Becki Newton

After graduating from Guilford High School, Newton studied abroad in Europe and South America, before earning a degree in European history from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000. With the help of her brother, actor Matt Newton, she moved to New York City to pursue her acting career, staking out a niche playing so-called nice girls in commercials and in episodic television. After landing a hosting gig on the TBS celebrity interview show "Movie Junky," she made her first small screen appearance was on the pilot episode of "Cold Case" (CBS, 2003- ), playing the best friend of a girl murdered in 1976. She followed up with a two-episode arc in the 1960s-set drama "American Dreams" (NBC, 2002-05), then appeared in the season seven finale of "Charmed" (WB, 1998-2006). She landed her first regular series role as the bitchy receptionist who gives a hard time to an unattractive, but cheerfully efficient and enterprising young secretary (America Ferrera) at a high-end fashion magazine in the ABC hit, "Ugly Betty" (2006- ).