Melissa Rauch

Rauch was born to David and Susan Rauch in Marlboro Township, New Jersey. She developed an interest in acting at a young age. After seeing her first Broadway shows with her family, she would try to recreate them in her basement for hours at a time. Rauch earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting and graduated from Marymount Manhattan College in New York City in 2002.^[2]

Some of Rauch's early work was as a regular contributor to VH1's Best Week Ever television show.^[3]

In 2009, Rauch began playing the recurring role of Bernadette Rostenkowski, a co-worker of Penny's at The Cheesecake Factory who began to date Howard Wolowitz, in the third season of CBS's The Big Bang Theory.^[4] The following season, her character became Howard's fiancée, and Rauch was promoted to a series regular. The characters married in the season five finale. In December 2011, Rauch and fellow cast members of The Big Bang Theory received the first of six nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.^[5][6][7][8]

Other acting credits include True Blood (in which she had a recurring role in 2010 as Summer, a girl who likes Hoyt), The Office, the American remake of the Australian TV series Kath & Kim, Wright v Wrong, and the film I Love You, Man.

Rauch is also part of the comedic stage show The Realest Real Housewives cast with Casey Wilson, June Diane Raphael, Jessica St. Clair and Danielle Schneider. The show began running at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in 2011.^[9]

Rauch co-wrote and co-produced the film The Bronze, in which she starred as Hope Ann Greggory, a bronze medal-winning gymnast clinging to her glory days of 12 years earlier. It opened the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.^[10] Variety said: "Rauch, who co-wrote the screenplay with her husband Winston, has never carried a film before. But she delivers the best breakthrough comedic performance by an actress since Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids".^[10] Sony Pictures Classics acquired the film in September 2015.^[11]

In 2017, Rauch voiced Harley Quinn in the animated film Batman and Harley Quinn^[12] and she voiced Light Thief in "Light Riders" from Blaze and the Monster Machines.

She starred in the Night Court revival series playing Judge Abby Stone, the daughter of Judge Harold T. Stone and Gina Stone from the original Night Court series.^[13] Season 1 premiered on NBC on January 17, 2023, and was co-produced by Rauch and her husband Winston Rauch, in association with Warner Bros. Television Studios and Universal Television. The show was cancelled after 3 seasons.^[14]

Rauch is married to writer Winston Rauch (né Biegel),^[15] who collaborated with her on The Miss Education of Jenna Bush and other projects.^[16] They have been married since 2007 and have two children, a daughter born in 2017 and a son born in 2020.^[16][17] She announced her 2017 pregnancy by writing an essay in Glamour, where she reflected on a miscarriage she had previously suffered.^[18]

The voices she uses for portraying the character Bernadette on The Big Bang Theory were inspired by experiences growing up in a "house of screamers". She usually portrays Bernadette using a "sweet, high-pitched purr", and switches to an "eerie, haranguing imitation" of Mrs. Wolowitz in interactions with Mrs. Wolowitz.^[19] Both are "very different" from Rauch's real voice.^[20]