Early life
Denbo was born and raised in Swampscott, a coastal suburb north of Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother is originally from Montreal and her father from the Philadelphia area; both were raised in Orthodox Jewish households. An only child, she attended Jewish day school from kindergarten through sixth grade before completing her secondary education in the local public school system. She enrolled at Boston University, where she became involved in improvisational comedy. After leaving Boston, she spent a period performing at the Comedy Warehouse at Disney World's Pleasure Island in Orlando, Florida, before relocating to New York City to pursue her career in earnest.1
Career
In New York, Denbo became a core member of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB), where she trained, performed, and later taught classes in improvisational and sketch comedy for many years.1 She has also performed at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal and the Aspen Comedy Festival.1
The central creative relationship of her early career was her partnership with comedian Jessica Chaffin. In 2006, the two were invited to host an all-Jewish "Kosher Christmas Show" at UCB, and in the process developed the recurring characters Ronna and Beverly: two opinionated, overbearing suburban Jewish women with strong views on everything.2 The Ronna and Beverly act became a long-running UCB stage show, a Showtime comedy special in 2009, and then, from 2011 to 2017, a podcast on the Earwolf network in which the characters interviewed celebrity guests and dispensed advice to listeners.2 After the Earwolf run ended, Denbo continued the concept solo with the Stitcher podcast Beverly in LA, in which the Beverly character relocates to Los Angeles.2
On screen, Denbo first gained wider notice through television guest work and then a recurring role as Maggie Lefferts on the FX crime drama Terriers in 2010.4 She appeared in seven episodes of Netflix's Orange Is the New Black (2014 to 2017) as Shelly Ginsberg, and played the recurring role of Diane McAntee across both seasons of the AMC dark comedy Kevin Can F**k Himself (2021 to 2022), a series that earned considerable critical attention for its formal genre experimentation.4 Additional television credits include Curb Your Enthusiasm and Happy Endings.4
Her film work includes appearances in The Heat (2013) and Spy (2015), both directed by Paul Feig and both featuring Chaffin as well.4 The professional alignment with Feig and Chaffin carried forward into Ghostbusters: Answer the Call in 2016.4
As a writer, Denbo has developed television pilots for IFC, FX, Comedy Central, ABC Family, and CBS.1 She sold the feature screenplay Best Buds to Vendome Pictures in 2010, with Natalie Portman attached. Her most substantial producing credit came with American Princess (2019), a one-hour Lifetime dramedy she created, wrote, produced, and starred in, drawing on her own experiences with the Renaissance Festival circuit.3 The series ran for ten episodes.3 From 2021 onward she joined the writing staff of Grey's Anatomy, rising to co-executive producer by the show's twentieth season.4
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)
Denbo appears in Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016) as a Waitress.4 She was cast alongside her long-time comedy partner Jessica Chaffin, who also plays a Waitress in the film.4 Their dual casting by Paul Feig was a natural extension of the trio's prior working relationship: Feig had directed both Denbo and Chaffin in The Heat (2013) and Spy (2015) before assembling the Ghostbusters reboot.4
Personal life
Denbo has been married to actor and comedian John Ross Bowie since June 5, 2004.1 They have two children together.1
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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Wikipedia, "Jamie Denbo," accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Denbo.
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Wikipedia, "Ronna and Beverly," accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronna_and_Beverly.
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Variety, "'American Princess' Canceled After One Season at Lifetime" (August 29, 2019), https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/american-princess-canceled-lifetime-1203318684/.
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IMDb, "Jamie Denbo," accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0218914/.
