disappearing act; How did Portia de Rossi withstand the pressures of Hollywood.

Byline: Jonathan Van Meter

This is how it goes: Your father dies when you are nine, and your mother struggles to raise you and your brother alone, putting the two of you through boarding school on a secretary's salary. You start modeling at eleven, for which you learn to take the train by yourself into the big city from the town where you grew up. On the way home from harrowing days of go-sees and auditions, you reward yourself with food. Sometimes you eat an entire box of cookies during the hour-long trip. By the time you are fourteen, you have had every part of your body analyzed and judged by agents and photographers as if you weren't standing right there, ...