With Ellen DeGeneres' recent spate of good news -- celebrating her third anniversary with wife Portia de Rossi, taking over Oprah's time slot in more than 25 markets, collaborating on a new comedy series with de Rossi -- I couldn't help but wonder how DeGeneres is handling her good fortune. My ever-enquiring mind also wanted to know how Ellen's guru, Cameron Alborzian, suggest she view her current embarrassment of riches.
It seems like just yesterday that the dance-happy darling of daytime TV was mired in the worst of times -- the demise of her sit-com career and her relationship with actress Anne Heche. Today, for those who've been living in the dark, DeGeneres is not only glowing with health and happiness, she's the face of Covergirl make-up. Judging from appearances, her happy feet are dancing through the best of times.
Ellen can call me, I realized, but I can't call her. But I was able to get hold of Yogi Cameron as his clients like to call him. Given that the first male supermodel turned yoga instructor turned Ayurveda therapist has seen Ellen through good times and bad, including her stint on "American Idol," I was hoping he'd enlighten me about his client's dramatic change of fortune.
Like Ellen, Alborzian has walked away from a to-die-for gig to live life more consciously. Once the chiseled face of Guess Jeans and the ripped body in Madonna's "Express Yourself" video, this tall, dark hunk left the material world soon after meeting Nelson Mandela more than a decade ago. Rather than repeating success, he made a conscious decision to immerse himself in the study and practice of yoga and Ayurveda, an ancient healing tradition created by Indian sages over 5,000 years ago.
I'd first heard of Yogi Cameron from another glowing beauty, Access Hollywood's Maria Menounos. When I interviewed Menounos last spring, she waxed euphoric about the good yogi's teachings and writings. Coincidentally, his book, "The Guru in You," hit bookstore shelves at the same time as my own. We've both been known to blog for The Huffington Post.
What follows are questions and answers from our recent phone conversation. I'd suggest you sit back, relax and enjoy the interview, but if you could hear Alborzian's delightfully deep British accent, you'd undoubtedly sit taller, breathe deeper and focus on the here and now.
Deadline.com reports there was a heated bidding war for the comedy before NBC landed it. It will be executive produced by DeGeneres and written by Don Todd, co-creator of "Samantha Who?"
De Rossi last starred in ABC's "Better Off Ted," a comedy that the actress hoped would get a wider audience than did her critically lauded series "Arrested Development," which had a cult following but couldn't seem to catch on with a broader audience. "Ted" folded after two seasons.
As she was set to kick off "Ted," the actress noted in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that the cast and producers of "Arrested Development" were planning a big-screen reunion. That hasn't yet come to fruition, but with her new NBC comedy, De Rossi could be back on the small screen in the fall.
Her newest project is from Warner Bros. Television and DeGeneres’ studio-based production company, A Very Good Production.
Portia Lee James DeGeneres, born Amanda Lee Rogers; January 31 1973, known professionally as Portia de Rossi , is an Australian actress, best known for her roles as lawyer Nelle Porter on the television series Ally McBeal and Lindsay Bluth Fünke on the sitcom Arrested Development. She also portrayed Veronica Palmer on the ABC sitcom Better Off Ted and Olivia Lord on Nip/Tuck.
Early life
Born Amanda Lee Rogers in Horsham, Victoria, Australia,[citation needed] she is the daughter of Margaret, a medical receptionist, and Barry Rogers. She was raised in Grovedale, a suburb of Geelong in Victoria, Australia. As a child, she modeled for print and TV commercials. She adopted the name Portia de Rossi at the age of 15, stating in 2005 that she had intended to reinvent herself, using the given name of Portia, a character from William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and an Italian last name.
Career
Her first significant role was playing a young and impressionable model in the Australian 1994 film Sirens. Soon afterwards she moved to Los Angeles and had guest roles on several TV shows, and a permanent role in Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher, before landing a role in the film Scream 2. During this time in the United States, de Rossi worked diligently to replace her native Australian accent with her current General American one.
She attracted international attention when she joined the main cast of the Ally McBeal TV series in 1998 playing lawyer Nelle Porter. She remained with the show until its end in 2002. In 2001, she starred in Who Is Cletis Tout? with Christian Slater.
From 2003–2006, de Rossi starred as Lindsay Bluth Fünke on Fox Television's critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning series Arrested Development.
