Sara Gilbert

  Sara Gilbert (born Sara Rebecca Abeles 29 January 1975) is an American actor, director, and producer known for her role as Darlene Conner on the ABC sitcom Roseanne (1988-1997 and 2018), for which she was awarded two Primetime Emmy Award nominations, as well as its spin-off, The Conners (2018-present). She is also creator and former co-host of The Talk, the CBS daytime talk show The Talk and had a recurring role as Leslie Winkle on CBS's The Big Bang Theory. Gilbert was born Sara Rebecca Abeles in Santa Monica, California,the daughter of Barbara Cowan (nee Crane) and Harold Abeles. Both parents were Jewish. Her maternal grandfather was The Honeymooners creator Harry Crane. Gilbert is the half-sister of four siblings who are older. Melissa Gilbert and Jonathan Gilbert were her siblings from her mother's side. They were both stars on Little House on the Prairie. Sara Gilbert took the name Gilbert from Paul Gilbert in 1984. Gilbert also has two siblings on her father's side, sister Patrice and brother Joseph.Gilbert graduated from Yale University in 1997, with honors, majoring in art with an emphasis on photography.Following appearances in television movies and a commercial for Kool-Aid, at 13 she landed the role of Darlene Conner, the sarcastic middle child, in Roseanne. Gilbert was a member of the cast during the show's nine-year run (1988-97) during she wrote a fourth-season episode (the teleplay was written by the Guild Writers for the show) called "Don't Let Me Down." Her contribution was considered as so significant to Roseanne that producers had to manage stories and tape schedules so that she could study at Yale University while remaining in the cast. She also shot remote segments of Darlene at a soundstage in New York.