American actress Becki Newton was born on July 4, 1978 in New Haven, Connecticut. She began her acting career in local stage productions, performing in both musical and plays, before she studied at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She eventually graduated with a degree in European History. She then moved to New York City and appeared in several television commercials. In 2001, she made her first television appearance, after receiving a hosting gig in the movie review program Movie Junky, which aired on TBS under the Burly TV banner.
Newton made her screen acting debut in 2003, when she made a guest appearance in the crime drama Cold Case. After appearances in the daytime soap Guiding Light and the sitcom The Men’s Room, she made her film debut, in the romantic comedy P.S. She then played guest roles in American Dreams, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Charmed.
In 2006, Newton grabbed a high-profile television role, in the ABC series Ugly Betty. She plays Amanda Tanen, the attractive receptionist of Mode magazine, who allies with Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams) and her assistant Marc St. James (Michael Urie) in bringing down Betty Suarez (America Ferrera) and her boss Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius). A former actress, Newton’s character spends most of the series discovering her past and looking for her biological father, at one point presuming that she is the daughter of KISS frontman Gene Simmons, only to be proven otherwise. At one point in the series, she also played her character’s own deceased mother Fey Sommers, in some flashback scenes. In 2010, she was cast in the NBC comedy Love Bites.