Sofía Margarita Vergara Vergara (Spanish: [soˈfi.a βeɾˈɣaɾa]; born July 10, 1972)^[1][2] is a Colombian-American actress. One of the best-paid actresses in the world, she is the top-earning actress in American television, as of 2019.^[3][4]

Vergara rose to prominence while co-hosting two television shows for Spanish-language television network Univisión in the late 1990s. Her first notable acting job in English was in the film Chasing Papi (2003). She subsequently appeared in the comedies Four Brothers (2005), and Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns (2008) and Madea Goes to Jail (2009), receiving an ALMA Award nomination for the latter. Since 2009, she began playing Gloria Delgado-Pritchett in the ABC comedy series Modern Family, for which she has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Vergara's success on television has earned her roles in films The Smurfs (2011), New Year's Eve (2011), The Three Stooges (2012), Machete Kills (2013), Chef (2014), and Hot Pursuit (2015); and voice-over roles in the animated films Happy Feet Two (2011), Escape from Planet Earth (2013) and The Emoji Movie (2017).

Vergara was born to a Roman Catholic family^[5] in Barranquilla.^[6] Her mother, Margarita Vergara de Vergara, was a homemaker, and her father, Julio Enrique Vergara Robayo, was a cattle rancher for the meat industry.^[7][8][9] She was nicknamed "Toti" by her five siblings and many cousins.^[10] Vergara initially studied three years of dentistry at a university in Colombia, but left two semesters away from her degree to pursue opportunities in modeling and show business.^[7][11] She subsequently moved to Miami, Florida, leaving behind unrest in Colombia, where her older brother Rafael was murdered in 1998 during an attempt to kidnap him.^{[6][7][10][12]} Her cousin and adopted sister, Sandra, is also a television actress in the United States.^[13][14]

Vergara was discovered by a photographer while walking on a Colombian beach and was quickly presented with offers of modeling and television work.^[15] Vergara was "apprehensive about doing her first television commercial—until her Catholic schoolteachers gave her their personal permission to take the assignment."^[16] Vergara made her first appearance, aged 17, in a Pepsi commercial which was aired in Latin America.^[17]

She then began studies at the Creative Workshops School of Acting, where Gloria Estefan also trained.^[18]

In 2011, Vergara was supposed to star in The Paperboy, an independent drama directed by Lee Daniels. When shooting was delayed for a week and conflicted with her shooting schedule for the third season of Modern Family, she dropped out.^[19]

In July 2011, she finished filming the Farrelly brothers' The Three Stooges, which was her first major leading role in a film. Vergara said, "I play a mean woman that tries to manipulate the Three Stooges into killing her husband so that she gets all the money."^[20]

In April 2012, she appeared in her son Manolo's YouTube web series Vida con Toty.^[21] Vergara was the highest-earning woman in U.S. television, earning $19 million for the previous 12 months on a list released by Forbes.com on July 18, 2012.^[22][23] Vergara was named one of People magazine's "50 most beautiful people" and named by The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard as one of the most influential Latin women in Hollywood.^[24]

Vergara received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 7, 2015.^[25][26]

In June 2016, the Human Rights Campaign released a video in tribute to the victims of the 2016 Orlando gay nightclub shooting; in the video, Vergara and others told the stories of the people killed there.^[27][28]

She stars on the ABC sitcom Modern Family as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.^[29]

In 2011, Vergara was named the face of CoverGirl, with the first advertisements appearing in January 2012.^[24] In April 2011, Vergara appeared in a Diet Pepsi commercial with David Beckham^[30] and another in January 2012.^[31]

In 2011, it was announced that Vergara is designing a clothing line for Kmart targeting soccer moms^[32] and appeared in a number of commercials for Comcast's Xfinity brand and State Farm.^[33]

In 2013, she signed endorsement contracts with Diet Pepsi, Rooms To Go, and medicine Synthroid.^[3]

In 2014, Vergara became a brand ambassador for American anti-dandruff shampoo brand Head & Shoulders.^[34]

In March 2017, Vergara reached a settlement with Venus Concept for alleged improper use of her likeness, which Vergara said created the false impression that she endorsed their beauty products.^[35]

Vergara has naturally blonde hair, although for movies and television, she is sometimes asked to dye it brown to make her look more stereotypically Hispanic.^[36][37]

Vergara was married at the age of 18 to her high-school sweetheart, Joe Gonzalez.^[6] They have a son named Manolo,^[38] who was born in September 1992.^[39] They divorced in 1993.^[6]

Vergara was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2000. She had her thyroid removed, underwent radioiodine therapy, and made a full recovery.^[40] She takes medication to prevent hypothyroidism.^[41]

On May 9, 2011, Vergara's younger brother Julio was deported from the United States to Colombia after being arrested in April that year; Julio also had a longtime drug addiction and previous brushes with the law.^[42][43] Vergara told Parade magazine, "To see somebody dying over 10 years, little by little, that's the worst punishment. Now he's like another person."^[44]

Vergara and her boyfriend Nicholas M. Loeb became engaged in 2012 after dating for two years. On May 23, 2014, Vergara announced that the engagement had been called off.^[45]

Vergara and True Blood star Joe Manganiello became engaged on Christmas Day 2014 after dating for six months.^[46] They married in Palm Beach, Florida on November 21, 2015.^[47][48]

During her December 2014 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Vergara revealed that she had become a United States citizen after getting a perfect score on her citizenship test.^[49][50]

In 2015, Forbes estimated Vergara's annual income at $28.5 million.^[51] As of September 2016, Forbes reported that Vergara was the highest-paid actress in television, bringing in $43 million in the past year.^[52]

On May 1, 2015, it was reported that Vergara and her former fiancé Loeb were in dispute regarding the future of two embryos. These embryos were produced by in vitro fertilization while they were together^[53] and are in storage in cryopreservation in a medical clinic in California.^[54] In December 2016, a right-to-live lawsuit against Vergara was initiated in Louisiana by three plaintiffs, namely Vergara's embryos, named "Emma" and "Isabella", and their "trustee", James Charbonnet. The purpose of the suit is to give the embryos a chance to further develop using a surrogate carrier, hence to be born, and to benefit from an inheritance trust that had been created for them and is administered by Charbonnet.^[54][55] While a contract between Vergara and Loeb had been signed prior to the creation of the embryos stipulating that neither party could use the embryos without the consent of the other, the lawsuit tries to void this agreement.^[55] The suit also tries to terminate parental rights of Vergara because by keeping them in a tank in a medical clinic she allegedly abandoned and neglected the embryos. Loeb is not part of the lawsuit. The legal case is novel and takes advantage of Louisiana's embryo laws.^[54] In August 2017, a Louisiana judge dismissed the case on the grounds that the court had no jurisdiction over the embryos, which were conceived in California.^[56][57]

In 2014, Vergara was ranked as the 32nd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She had risen from her 2013 position at no. 38.^[62]