Clea Lewis (born July 19, 1965) is an American actress, best known for her television role as Ellen's annoying friend, Audrey Penney in

Ellen DeGeneres Ellen Lee DeGeneres ( ; born January 26, 1958) is an American comedian, television host, actress, writer, and producer. She starred in the sitcom ''Ellen'' from 1994 to 1998, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award for " The Puppy Episode". Sh ...

' sitcom ''

Ellen Ellen is a female given name, a diminutive of Elizabeth, Eleanor, Elena and Helen. Ellen was the 609th most popular name in the U.S. and the 17th in Sweden in 2004. People named Ellen include: * Ellen Adarna (born 1988), Filipino actress * Elle ...

''.

Personal life

Lewis was born in

Cleveland Heights, Ohio Cleveland Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, and one of Cleveland's historical streetcar suburbs. The city's population was 45,312 at the 2020 census. As of the 2010 census, Cleveland Heights was ranked the 8th larges ...

, to a writer mother and a former vaudeville performer and lawyer father. Lewis graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1987. She has two sons with her husband, playwright and children's book author Peter Ackermann: Stanley, born in 2002, and Alvin, born in 2005.

Career

Lewis appeared on ''

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'' is an American television sitcom created by Andy and Susan Borowitz for NBC. It aired from September 10, 1990, to May 20, 1996. The series stars Will Smith as a fictionalized version of himself, a street-smart t ...

'' and '' Flying Blind''. She also appeared in the

pilot episode A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie), in United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television network or other distri ...

of ''

Friends ''Friends'' is an American television sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004, lasting ten seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa ...

'', in which she played Frannie. She has appeared in numerous films, including ''Scotch & Milk'', ''

The Rich Man's Wife ''The Rich Man's Wife'' is a 1996 American thriller film written and directed by Amy Holden Jones and starring Halle Berry. The title character becomes a suspect when her husband is murdered and the investigating detectives are suspicious of her al ...

'', and '' Diabolique''. In 2000, she performed the voice of Amy Lawrence in ''

Tom Sawyer Thomas Sawyer () is the titular character of the Mark Twain novel ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876). He appears in three other novels by Twain: ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884), ''Tom Sawyer Abroad'' (1894), and ''Tom Sawyer, Dete ...

''. Lewis played Gina, a chatty ad agency worker, in 2007's '' Perfect Stranger''. She also voiced various characters in the

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

cartoon ''

SpongeBob SquarePants ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' (or simply ''SpongeBob'') is an American animated comedy television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It chronicles the adventures of the title character a ...

''. She also appeared on the short-lived ''

Andy Barker, P.I. ''Andy Barker, P.I.'' is an American detective sitcom television series starring Andy Richter produced and broadcast by NBC, and co-starring Tony Hale, Marshall Manesh, Harve Presnell, and Clea Lewis. Richter plays Andy Barker, a certified pub ...

'' as Jenny Barker, the wife of the title character. Her somewhat nasal, squeaky voice has meant a great deal of animation voice-over work for Lewis, including in both television (ABC's Saturday morning cartoon, ''

Pepper Ann ''Pepper Ann'' is an American animated television series created by Sue Rose and aired on Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC. It debuted on September 13, 1997, and ended on November 18, 2000. ''Pepper Ann'' was the first Disney animated te ...

'') as Nicky Little and film ('' Ice Age: The Meltdown''). She also recorded the book-on-CD for books 4-10 of ''

The Princess Diaries ''The Princess Diaries'' is a series of epistolary young adult novels written by Meg Cabot, and is also the title of the first volume, published in 2000. The series revolves around Amelia 'Mia' Thermopolis, a teenager in New York who discovers ...

'' book series.

Filmography

Film

Television

Theatre

References

External links

* 1965 births Living people Actresses from Cleveland American musical theatre actresses American television actresses American voice actresses Brown University alumni People from Cleveland Heights, Ohio 20th-century American actresses 21st-century American actresses {{US-screen-actor-1960s-stub