Kelly Ripa

Kelly Ripa (born October 2, 1970) is a Daytime Emmy Award winning American actress, television personality, and talk show host. Since February 2001, she has served as the co-host of Live with Regis and Kelly, along with Regis Philbin. Earlier in her career, Ripa played Hayley Vaughan Santos for 12 years on the soap opera All My Children; she also played Faith Fairfield on Hope & Faith. Both are television series on ABC.

Kelly Ripa was born in Camden County, New Jersey, the daughter of Esther, a homemaker, and Joseph Ripa, a labor union president and bus driver. Ripa's father has been a freeholder for Camden County, New Jersey since January 2004. Ripa attended Berlin Community School in Berlin, NJ, and then attended Eastern High School in Voorhees Township, New Jersey. She performed in high school plays and was discovered while performing in a play during her senior year of high school, The Ugly Duckling. Ripa acted in local theater and was a featured regular on USA Network's Dance Party USA – an afternoon teen music program. Ripa's first television exposure came when she appeared as a regular dancer on the show Dance Party USA. She acquired her first major acting role in 1990 as goth teen turned suffering heroine Hayley Vaughan on the soap opera All My Children. While there, the character would become a popular fixture.

In June 2004, Kelly Ripa agreed to continue as Live co-host for at least five more years, at a salary that the tabloid television show Extra reported was $8 million/year. In October 2006, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Ripa and her husband Mark Consuelos, also an actor, were partnering with producers from Hope & Faith on a sitcom for The CW Television Network that would be loosely based on the couple's experiences as soap opera actors.