Roseanne
For the television sitcom, see: Roseanne (TV series). Roseanne (born on
November 3 1952) is an
actress,
writer, talk-show host, and
comedian. She was born
Roseanne Cherrie Barr in
Salt Lake City to a working-class family of Jewish refugees. At times in her career she has been known as
Roseanne Barr,
Roseanne Arnold and
Roseanne Thomas. At current she simply goes by Roseanne.
She married Bill Pentland on
February 4,
1974, and they had three children. (Roseanne had a daughter prior to marriage, whom she gave up for adoption, but this daughter is now back in her life). While taping her show she fell in love with fellow actor
Tom Arnold and in January of
1990 she
divorced Pentland and married Arnold. Four years later this marriage also ended in divorce. She married Ben Thomas on Valentine's Day in
1995 and they had one son, Buck Thomas. In
1998 she sued Thomas for divorce, claiming he had threatened to kidnap their son. The Thomas family later made up and she dropped the charges, but they divorced in 2002.
In a 1991 People magazine interview, she claimed to have been an incest survivor, accusing both parents of physical and sexual abuse, charges which they have publicly denied.
1Roseanne became famous in the early
1980s with her
stand-up comedy routine, which received significant critical acclaim for its unglamorized portrayal of the typical
American middle-class housewife. It was during this routine that she also coined the now well-known phrase "
Domestic goddess," referring to a homemaker. This led to her own series on
ABC, called
Roseanne. The show ran from
1988 to
1997, and co-starred
Emmy winners
Laurie Metcalf and
John Goodman.
A year after the end of her sitcom's run in 1997, she went on to host her own talk show,
The Roseanne Show. The show ran for two years before it was canceled in
2000. In the summer of
2003, she took on the dual role of hosting a cooking show (called
Domestic Goddess) and starring in a
reality show (called
The Real Roseanne Show)
about hosting a cooking show, although an illness and emergency
hysterectomy brought a premature end to both projects.
In 2005, she returned to stand-up comedy, touring the world. Her first kids' DVD,
Rockin' with Roseanne: Calling All Kids, was released in February 2006. She has stated that she is working her way up to another
HBO comedy special.
In February 2006, Roseanne performed her first ever live dates in Europe as part of the Leicester Comedy Festival in
Leicester, England. The shows took place at De Montfort Hall.
Roseanne will open for
Cici Pham during Pham's comedy tour of Asia.
Barr was also known for her brash off-screen persona. Of note was the heavily publicized and controversial occasion on which she performed the "
Star Spangled Banner" before a
baseball game in
San Diego, California, on
July 25,
1990. After being told by baseball officials to "bring humor to the song," she mimicked the behaviour of players by spitting and grabbing her crotch; barely singing the song, she instead screeched and screamed it. She was booed off the field.
Barr told James Rampton of the London
Independent that fame went to her head. Barr, who worked as a waitress in Utah, gained fame quickly from her sitcom and she lost touch with reality, suddenly finding others taking care of her household responsibilities. "I was in a sound studio for almost a decade. At the end of it, like
Rip van Winkle, I came back and found that everything had changed. Suddenly there were computers and e-mails, and it took me another 10 years to catch up with regular people. But the TV show is over. What am I going to do? I can't boss people around anymore - sad but true." So Barr went back to stand-up comedy but with a notably different appearance: she has lost weight, dyed her hair blonde, and had
plastic surgery, which she does not recommend. "Now I realize that everyone has to get old and die, but it was still a very bad experience....No one looks better after plastic surgery. Just pink and shiny. At the end of it, you look like an idiot."
Home on the Range (
2004) Voice of Maggie
Futurama (2003) Voice of (a hologram of) Herself
*15 Minutes (2001) Herself
*Cecil B. Demented (2000) Herself
*The Eyes of Tammy Faye
(2000) Herself--Entertainer
*Meet Wally Sparks
(1997)
*Blue in the Face (1995) Dot
*Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1994) Madame Zoe
*The Woman Who Loved Elvis
(1993)
*Backfield in Motion
(1991)
*Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) Childless Woman
*Look Who's Talking Too (1990) Voice of Julie
*She-Devil (1989) Ruth Patchett
*Roseanne'' (
1988 -
1997)
*
RoseanneWorld.com*
Roseanne's surgical weight loss procedure discussed in-depth in archived radio show*
Independent interview
