1968年12月2日出生于美国纽约的皇后区，与其兄于纽约皇后区的杰克逊高地长大，父母分别是北京和上海人。可笑的是，她到5岁还不会说英语。其父母亲都是中国台湾的移民。在台湾时，她父亲是一位工程师，母亲是一位生化学家，都是知识分子中国台湾移居至美国因而放弃了他们的原有职业。但移民到美国后他们只能一切从零开始，靠做奴仆、劳工等工作才能养家糊口。为了生活，刘玉玲的父亲甚至把手表和笔都卖了。后来他的父亲靠贩卖手表攒了些钱，买下了一套旧公寓聊以栖身。现今他已成了实业家，经营着一家造纸厂。 因为父母对她的学习的一直坚持，刘玉玲相当认真求学，她在1986年毕业于纽约市著名的史岱文森高中，接着就读纽约大学，于一年后转学到密歇根大学，取得亚洲语言及文化学士学位。她曾在密歇根当过餐厅侍应~

　　作为第二代移民，可以想象童年的刘玉玲生活是怎样的清苦。那时候能有东西吃就是最幸福的了，刘玉玲现在回忆道：“只要是放我面前的东西，我都吃”。到了14岁那一年，为了贴补家计，她和哥哥不得不到工作环境极差的成衣工厂当童工。年龄稍长，刘玉玲下定决心要当演员，她更是疯狂打工，一周工作七天。星期一到五她是秘书，下了班就去餐馆端盘子。星期六、日上午她是有氧舞蹈教练，晚上继续当女侍。

　　1982年，刘玉玲开始在纽约的高中读书，那时她曾一度梦想当一名警察。也许是刘玉玲那张细眉细眼、颇有性格的东方脸蛋，加上她娇小玲珑的体形得到了星探的垂青，她应邀出演了一次文具用品的广告。1986年，刘玉玲高中毕业后进入密歇根大学，并取得了亚洲语言文化专业学士学位。在几年的大学生活中，她还兼修了表演、舞蹈和声乐等专业课程，而这些对她日后的表演都大有裨益。大学期间，她还有幸参加了戏剧《艾莉漫游仙境》试镜，一开始只是想获得一个配角，没想到导演独具慧眼，让她担当主角挑大梁，从此一举成名。然而，刘玉玲的父亲虽然支持她去拍广告，却竭力反对女儿去演电影和电视剧，不重视女儿前途的父亲其目的显然是要把女儿当成摇钱树。刘玉玲一气之下离家出走，只身来到洛杉矶寻求发展。

　　刘玉玲先后在多部电视剧中担当了角色，其中包括《急诊室的故事》、《X档案》、《纳什大桥》(《海岸救生队》的姊妹片)、《霹雳娇娃》等。她还曾在汤姆-克鲁斯主演的《征服情海》中客串过一个不起眼的小角色，凭借着在电视剧方面的知名度，刘玉玲开始在好莱坞渐渐走红，片约越来越多，戏中的份量也越来越重。

　　1990年，正式步入影坛，接拍其第一部电影《贝弗来山90210》(“Beverly Hills，90210”)，在这部电影中，刘玉玲扮演一个女招待的角色。

　　1996年，成功地在CBS电视公司的一档周末系列电视剧《珍珠》(“Pearl”)中扮演一名女大学生，该剧使她的知名度大大提高。在此之后，她又先后参加影片《甜心先生》(“Jerry Maguire”)、《Gridlock'd》和《City of Industry》的拍摄。

　　1997年，拍摄令她人气急升的电视片《甜心俏佳人》(“Ally McBeal”)，她生动地演释了剧中一位十分自信的冷美人--工厂主管吴玲，这位个性鲜明、美艳惊人的亚洲女子形象在片中显得格外出众，引人注目，深深地打动了观众，刘玉玲也因此被看作是“最美女性”之一。

　　1999年，她先是在克林特-伊斯特伍德自导自演的影片《真实罪行》(“True Crime”)中扮演一个死于非命的小商店店员，接着又在梅尔-吉布森主演的犯罪题材动作片《危险人物》(“Payback”)中出演黑帮首领的情妇，年底她还在安东尼奥-班德拉斯和伍迪-哈里森主演的讲述拳击手生涯的影片《玩到死》(“Play It to the Bone”)中摇身一变成为搭车女郎。后又与卡蒙-伊莱克特拉在《Mating Habits of the Earth Bound Human》中演对手戏。

