Melissa Marie Benoist (/bəˈnɔɪst/; born October 4, 1988) is an American actress and singer. She has performed on stage and in television and film. She is known for her portrayal of the titular character in the CBS/CW DC Comics–based superhero drama series Supergirl (2015–present).
Benoist rose to prominence for her portrayal of Marley Rose on the Fox musical comedy-drama television series Glee (2013–2014). She appeared in films such as Whiplash (2014), Danny Collins (2015), The Longest Ride (2015), Patriots Day (2016), Lowriders (2016), and Sun Dogs (2017), and she portrayed David Koresh's wife Rachel Jones in the miniseries Waco (2018).
On stage, Benoist made her Broadway debut in 2018 as Carole King in the jukebox musical Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
Benoist was born in Houston, Texas, to Julie and Jim Benoist, a physician.They divorced when she was young. Her paternal great-grandfather was of French descent.She has two biological sisters: Jessica, a novelist, and Kristina, an ecological scientist, and five half-siblings from her father's remarriage.She was raised mostly by her mother in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, after her parents' separation.
She started dance classes at the age of three, focusing on jazz, ballet, and tap. When she was four years old, her aunt put her in a church play she was directing;after that, she began doing community children's theatre in her hometown.
As a teenager, Benoist performed anonymously at Disneyland in various medleys of musical songs for three summers with the Academy of Theatre Arts, a musical theatre school she was attending, located in Littleton, Colorado, run by Paul Dwyer and Alann Worley. She performed locally in a number of theatrical productions, including A Month in the Country, Cinderella, A Chorus Line, and Bye Bye Birdie at the Town Hall Arts Center, a professional theatre located in the Denver metro area. Instead of attending high school graduation parties, she performed the play Evita with other cast members at the former Country Dinner Playhouse.
In 2006, The Denver Post named Benoist one of Colorado's five "Can't Miss Kids". She graduated from Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, in 2007, and then she moved to New York City to pursue a career in musical theatre. She initially attended Marymount Manhattan College for the BFA musical theatre program but in her sophomore year, she switched majors to straight theatre, due to her admiration for 19th-century Russian plays.She graduated from Marymount Manhattan College with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts in 2011.While attending Marymount Manhattan college, she played the titular characters Millie Dilmount in an urban off-off-Broadway production of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Rosalind in As You Like It at the Theresa Lang Theatre.
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