Biography of Sofia Vergara

Sofía Margarita Vergara (born July 10, 1972, in Barranquilla, Atlántico, Colombia) is a Colombian actress and glamour model.

Vergara was widely known for co-hosting two television shows for Spanish-language television network Univisión in the late 1990s. Her first notable acting job in English was in the film Chasing Papi (2003). Subsequently, she appeared in other films, including Four Brothers (2005) and two Tyler Perry films - Meet the Browns (2008) and Madea Goes to Jail (2009), receiving an ALMA Award nomination for the latter. Vergara's success on television has earned her roles in recent films The Smurfs (2011), New Year's Eve (2011), Happy Feet Two (2011), The Three Stooges (2012), Escape from Planet Earth (2013) and Machete Kills (2013). In 2012 and 2013, she was the top-earning actress on US television.

Vergara starred on the ABC-TV sitcom series Modern Family as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, for which she has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2014, she was ranked as the 32nd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.

"La Toti" was the nickname given to Vergara by her five brothers and sisters and many cousins, including television news anchor and reporter Carlos Vergara, who currently works for WTVJ in Miami, Florida. She grew up on her father's farm in Colombia, where for recreation and exercise, she liked to swim in a river and ride horses. She came from a moderately well-off family in Colombia and was sent to private bilingual (Spanish/English) schools there, including elementary school. She got married at the age of 18, and she gave birth to her son Manolo in 1991 at the age of 19. The marriage did not last very long, and then she studied dentistry at a college in Colombia for three years.

Vergara was discovered by a photographer while walking a Colombian beach. Soon, she was presented with attractive offers in modeling and TV work, and followed that course. She made her first public appearance at the age of 17 in a Pepsi commercial that was widely telecast all over Latin America. Considering that she had a son, mother, and younger siblings who needed her financial support in the absence of her father, who had departed the family, gave her further impetus to drop out of college and go to work where she could earn good wages.