Brooke Elliott

Brooke Elliott is an American actress and singer born on November 16, 1974, in Fridley, Minnesota, to Robert Elliott, a city manager, and Kathleen Elliott. She has one sister, Jamie Alexander, and one brother, Adam Elliott. Her parents have noted that she began singing at age three, and footage exists of her at that age performing You Light Up My Life. The family relocated multiple times during her childhood, moving from Fridley to Blaine, Minnesota, and subsequently to Missouri, Oklahoma, and Illinois before settling in Riverview, Michigan, where Elliott completed her junior and senior years of high school. She graduated from Gabriel Richard Catholic High School in 1993, having participated in productions including Richard III and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre Performance from Western Michigan University in 1998.

Following her graduation, Elliott supported herself working as a temp and a waitress, including a position at a 1950s-themed restaurant that required her to dance on tables every hour. In 1999, she spent ten weeks with Babes With Blades, a Chicago-based stage combat theatre company, performing scenes from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Miracle Worker, and Heathers. She then transitioned to her first professional theatre role, playing the Sugar Bowl in the US touring production of Beauty and the Beast. She also appeared in the North American tour of Wicked, a cast that included Adam Lambert, whom she later supported during his run on American Idol.

Elliott's Broadway career spans 1999 to 2007 and includes four productions. Her first Broadway role came in Taboo, a show she credits Rosie O'Donnell with helping her obtain. During the audition process, Elliott spent $117 to change her outfit and makeup for a second attempt after O'Donnell initially turned her away; O'Donnell reimbursed her upon casting her in the show. Taboo closed after approximately one hundred performances, though O'Donnell subsequently praised Elliott's dedication to the production. Elliott went on to play Majella in The Pirate Queen, which opened in Chicago in 2006 before transferring to Broadway in 2007. Her Broadway credits also include Wicked and The Sleeping Beauty and the Beast. Her first film appearance was in the Mel Gibson film What Women Want in 2000, and her first television credit was an episode of Law & Order: Trial by Jury.

In 2009, Elliott was cast as Jane Bingum, the lead character in the Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva, a role she held through the show's sixth and final season in 2014. Producer Craig Zadan described the casting requirements as finding someone capable of handling both comedy and drama in a leading role. Following the pilot, the New York Times described Elliott as convincing and affecting, while the Los Angeles Times characterized her as a stage actress with comic timing and dramatic flexibility. Elliott also contributed vocals to the show's soundtrack, and a compilation album, Drop Dead Diva: Music from the Original Television Series, was released in 2010.

In 2016, Elliott starred opposite Katey Sagal in the CBS comedy pilot Upper Middle Bogan, based on an Australian series, which was not ordered to series. In 2018, she appeared in an ABC comedy pilot created by Bobby Bowman centered on a dysfunctional family dealing with mental illness. In 2019, she was cast in the Netflix romantic drama series Sweet Magnolias as Dana Sue Sullivan, a role she has continued into 2020 and beyond. In 2022, she executive produced and starred in the Lifetime holiday film A Country Christmas Harmony, in which she played a country music superstar.