Sofía Margarita Vergara Vergara (; born July 10, 1972) is a Colombian and American actress and model. Vergara rose to prominence while co-hosting two television shows for Spanish-language television network Univision in the late 1990s. Her first notable acting job in English was in the film Chasing Papi (2003). She subsequently appeared in Four Brothers (2005) and Tyler Perry's comedies Meet the Browns (2008) and Madea Goes to Jail (2009), receiving an ALMA Award nomination for the latter. In 2009, she began playing Gloria Delgado-Pritchett in the ABC comedy series Modern Family for which she was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and eleven Screen Actors Guild Awards. Vergara has also had roles in the films The Smurfs (2011), New Year's Eve (2011), The Three Stooges (2012), Machete Kills (2013), Fading Gigolo (2013), Chef (2014), and Hot Pursuit (2015). She also had voice-over roles in the animated films Happy Feet Two (2011), Escape from Planet Earth (2013), and The Emoji Movie (2017). Since 2020, Vergara has been a judge on America's Got Talent. Early life Vergara was born to a Roman Catholic family in Barranquilla. Her mother, Margarita Vergara de Vergara, was a homemaker, and her father, Julio Enrique Vergara Robayo, was a cattle rancher for the meat industry. She was nicknamed "Toti" by her five siblings and many cousins. Vergara initially studied dentistry for three years at National University of Colombia, but she left two semesters away from completing her degree to pursue opportunities in modeling and show business. In 1998, her older brother Rafael was murdered in Colombia during an attempt to kidnap him. Not wanting to be caught in the unrest that resulted in the murder, Vergara emigrated to the United States, settling in Miami, Florida. Her cousin and adopted sister, Sandra, is also a television actress in the United States. Career Vergara was discovered by a photographer while walking on a beach in Colombia, and she was quickly presented with offers of modeling and television work. She was "apprehensive about doing her first television commercial—until her Catholic schoolteachers gave her their personal permission to take the assignment." She made her first appearance, aged 17, in a Pepsi commercial aired in Latin America. She then began studies at the Creative Workshops School of Acting, where Gloria Estefan also trained. In 2011, Vergara was named the face of CoverGirl, with the first advertisements appearing