Carrer

==Stand-up comedy==

DeGeneres started performing stand-up comedy at small clubs and coffeehouses before working her way up to emcee Clyde's Comedy Club by 1981. Her comedy during this period was described as a "distaff version of Bob Newhart." In the early 1980s, she began to tour nationally, eventually winning the title of funniest person in America in a competition sponsored by the cable network Showtime. She was then able to work at higher profile venues. She appeared for the first time on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1986.

Early screen work

Television and film work in the late '80s/early '90s included roles on television in Open House and in the film Coneheads.

==Ellen (sitcom, 1994-1998)==

DeGeneres' comedy material was turned into the subject matter of the successful 1994-1998 sitcom Ellen, named These Friends of Mine during its first season. The ABC show was popular in its first few seasons due in part to DeGeneres' style of quirky observational humor; it was often referred to as a "female Seinfeld."

Ellen reached its height of attention in February 1997, when DeGeneres made her homosexuality public on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Subsequently her character on the sitcom came out of the closet in April to her therapist, played by Oprah Winfrey, that she was gay. The outing episode, entitled "The Puppy Episode," was one of the highest-rated episodes of the show, but later episodes of the series would fail to match its popularity, and after declining ratings, the show was canceled. DeGeneres returned to the stand-up comedy circuit, and would later re-establish herself as a successful talk show host.

==Ellen's Energy Adventure==

DeGeneres starred in a series of films for a show named Ellen's Energy Adventure, which is part of the Universe of Energy attraction and pavilion at Walt Disney World's Epcot. The film also featured Bill Nye the science guy, Alex Trebek, Michael Richards and Jamie Lee Curtis. The show revolved around DeGeneres falling asleep and finding herself in an energy-themed version of Jeopardy!, playing against an old rival, portrayed by Curtis, and Albert Einstein. The next film had DeGeneres hosting an educational look at energy, co-hosted with Nye. The ride first opened on September 15, 1996, as Ellen's Energy Crisis but was quickly renamed to the more positive-sounding Ellen's Energy Adventure.

==The Ellen Show==

DeGeneres returned to series television in 2001 with a new CBS sitcom, The Ellen Show. Though her character was again a lesbian, it was not the central theme of the show. The Ellen Show received critical praise, but low viewership and was canceled after one season.[citation needed]

During this time DeGeneres received wide exposure on November 4, 2001, when she hosted the Emmy Awards-TV show. Presented after two cancellations due to network concerns that a posh ceremony following the September 11, 2001 attacks would appear insensitive, the show required a more somber tone that would also allow viewers to temporarily forget the tragedy. DeGeneres received several standing ovations for her performance that evening which included the line: "We're told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win, and really, what would upset the Taliban more than a homosexual woman wearing a suit in front of a room full of Jews?"

==Voice acting==

DeGeneres lent her voice to the role of Dory, a fish with short-term memory loss, in the summer 2003 hit animated Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo. The film's director, Andrew Stanton, claimed that he chose her because she "changed the subject five times before one sentence had finished" on her show. The movie returned DeGeneres to the limelight, with critics giving her rave reviews.