that J.C. Penney stuck by their decision to make me their spokesperson,” she said.
The group, a division of the socially conservative American Family Association, claimed that J.C. Penney was trying to gain a new target market by “jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon” with its hiring of DeGeneres to revamp their clothing and household brand.
“Being gay or pro-gay isn’t a bandwagon. You don’t get a free ride anywhere. There’s no music. And occasionally we’ll sing ‘We Are Family’ but that’s about it,” she said.
She also noted that the One Million Moms group “only have 40,000 members on their (Facebook) page. So they’re rounding up to the nearest million and I get that.”
DeGeneres, who has some 9 million followers on Twitter, said she preferred to avoid talking about such matters on her show “and normally I try not to pay attention to my haters, but this time I’d like to talk about it because my haters are my motivators.”
DeGeneres made her comments at a taping on Tuesday for the show that will be broadcast on Wednesday.
from Reuters

Related Post:

‘One Million Moms’ Wants JC Penney To Fire Elen DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres

No, not because it sells sweater vests (heck, Rick Santorum is a fan of those), but because the Texas-based department store has hired Ellen DeGeneres as a spokeswoman.
And DeGeneres is — cue the scary music — gay, and open about it.
“Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families,” the million (or so) moms write on their website. “DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there.”
One Million Moms is asking people to call JC Penney to complain.
With this campaign, One Million Moms, which claims to be “the most powerful tool you have to stand against the immorality, violence, vulgarity and profanity the entertainment media is throwing at your children,” is going after one of the country’s most well-liked television hosts.
The moms want JC Penney “to replace Ellen DeGeneres as their new spokesperson immediately and remain neutral in the culture war.”
Fat chance, says the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination.
“A vast majority of Americans today support Ellen as well as their LGBT friends and family members,” Herndon Graddick, a GLAAD spokesman said in a written statement. “Selecting an out performer who has inspired and entertained millions, is not only a smart business practice, but a reflection of how LGBT Americans today are an integral and valued part of the fabric of our culture.”
DeGeneres’ daytime talk show has more viewers than the American Family Association has moms. Between Jan. 16 and Jan. 22, “Ellen” averaged 3.38 million viewers. That’s 2.38 million more people than the AFA has moms.
American Family Association did not return a request for comment.
from Reuters
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