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Roseanne Teresa O'Donnell (born March 21, 1962) is
an Irish-American comedian, actress, and talk show
host.

She was born in Commack, New York (Long Island).
Her brother, Daniel O'Donnell, is a member of the
New York legislature.

==Biography==
Rosie O'Donnell attended Dickinson College and
furthered her education in Boston.  Later
O'Donnell began her acting career doing stand-up
comedy around the East Coast, and was soon cast as
Maggie O'Brien on the sitcom Gimme a Break. Her
heavy-set appearance and tomboyish, husky New York
accent stood her apart from other actresses and
comediennes. She hosted the VH1 stand-up comedy
series Stand-Up Spotlight in the late 1980s, and
eventually was cast as the lead in her own sitcom
in 1992, called Stand by Your Man. It was quickly
cancelled from lack of viewers.

In the early 1990s O'Donnell starred in a string
of comedy films including A League of Their Own,
Another Stakeout and Sleepless in Seattle. She was
highly acclaimed for her performances, but quickly
lost that popularity by appearing in a string of
flops in the mid 1990s such as Car 54, Where Are
You? and Exit to Eden.

Her popularity then rose again as she took roles
in less commercially successful but highly
acclaimed films like Now and Then (1995 movie)|Now
and Then, Beautiful Girls and the family movie
Harriet the Spy. In 1996 she was given her own
daytime talk show, called, appropriately enough,
The Rosie O'Donnell Show. The show proved
extremely successful as O'Donnell was dubbed "The
Queen of Nice." Having all manner of entertainment
performers on her show, she also brought on
various charitable projects, earning millions of
dollars for various charities.

Children's charities were a clear favorite of
O'Donnell, and she began to adopt children to
raise, eventually adopting four. During the late
1990s she limited her movie appearances to cameos,
although she appeared in several gay-themed films.
This led to tabloid speculation that O'Donnell was
actually a lesbian.

In the year 2000 O'Donnell partnered with the
publishers of McCall's to revamp the magazine as
Rosie's McCall's (or, more commonly, Rosie).
Rather than cover the magazine with thin models
and fill it with stories about how to be more
beautiful, she opted for stories about Clinical
depression|depression, breast cancer and foster
care. In this, she continued her tradition of
standing up for what she believed in.

In 2002 O'Donnell decided to stop working on her
talk show, favoring a return to stand-up comedy.
Her show, which was to still be called The Rosie
O'Donnell Show, was to be hosted by comedienne
Caroline Rhea (It only lasted a few more
episodes). Just before quitting, O'Donnell proved
rumors to be true when she coming out|came out of
the closet as a lesbian (In fact, within the gay
community this was common knowledge and the
tabloids had been hinting at it). She had various
reasons for doing so, including the need to put a
familiar and beloved face with homosexuality, but
her primary reason was more important. As a
lesbian adoptive mother (with a long-time lover)
she was infuriated that adoption agencies,
particularly in Florida, were refusing adoptive
rights to able and loving gay parents. She hoped
to educate viewers around the world on this
subject.

After leaving her show and coming out, O'Donnell
underwent an image change. She returned to
stand-up comedy, and within her first few shows
made fun of various celebrities (among them
Michael Jackson, Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross, Martha
Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, Winona Ryder, and Joan
Rivers). She also received what was considered by
many to be an unflattering, somewhat masculine
haircut (remniscent of Cyndi Lauper's hair in the
1980s.) The tabloid press again picked up on her
life, claiming that she had abandoned the "queen
of nice" image. O'Donnell pointed out that her
stand-up routine had always been very political
and abrasive, and that her haircut was a personal
choice.  She eventually claimed that she had cut
her hair in imitation of Boy George, in hopes that
he would allow her to produce his stage show Taboo
in the United States.  If that was the true
motive, she was successful (though the show was
not, with a failed run on Broadway
theatre|Broadway.)

In 2002 O'Donnell also published a novel entitled
Find Me. The book was partially autobiographical
but mostly centered around O'Donnell's
relationship with a schizophrenic woman who posed
as a teen who had become pregnant through rape.
The book was uniformly praised by critics but did
not achieve high sales.