She also portrayed John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, in the made for TV movie America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story in 2003. In 2005 she portrayed a fortune-teller named Zela in the Wes Craven thriller Cursed. From 2007–2008, de Rossi appeared in Nip/Tuck's fifth season as Julia McNamara's girlfriend Olivia Lord.
In 2009 and 2010, de Rossi played the high-strung, oversexual, and controlling Veronica Palmer on the ABC show Better Off Ted. De Rossi will reprise her role as Lindsay Bluth Fünke in 2012's film adaptation of Arrested Development.
She ranked 69th in Stuff's 100 Sexiest Women, 31 in Femme Fatales' Sexiest Women of 2003 list, 24 in Maxim's 100 Sexiest Women List in 2004, and in late 2006, the magazine Blender listed her as one of the hottest women of film and TV.
Personal life
Marriages and relationships
Portia de Rossi is openly gay. She was married to documentary film-maker Mel Metcalfe from 1996 to 1999, initially part of a plan to get a green card, but she did not go through with it. She said that "it just obviously wasn't right for me".[4] In a 2010 interview on Good Morning America she explained that as a young actress she was fearful of being exposed as gay.
From 2000 to 2004, de Rossi dated singer Francesca Gregorini, daughter of actress Barbara Bach and stepdaughter of Ringo Starr. She said most of her family and Ally McBeal castmates did not know she was a lesbian until tabloid pictures of the couple were published. She declined to publicly discuss the relationship or her sexual orientation at the time.
De Rossi and Gregorini broke up in late 2004 as de Rossi began dating talk-show host/comedian Ellen DeGeneres, whom she met backstage at an awards show. In 2005, she opened up publicly about her sexual orientation in interviews with Details and The Advocate. She became engaged when DeGeneres proposed with a 3-carat diamond ring. They were married at their Beverly Hills home on August 16, 2008, witnessed by their mothers and 17 other guests. On August 6, 2010, Portia filed a petition to legally change her name to Portia Lee James DeGeneres. The petition was granted on 23 September 2010.
Eating disorder
In 2010 de Rossi published the autobiography Unbearable Lightness which talks about the turmoil that she has experienced in her life, including suffering from anorexia nervosa and being misdiagnosed with lupus. To promote the book, she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Charity work
de Rossi supports a variety of charitable organizations, including Locks of Love, a group that provides human hair wigs (made from donated ponytails) either free of charge or on a sliding scale based on their own guidelines for children with alopecia and other medical conditions that cause hair loss. She has also supported fundraising efforts for FXB International, an African AIDS relief organisation, and The Art of Elysium, an art foundation for terminally ill children. An avid animal lover, de Rossi also supports Alley Cat Allies, an organisation dedicated to protecting and improving the lives of cats.
Filmography
1995 The Woman in the Moon Shauna
1995–
1996 Too Something Maria Hunter TV series (22 episodes)
1996–
1997 Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher Elana Lewis TV series (22 episodes)
1997 Veronica's Closet Carolyn TV series (1 episode: Veronica's First Date)
1997 Scream 2 Sorority Sister Murphy
1998 Astoria TV movie
1998 Girl Carla Sparrow
1998 A Breed Apart Lana Collins TV movie
1998–
2002 Ally McBeal Nell Porter TV series (89 episodes)
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (1999)
Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (2000—2001)
1999 The Invisibles Joy
1999 American Intellectuals Sarah
1999 Stigmata Jennifer Kelliho
1999 Ally Nell Porter TV series (12 episodes)
Ally McBeal spin-off
2001 Women in Film Gina
2001 Who Is Cletis Tout? Tess Tobias
2002 The Glow Jackie Lawrence TV movie
2002 The Twilight Zone Laurel Janus TV series (1 episode: Dead Man's Eyes)
2003 Two Girls from Leemore
2003 America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy TV movie
2003 Mister Sterling Lauren Barnes TV series (2 episodes)
2003 I Witness Emily Thompson
2003 The Night We Called It a Day Hilary Hunter
2003–
2006 Arrested Development Lindsay Bluth Fünke TV series (53 episodes)
TV Land Award for Future Classic (2003)
Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy (2005)
Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Comedy or Musical (2004)
Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (2005—2006)
2004 Dead & Breakfast Kelly
2005 Cursed Zela
2007–
2009 Nip/Tuck Olivia Lord TV series (10 episodes)
2009 The Shift Denise Moore
2009–
2010 Better off Ted Veronica Palmer TV series (26 episodes)
