Melissa Benoist

Biography of Melissa Benoist

Melissa Marie Benoist was born on October 4, 1988 in Houston, Texas. She is an American singer and actress.

Melissa Benoist was born to Julie and Jim Benoist in Houston, Texas. Her paternal great-grandfather is of French descent. Furthermore, she also has German, English and Scottish ancestors. She has two sisters, Jessica, a writer, Kristina, an environmental scientist, and five half-siblings from her father's second marriage.After her parents divorced at a young age, she grew up with her mother in Denver.

She began taking dance classes at the age of three and as a teenager joined the Academy of Theater Arts in Littleton. Other regional theater productions followed. In 2007 she graduated from Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, and moved to New York City to study musical theater. There she attended Marymount Manhattan College. In her sophomore year, she switched to serious theater, graduating in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in Theater. During college, she appeared on Off-Off-Broadway in the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie and at the Theresa Lang Theater as Rosalind in As You Like It.

Her first film was Tennessee in 2008 opposite Mariah Carey. This was followed by episode roles on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Blue Bloodsand The Good Wife. In 2011, she appeared in two episodes of Homeland.

She is best known for her role as Marley Rose on the Fox series Glee. She appeared in the fourth and fifth seasons between 2012 and 2014. In 2014, she starred opposite Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons in Damien Chazelle's award-winning drama film Whiplash.

From October 2015 to November 2021, she played the title role of Kara Zor-El/Kara Danvers in the DC Comics serial adaptation Supergirl. She took on the same role in several guest appearances on other Arrowverse series such as Arrow and The Flash. She starred in the 2015 literary adaptation, No Place Without You.

From June to August 2018, she starred on Broadway at the Stephen Sondheim Theater in the play Beautiful : The Carole King Musical the titular character about the early life and career of Carole King.

In 2021, Benoist founded the production company Three Things Productions and signed a multi-year deal with Warner Bros. Television. She wants to continue working as an actress, but also as a producer.

In March 2015, she married fellow Glee member Blake Jenner. In late December 2016, she announced her decision to divorce Blake Jenner due to "irreconcilable differences."

In February 2019, she became engaged to Chris Wood. The couple married on September 1, 2019. Their son was born in the summer of 2020.