In late 2003 O'Donnell entered into a massive
legal battle with the publishers of Rosie
magazine. They claim that the fall of the magazine
(and its eventual shutdown) was due to O'Donnell's
uncooperative (and allegedly rude and violent)
behavior at the magazine's offices. They claim
that by removing herself from the magazine's
publication she was in breach of contract.
O'Donnell claims that there was no way she could
conscionably continue to be a part of the magazine
because they were steering away from her vision
and demanding that content be printed that she did
not agree with.

The trial received massive press coverage.
O'Donnell would often give brief press interviews
outside of the courtroom responding to various
allegations. Of note was a former magazine
colleague who testified that O'Donnell said to her
on the phone that "people who lie die of cancer."

On February 26, 2004, O'Donnell married her
partner Kelli Carpenter, a former Nickelodeon (TV
channel)|Nickelodeon marketing executive in San
Francisco, California|San Francisco, some two
weeks after that city began granting marriage
licenses to same-sex marriage|same-sex couples.
Her decision to marry Carpenter came after
O'Donnell blasted George W. Bush|President Bush
over his support for the Federal Marriage
Amendment.  The Same-sex marriage in
California|license was later voided by the
California Supreme Court.

In 2005, while promoting her TV movie Riding the
Bus with My Sister, O'Donnell claimed that Kirstie
Alley was much heavier than her "210 lbs." (95 kg)
and that she "wasn't being honest about her
weight". 

She and her wife Kelli are currently operating R.
Family Vacations, a travel company focused toward
gay and lesbian families. They have already
launched a cruise ship that took homosexual
families from New York to the Bahamas. 

O'Donnell continues to entertain and remains a
popular pop culture icon, and an important
celebrity representative of the gay and lesbian
community.

In December 2004, O'Donnell began maintaining a
weblog at http://onceadored.blogspot.com/
onceadored.blogspot.com with the title
formerlyrosie, until it moved to
http://www.rosie.com/ Rosie.com in April 2005.

Rosie and her family now divide their time in
homes on the Hudson River in South Nyack, New York
and in Southern Florida.

==Return to Film==
Rosie O'Donnell returned to films in 2005 with her
self-produced TV movie Riding the Bus with My
Sister. Her performance, as a mentally retarded
Beth Smith, was acclaimed by critics and put her
on the short list for the 2006 Emmy Award
nominations for Best Actress in a TV Motion
Picture or Miniseries. She expressed doubts during
filming that this role may 'typecast her forever'
in mentally retarded roles, which until this
point, she had avoided.

==TV Work==
*Gimme a Break! (cast member from 1986-1987)
*Stand-Up Spotlight (1988-1991)
*Stand by Your Man (1992) (canceled after 2
months)
*The Rosie O'Donnell Show (1996-2002) (also
producer and executive producer)
*The Twilight of the Golds (1997)
*Jackie's Back! (1999) (Cameo)
*Riding the Bus with My Sister (2005) (also
executive producer)

==Theatre Work==
*Grease (1994)
*Seussical (2001) (replacement for David Shriner)
*Fiddler on the Roof (2004) (replacement for
Andrea Martin in 2005)

== Filmography ==
*A League of Their Own (1992)
*Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
*Another Stakeout (1993)
*Fatal Instinct (1993)
*Car 54, Where Are You? (1994)
*I'll Do Anything (1994)
*The Flintstones (1994)
*Exit to Eden (1994)
*Now and Then (1995 movie)|Now and Then (1995)
*Beautiful Girls (1995)
*Harriet the Spy (1996)
*A Very Brady Sequel (1996) (Cameo)
*Wide Awake (1998)
*Get Bruce (1999) (documentary)
*Tarzan (1999) (voice)
*The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000) (voice
only)
*Artists and Orphans: A True Drama (2001) (short
subject) (narrator)
*Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) (Cameo)
*Last Party 2000 (2001) (documentary)
*The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch (2005)
(documentary)
*Show Business (2005) (documentary)
*Pursuit of Equality (2005) (documentary)
*Untitled Rosie O'Donnell Documentary (2005)
(documentary) (also executive producer) (currently
filming)

== Bibliography ==

* Find Me (2002)

== External links ==

* imdb name|id=0005280|name=Rosie O'Donnell
* ibdb name|id=74916|name=Rosie O'Donnell
*
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/
02/26/SAMESEX27.TMP Article on O'Donnell's
marriage in San Francisco
*http://www.jumptheshark.com/r/rosie.htm Jump The
Shark com - The Rosie O'Donnell Show 
*http://www.rosie.com/ Her blog