Betty DeGeneres

She is born on January twenty-sixth, nineteen fifty-eight in Metairie, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans.

Her mother, Betty, works.

Her father sells insurance.

Her older brother, Vance, is the funny one.

Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, Gina Gershon.

There are more news crews on the lot than there are for most film premieres.

And in the airport scene, sitting among the extras, is Betty DeGeneres, Ellen's mother, there to be in the room when her daughter says it.

Ellen has been famous in the writers' room for promising big guest stars and then not quite delivering them.