　　2000年，刘玉玲与好莱坞另两大超级明星卡梅伦·迪亚兹、茱儿·巴里摩尔合演《霹雳娇娃》(“Charlie's Angels”)系列。这部连创北美票房新高的成功商业片，让刘玉玲一时间风靡全球。片中三位娇娃最致命的武器不是枪，而是凌厉矫健的武功。德鲁·巴利摩尔的夺命剪刀脚、卡梅隆·迪亚兹的龙卷风轻功，招招要坏男人的命。人们看到黑眼睛黑头发的东方"女打星"刘玉玲更是身手敏捷，使出难度最大、最有威力的螺旋连环踢，把一个个男人踢得爬不起来。一会儿又扮成赛车手、艺伎，在片中扮酷又搞笑，实在让她大红大紫了一把。

2003年，刘玉玲在《杀死比尔》中的出色表演，为她赢得了最佳女演员、最佳银幕坏蛋奖，另外还抱走了最佳打斗奖。作为一名华裔血统的好莱坞女星，刘玉玲曾被评选为全球"50位最美的女性"，她和有四分之一中国血统的胡凯莉一起，成为好莱坞华裔性感女星的一线代言人。

　　2008年，

Born Amanda Lee Rogers in Horsham, Victoria, Australia. she is the daughter of Margaret, a medical receptionist, and Barry Rogers.[3] 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.[4]

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.[5]

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.[6]

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.[7] In May 2007, she was featured as one of 100 Most Beautiful in a People magazine special edition. TV Guide included her and Ellen DeGeneres in their Power A-List couples in 2007.

Portia de Rossi is openly gay.[4] 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.[8]

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.[4] 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.[9] 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.[10] They were married at their Beverly Hills home on August 16, 2008, witnessed by their mothers and 17 other guests.[10] On August 6, 2010, Portia filed a petition to legally change her name to Portia Lee James DeGeneres.[11] The petition was granted on 23 September 2010.[12] She became a US citizen in September 2011.[13]

De Rossi struggled with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa for four years while filming Ally McBeal.[9][14]

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.[15][16][17] To promote the book, she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.[16]

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 [18][19][20][21] for children with alopecia and other medical conditions that cause hair loss.[22] She has also supported fundraising efforts for FXB International,[23] an African AIDS relief organisation, and The Art of Elysium,[24] an art foundation for terminally ill children. An avid animal lover, de Rossi also supports Alley Cat Allies,[25] an organisation dedicated to protecting and improving the lives of cats.[26]

简·克拉考斯基出生在美国的新泽西州。她的母亲叫芭芭拉，是大学戏剧艺术指导教师和一家生产女性戏剧服装公司的总监。她的父亲叫艾德·克拉考斯基（Ed Krajkowski），是一名化学工程师。她有一个哥哥。简父亲的家庭完全是来自波兰。但是简她只认识很少的波兰语，而她的父亲和爷爷、奶奶的波兰语都很流利。简在一次访问中说,“我的父母不是雇佣保姆，而是带我一起在当地他们工作的剧院，享受排演歌剧的乐趣。这使我的成长完全都沉浸在歌剧的艺术当中。”她从4岁时学习芭蕾舞课，但是后来停止了，主要因为她经常有错误的形体动作、而不是更趋于主流的百老汇舞蹈动作。后来，她在纽约市加入了专业的儿童学校。[2]而当她开始作为一名女演员工作时，她的家人起初并不看好她。

1983年出演了她的第一部电影《假期历险记》。凭借在电视剧《甜心俏佳人》中扮演的伊莲和在《我为喜剧狂》中扮演的珍娜，赢得了两座美国演员工会奖的奖杯。她在戏剧表演方面的成绩则更加突出，凭借戏剧《九》赢得了托尼奖。她在英国伦敦主演的戏剧《红男绿女》又使她赢得了奥利弗奖。