Ellen Pompeo Pictures, Biography, Images, Videos, News

Ellen Kathleen Pompeo (born November 10, 1969) is an American actress, known for playing the title role of Meredith Grey on the ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy.

Ellen Kathleen Pompeo was born in Everett, Massachusetts, the daughter of Joseph, a salesman, and Kathleen Pompeo. Pompeo is of Irish and Italian descent and was raised Roman Catholic. Her grandfather was born in Gesualdo, a village in Province of Avellino, Italy. Her mother died when she was four years old due to an painkiller overdose following a severe accident when she was younger, and her father remarried soon after her mother's death. She was nicknamed the pencil and Stracciatella (which translated from Italian to "little rags" or "strings").

For more than two years, she served cocktails in Miami where she met then-boyfriend, fashion photographer Andrew Rosenthal. In 1996, she was bartending at the SoHo Bar & Grill in New York City's Upper West Side when an agent approached her to appear in commercials. Subsequently, she appeared in commercials for Citibank and L'Oréal. She began her career with minor roles on television shows like Strangers with Candy, Friends and Law & Order and a handful of films.