Melissa Rauch

Melissa Ivy Rauch (/raʊʃ/; born June 23, 1980) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory from 2009 to 2019, for which she was nominated for the Critics Choice Television Award in 2013. She starred in and executive produced 3 seasons of the revival of Night Court.

Rauch's other acting credits include playing Tina on the American remake of Kath & Kim and Summer on the HBO fantasy horror drama True Blood. Rauch also starred in, co-wrote, and co-produced the 2015 sports comedy-drama film The Bronze and provided the voice of DC character Harley Quinn in the 2017 animated film Batman and Harley Quinn. Rauch also had supporting roles in I Love You, Man (2009), Ice Age: Collision Course and Flock of Dudes (both 2016), and Ode to Joy (2019). In 2019, Rauch played Meryl Streep's daughter in the feature film The Laundromat directed by Steven Soderbergh.

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.

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

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. 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.

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.

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. 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". Sony Pictures Classics acquired the film in September 2015.