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Sarah Chalke (pronounced /ˈtʃɔːk/; born August 27, 1976) is a Canadian actress, best known for portraying Dr. Elliot Reid on the NBC/ABC comedy Scrubs. She is also known for her roles "Second Becky" Conner Healy on Roseanne, and Stella Zinman in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.[1]
Chalke was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is the middle of the three daughters of Douglas and Angie Chalke. Her mother is originally from Rostock, Germany. According to a Scrubs commentary track, she used to attend the German school in her hometown twice a week. Her first language is English, although she speaks French fairly well and German fluently. This was later incorporated to her character Elliot Reid in Scrubs, who also speaks German fluently. Chalke graduated from Handsworth Secondary School in North Vancouver in 1994.
Chalke's acting career began at the age of eight when she began appearing in musical theatre productions. At 12, she became a reporter on the Canadian children's show KidZone. In 1993, she took over the role of Rebecca Conner-Healy on Roseanne after Lecy Goranson left the series; she made a cameo appearance as a different character in the Roseanne episode "Halloween: The Final Chapter" (#178, originally aired October 31, 1995). She returned briefly to Canada where she starred in the CBC Television drama Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy (1998–1999).
In 2001, she was cast as Dr. Elliot Reid in the NBC comedy series Scrubs. She has appeared in several feature films, including Ernest Goes to School and Cake. She appeared in Channel 101's The 'Bu with The Lonely Island, a parody of the hit show The O.C., but was credited as "Pamela Fenton". In 2007, she appeared as a supporting character in Chaos Theory, which starred Ryan Reynolds. In 2008, Chalke became the spokesperson for a line of women's underwear by Hanes that included a series of commercials directed by her Scrubs co-star Zach Braff.[2][3] In 2008 and 2009 she made appearances in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother as Stella Zinman. Chalke will star in the upcoming CBS television series Mad Love, set to air as a midseason replacement for the 2010-11 season.[4]
Chalke lost her aunt and grandmother to breast cancer that was undiagnosed while in its early stages. Chalke has since encouraged breast cancer detection and prevention, and starred in the Lifetime movie Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy.[5] She is an ambassador for the Audrey Hepburn Children's Foundation. Chalke also made an appearance in a short video lampooning the National Organization for Marriage's anti-gay marriage public service announcement.[6] She is also the 2009 ambassador for the Susan G. Komen Passionately Pink for the Cure(R) program, for whom she also designed a T-shirt.[7]
She is engaged to lawyer Jamie Afifi, with whom she has a son Charlie Rhodes Afifi, born December 24, 2009.[8][9]
Her father is a lawyer in private practice in Vancouver. Her parents operate an adoption agency that specializes in placing foreign orphans (primarily Chinese) with Canadian families. Her older sister Natasha is also a lawyer, and she has a younger sister named Piper.
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