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For more than a decade, “The Big Bang Theory” was unstoppable ratings monster for CBS as one of the most watched shows of the new millennium to this point. The original cast focused on five main characters, but would pick up some characters that were added to the main cast as the series expanded in popularity. Among them was Bernadette, the squeaky-voiced and bespectacled waitress who was played by Melissa Rauch. The character landed with audiences, and she became a mainstay to solidify Rauch’s career.

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Rauch comes by way of New Jersey, and was born on June 23, 1980 in Marlboro Township, New Jersey where she was also raised. Rauch’s parents weren’t performers, but she knew that she wanted to make a career out of acting. After she finished high school, Rauch did what a lot of acting hopefuls do and made her way to New York City for college. In the early 2000s, she finished up with school and began her career.

“TV was my life, growing up,” Rauch said. “I ran home from school to watch television, and even did my homework with the TV on - my mom had a rule that as long as my grades didn’t fall, I was allowed to. So it was my dream to work in television...I remember watching ‘Three’s Company’ with my parents, and it was time for bed, so I started to make my voice lower like Don Knotts and imitating him. They started laughing, and I didn’t have to go to bed, so that informed a lot.”

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While hoping to become an actress, Rauch took a job with VH1 to become a commentator (or what she called, a “talking head”) on “Best Week Ever”, which turned out to be very popular. She also had a stand-up career that was blooming, getting her more attention. “The thing that stand-up does for you is that it toughens you up a bit as far as the business goes,” she said. “It’s hard. If a joke doesn’t get a laugh, that’s instant rejection. And that’s mostly what this business is most of the time: a lot of rejection.”

This allowed her to land her first acting gig in 2006 in the film “Delirious”, a small budget production with Michael Pitt and Steve Buscemi. The following year, Rauch had her first small screen acting role on the show “12 Miles of Bad Road”, appearing in multiple episodes. 2008 then saw Rauch become a recurring character once again thanks to her role in “Kath & Kim”. One year later, Rauch had her breakout as an actress.

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That’s when Rauch not only appeared in the film “I Love You, Man”, but she also landed the role of Bernadette Rostenkowski on “The Big Bang Theory”. She joined on as a co-worker of Penny (Kaley Cuoco) that ended up in a relationship with Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg). The character became featured more and more throughout their relationship, and Rauch was part of the cast for a decade until the very end with their relationship resulting in marriage.

During her time on “The Big Bang Theory”, rauch had several other television roles, mostly in the voice acting department. This included shows such as “Scooby-Doo!” and “Marvel’s Ant-Man”. As for the big screen, Rauch had live action roles in “Are You Here” and “Flock of Dudes”, with voice acting in “Ice Age: Collision Course” and “Batman and Harley Quinn”. More recently, Rauch has been in “Ode to Joy” and “The Laundromat”, both of which released in 2019, along with an episode of “Black Monday”.

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In real life, Rauch isn’t actually married to Simon Helberg like some “Big Bang” fans might’ve hoped for. Before she even appeared on the show, she had tied the knot with Winston Beigel, who took her last name. The couple married in 2007, and in 2017 had their first child together. They’ve also worked together. “The beautiful thing about writing with the person that you love is that when they come up with an idea that is great, it’s this dual happiness because that’s the partner and that’s such a good idea, and I’m proud of you, and then also I’m really excited for the project.”

Many people will remember Rauch for her Bernadette character, which is obvious since she was playing the role for so long. “Over the years, she’s sort of found her big-girl voice,” Rauch said as the show was wrapping up. “When we originally met her, she didn’t really like kids. She didn’t know how she would interact with them. And it’s been really cool to follow that journey from her not knowing if she even wanted kids to not knowing if she’d be a good mom to the struggle of when she finally did become a mom...And then just the very relatable struggle of having to enter back into the workplace after being home and leaving her kids. And there was some really raw emotion that was an honor to get to play.”

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After becoming a mother, Rauch even got into the world of writing children’s books. In 2019, she released her first book called “The Tales of Tofu” which was about getting children to eat healthy. Things are going quite well for Rauch in both her career and personal life, and it will be interesting to see where the future takes her career after “The Big Bang Theory” came to an end in the same year.