5 things you may not know about 'Modern Family' star Sofia Vergara

One of Vergara's earliest success secrets started with being able to recognize what would get her ahead. And, ironically, it started with her head. Known now for her flowing brunette locks, Vergara is a natural blonde. She made the switch to a darker do because it was more marketable in Hollywood.

"I'm a natural blonde, like my siblings," Vergara told Parade.

"When I started auditioning for American acting roles, they didn't know where to put me," she continued. "A blonde Latina? In LA, they're used to Latin women looking more Mexican. But if you go to Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, everybody is blonde."

After high school, Vergara studied to be a dentist.

"I didn't want to be an actress. I wanted to be a dentist, but you never know what life will bring you," she told the New York Daily News. "But I can't complain, I'm happy with what I've achieved."

Her career path would forever be altered one day at the beach.

"I was 17. I was at the beach with my parents and some scout asked to take a Polaroid of me," Vergara told E! of the pivotal moment.

Her first big job was in a 1992 Pepsi commercial.

At 18, Vergara wed Joe Gonzalez, whom she described to Parade as her "high-school sweetheart, the only one." A year later, they had a son, Manolo. But things didn't work out between the couple, and a year later when Vergara was 20, they divorced.

Vergara raised Manolo as a single mother, and he's now 26 years old and has his own modeling career.

Vergara has also found a new love in the "True Blood" and "Magic Mike" actor Joe Manganiello, whom she married in November 2015.

Early in her career, Vergara realized that there was a need for better representation of Latin American talent. In 1994, she cofounded a management company with her own manager, Luis Balaguer, called Latin World Entertainment or LWE.

In the more than two decades since, LWE has become the biggest Latin American talent management company in the US. Vergara and Balaguer have also evolved it into a multi-million-dollar media empire that allows them to package their talent (including Vergara) in projects for some big clients, including Disney, Paramount, and Diet Pepsi.

As she was climbing her way to the top, Vergara was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2000. Though she kept it secret then, the actress went public with her story in 2011.

"I didn't want publicity because of that," she told Health. "Having cancer is not fun. You don't want to deal with anything else while you're going through it."

That was nine years before she joined "Modern Family" and when she only had commercials and telenovelas on her résumé. She underwent surgery and treatment to beat the illness. But even today, Vergara continues to take thyroid hormones.

"I take a Synthroid pill every morning," she said. "It controls your body's metabolism and gives you the levels that you need. An unregulated thyroid can lead to problems with your weight, hair loss, and other things, so they give me a blood test every three months to see where my level is. Actually, I feel very lucky. In a lot of women, the cancer isn't found until around menopause — and by then its too late."