Ellen Pompeo

Biography of Ellen Pompeo

Ellen Kathleen Pompeo was born on November 10, 1969 in Everett, Massachusetts. She is an American actress.

Pompeo grew up in New York's Upper West Side. She later moved to Miami, where she worked as a waitress. Her grandfather comes from Gesualdo, a village in the Italian province of Avellino. Her mother died when Pompeo was just a toddler. In 1996 she was approached by an agent at a bar in New York at work and asked if she would like to do commercial photography. This is how she came to appear in commercials for Citibank and L'Oréal, among others.

Determined to launch a successful acting career, she moved to Los Angeles in 2001. The turning point in her career came in 2002 when director Brad Silberling cast her in his film Moonlight Mile. She also appeared in the comic book adaptation Daredevil as Matt Murdock's (played by Ben Affleck) secretary, but most of her scenes didn't make it into the film's theatrical version. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind she played Naomi, the ex-girlfriend of Joel Barish (Jim Carrey), but not a single scene with her appeared in the theatrical version of the film. In 2002 and 2003, Pompeo had a role in the comedy Old School and a cameo on an episode of Friends.

Her first starring role came on the ABC medical series Grey's Anatomy as the title character Meredith Grey, a young resident at a prestigious hospital. The third season had the highest ratings on US network television in the United States. In 2007, Pompeo was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in the Drama/Series category. That same year, she re-signed for Grey's Anatomy, which increased her salary to nearly $200,000 per episode.

Pompeo has been married to music producer Chris Ivery since November 9, 2007; Best man was New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. On September 15, 2009, she gave birth to a daughter. On October 2, 2014, a surrogate mother gave birth to her second daughter. In December 2016, Pompeo gave birth to a son, also through a surrogate mother.