Barbara Gottfried Hollander - Ellen DeGeneres: Televisions Funniest Host

In 1982, Ellen DeGeneres was named Showtimes Funniest Person in America. More than thirty years later, she is still making America laugh.

At one time, DeGeneres harbored a secret that she feared would destroy her career. Her mother, Betty DeGeneres, also worried about peoples negative reactions to her daughters secret. Both women knew of the intolerance and discrimination that confronted gay people in both their private and professional lives. In the 1980s and 90s, DeGeneres was climbing the ladder of professional success. She was the first female stand-up comic to sit down on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She was named Showtimes Funniest Person in America and starred in her own show. People liked her.

Would she risk it all by sharing her secret with America? Did she truly feel safe in a thin, bamboo, beautiful, multitiered cage? In 1997, DeGeneres took the courageous step of publicly announcing that she was gay. Like the bird in her dream, DeGeneres chose to fly out the window and soared higher than she ever thought possible. In that same O interview, DeGeneres shared, You know, people say, Why do you have to tell everybody [that you are gay], who cares, and why do you have to announce it? Its because its your truth and the truth shall set you free.

People always ask me, Were you funny as a child?' Well, no, I was an accountantEllen DeGeneres, Goodreads

E llen DeGeneres was a baby, a child, and of course a teenager before she was one of the nations funniest people. In her early years, DeGeneres was close to her mom, spent time with her dad, and admired her brother. She had good times and bad times. At a young age, DeGeneres learned about the power of laughter: how it made the good times even better and the bad times more bearable.

Ellen Lee DeGeneress life began in a suburb of New Orleans, Louisiana, called Metaire. She was born barefoot, not in her trademark blue sneakers, on January 26, 1958. As a child, Ellen traveled by bike. I rode my bike everywhere, DeGeneres told Liz Scott of New Orleans Magazine. All over the campus [of Newcomb College]. All over uptown. You know, people can grow up in New Orleans without realizing how unique a city it is. I remember thinking that it was a really neat place. Ellens mother and grandmother were also born in this nifty place.

Ellens mother, Betty, was a speech pathologist, and her father, Elliot, sold insurance. In Lisa lannuccis book Ellen DeGeneres: A Biography, Betty shares that Elliot believed one child was enough. But Betty begged for another, whom she first called a beautiful blob of fatness and later a miracle named Ellen or El. Ellen liked to watch television shows, such as I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show. She liked comedians, including Bob and Ray, George Gobel, and Jack Benny. Ellen also loved animals and imagined studying them in Africa, just like famous zoologist Dian Fossey.

Ellens parents were both religious members of the Church of Christ, Scientist, a church created by Mary Baker Eddy about two hundred years ago. Ellens mom eventually left the church. In 1971, she also left Elliot and rented a two-bedroom apartment in Lake Vista, a New Orleans neighborhood. Ellens older brother, Vance, had his own room, and Ellen and her mom shared a bedroom with Ellens pet snake. Ellen turned to comic relief to ease her mothers pain from the marital separation. In a 2006 issue of Teen People, DeGeneres explained, I was helping [my mother] cope with a broken heart. It brought us closer together and made me realize the power of humor.

As a teenager, Ellen realized the healing nature of humor as she helped her mother cope with divorce.

In St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, DeGeneres also shared, My mother was going through some really hard times and I could see when she was really getting down, and I would start to make fun of her dancing. Then shed start to laugh and Id make fun of her laughing. And shed laugh so hard shed start to cry, and then Id make fun of that So I would totally bring her from where Id seen her start going into depression to all the way out of it. In her book