Melissa Rauch, born June 23, 1980, in Marlboro, New Jersey, is a classically trained actress who rose from stand-up comedy and off-Broadway acclaim to become a beloved star on The Big Bang Theory, where she played the unforgettable Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz.
Her breakout came with the one-woman show The Miseducation of Jenna Bush, co-written with husband Winston Beigel, which garnered praise at the New York International Fringe Festival. Joining Big Bang in 2009, her chemistry with Simon Helberg earned her a promotion to series regular by season four, eventually leading to a 2013 Critics’ Choice nomination.
Her high-pitched voice for Bernadette, inspired by her mother, was a deliberate creation, far from her natural tone, as she revealed at PaleyFest. Beyond sitcom fame, Melissa has shown her range in roles from True Blood to voicing Harley Quinn in Batman and Harley Quinn (2017), and since 2023, she’s starred as Judge Abby Stone in NBC’s Night Court revival, reuniting with fellow Big Bang alum Mayim Bialik.