Best known as Regis' perky morning co-host (and Kathie-Lee Gifford's replacement) on Live! With Regis and Kelly. Regis recently retired in 2011 and Ripa has been conducting interviews and playing zany games without her 80-year-old partner ever since.

Ripa got her start on a local Philadelphia dance show called Dancin' On Air, but her first recurring TV role came in 1990, as Hayley Vaughan on soap opera favorite, All My Children. When Kathie Lee announced that she was leaving Regis' side in 2001, Ripa was picked as her replacement and worked on both shows at the same time. She left All my Children in 2002, but was quickly back to balancing two shows when she co-starred with Faith Ford on Hope & Faith, a short-lived ABC sitcom. Though she and Regis initially seemed like an incompatible duo, viewers enjoyed the dynamic between them, and, with the addition of Ripa, the show saw its highest ratings since its 1983 debut. After Oprah abdicated the television throne in 2011, Live! has been rated the most-watched daytime talk show in the US. Since Regis' departure, Ripa has sat alongside a slew of potential new co-hosts, including Josh Groban, Neil Patrick Harris, Mario Lopez, and Jerry Seinfeld.

Between her work on soaps and her hosting abilities, Ripa has been nominated for 8 Daytime Emmy Awards; she and Regis finally won in 2011 for Outstanding Talk Show Hosts. Her impressive award-winning doesn't stop there: Ripa is the recipient of 5 Soap Opera Digest Awards.

Ripa has been married to actor Mark Consuelos since 1996; the two met on the set of All My Children in 1995 and eloped a year later. They have three kids: Michael, Lola, and Joaquin. [Image via Getty]