When Ellen Came Out, She Didn’t Just Change Lives. She Saved Them.

Sylvia Green didn’t care about the money. She just wanted to work for Ellen DeGeneres. It was 1996 and Green had left a high-powered job in public relations to pursue a career in television writing. She’d found some work helping out with shows like “The Nanny” and “Mad About You.” But when she was offered the chance to join “Ellen” as a writer’s assistant in 1996, she couldn’t resist. “Ellen,” the sitcom, was at the time just a moderately successful TV show about a somewhat...