Sofia Margharita Vergara is a Columbian American actress, producer, television host, model and businesswoman. Vergara was born in Barranquilla, Colombia. She was given the nickname Toti by her five brothers and sisters and many cousins. Vergara attended Marymount School Barranquilla, a private bilingual Spanish/English school. Vergara initially studied dentistry at a university in Colombia, but left two semesters shy of her degree to pursue opportunities in modeling and show business. Vergara was widely known for co-hosting two television shows for Spanish-language television network Univisin in the late 1990s. Her first notable acting job in English was in the film Chasing Papi (2003). Subsequently, she appeared in other films, including Four Brothers (2005) and two Tyler Perry films Meet the Browns (2008) and Tyler Perry`s Madea Goes To Jail (2009), receiving an ALMA Award nomination for the latter.

Vergara`s success on television has earned her roles in recent films The Smurfs (2011), New Year`s Eve (2011), Happy Feet Two (2011), The Three Stooges (2012), Escape from Planet Earth (2013), Machete Kills (2013), Chef (2014), Wild Card (2015), Hot Pursuit (2015) and The Emoji Movie (2017). Vergara stars on the ABC series Modern Family as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, for which she has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2014, she was ranked as the 32nd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.