• September 15, 1997
• Vol. 48
• No. 11

Speaking Out

Ellen DeGeneres's Mom Becomes a Gay Activist

LAST APRIL, WHEN ELLEN DEGENERES exploded out of the closet—revealing that she and actress Anne Heche were lovers the same month that her character on the ABC sitcom Ellen declared she was gay on TV—nobody was more supportive than her mother. "It was so exciting," says Betty DeGeneres, 67, an L.A. speech pathologist, of the show's milestone taping, which she attended. "People said they could just see the difference in Ellen. She was blossoming."

So is Betty. On Sept. 8, she will publicly endorse National Coming Out Day (Oct. 11) as the first heterosexual spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign—the country's largest national lesbian and gay political organization. "She's the kind of mom gay people dream of," says Elizabeth Birch, HRC's executive director, who wanted to offer DeGeneres the job after seeing her beam at the Ellen taping. "She's a role model for parents."

Becoming one wasn't easy. Betty (who was divorced from Ellen's father, Elliott, an insurance salesman, in 1970, and was also divorced from her second husband, now deceased, in 1990) first learned her then-19-year-old daughter's secret 20 years ago during a beach walk. "I was shocked," she recalls. Ellen's brother Vance, 42, a TV writer and musician who lives in L.A., accepted the news readily, but his mom cried and pored over library books on homosexuality. "I worried about who would take care of Ellen," she says. "I'm of the generation where you got married. Period."

But, as her daughter matured, Betty's fears gradually dissolved. "It's been a real joy to see how eminently capable Ellen has been," she says. "She's buying houses, doing whatever has to be done. And being really happy with her life." Betty says she wants to use her new job to help the parents of gay children "to just accept that there are differences. We're not all alike."