Alex Borstein

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Alexandria Borstein (born February 15, 1971 in Chicago, Illinois, USA) is an American actress, voice actress, writer and comedian. She is of Polish, Russian, Hungarian and Mongolian descent.

As a child in the early '80's, Alex and her family moved to Southern California. She later moved to San Francisco where she attended San Francisco State University. She took a job at an ad agency where she wrote print ads for Barbie.

She started improv classes with the ACME Comedy Theater where she met both her writing partner and her future husband. Alex and her writing partner began to work on the animated series Casper. Shortly after, she left her ad job to become a full time writer. In 1996, while still writing for Casper, Alex worked on the popular TV show Power Rangers Zeo, where she provided the voice of Queen Machina, the queen of the Machine Empire. In 1997 Alex became a cast member on the sketch comedy show MADtv. She is best known for playing Miss Swan, which was based on a combination of the singer Björk and her real life grandmother who was Hungarian-Mongolian.

During her time on MADtv she met Seth MacFarlane who was starting a FOX animated sit-com, Family Guy. Alex started providing the voice of Lois and various others. Alex became engaged to be married when her boyfriend Jackson Douglas proposed to her during the taping of a MADtv skit. She was married in 1999.

In 2000 Alex won the role of "Sookie St. James" in the WB show Gilmore Girls. In the original pilot she played Sookie’s role but was unable to continue once the show was picked up because she was still under contract for MADtv. She was replaced by Melissa McCarthy. Alex instead guest starred in several episodes as the harpist, Drella, in season one. She returned in seasons three and five to play Miss Celine, a middle-aged celebrity fashion advisor. Alex’s husband, Jackson Douglas stars on Gilmore Girls as Jackson Melville, Sookie's husband.

Alex left MADtv in 2002, the same year Family Guy was cancelled from the FOX lineup. Family Guy however returned in 2005 and Alex now remains on as a producer and primary staff writer for the show where she also provides the voices of Lois and various others.

Since Alex left MADtv she has appeared playing roles such the principal in The Lizzie McGuire Movie, the best friend of Halle Berry in Catwoman, and an employee at CBS News in Good Night, and Good Luck.

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Trivia

Her then boyfriend, Jackson, made a marriage proposal during a skit on MadTV.
Her production company is called Crackerpants, Inc..
Her school bus driver was John Malkovich.
She is 5' (1.52 m) tall.
She has made at least three guest appearances on Drawn Together, once as Lois Griffin.
In an episode of Family Guy entitled Don't Make Me Over, an animated version of a character she used to play on MadTV named Ms. Swan made a brief appearance, and was voiced by her as well.