ROSEANNE BARR Roseanne Arnold; Roseanne). Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., 3 November 1952. Married: 1) Bill Pentland, 1974 (divorced 1989), children: Jessica, Jennifer, Brandi, and Jake; 2) Tom Arnold, 1990 (divorced 1994); 3) Ben Thomas, 1994. Cocktail waitress in Denver and comedy performer in local clubs; The Comedy Store in Los Angeles, California, 1985; performed in television special Funny, 1985; performances on The Tonight Show; appeared in HBO special Rodney Dangerfield--It's Not Easy Bein' Me, 1986; starred in HBO special The Roseanne Barr Show, 1987; star of television series Roseanne since 1988; co-executive producer of The Jackie Thomas Show, 1993-94; starred in motion pictures since 1989. Recipient: Cable Ace Awards for funniest female in comedy, 1987, Best Comedy Special, 1987; Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, 1993. Address: Full Moon & High Tide Productions, 4024 Radford Ave., Dressing Rooms 916-917, Studio City, California 90614.

TELEVISION SERIES

1988- Roseanne
1993-94 Jackie Thomas Show (co-producer)

MADE-FOR-TELEVISION MOVIES

1991 Backfield In Motion
1993 The Woman Who Loved Elvis

TELEVISION SPECIALS

1985 Funny
1986 Rodney Dangerfield - It's Not Easy Bein' Me
1987 Dangerfield's
1987 On Location: The Rosanne Barr Show
1990 Mary Hart Presents Love In the Public Eye
1992 The Rosey and Buddy Show (voice; co-producer)
1992 Class Clowns

FILMS

She-Devil, 1989; Look Who's Talking Too (voice), 1990; Freddy's Dead, 1991; Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, 1994

PUBLICATIONS

Roseanne: My Life as a Woman. New York: Harper and Row, 1989.

"What Am I, a Zoo?" The New York Times, 31 July 1989.

"I Am an Incest Survivor: A Star Cries Incest." People (New York), 7 October 1991.

My Lives. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.

Roseanne (nee Roseanne Barr, formerly Roseanne Arnold) is the star of the situation comedy Roseanne, for several years the most highly rated program on American television and the centerpiece of ABC comedy programming. She is also one of the more controversial and outspoken television stars of the 1980s and 1990s. Her public statements, appearances on celebrity interview shows and feature articles about her life in magazines and tabloid newspapers often overshadow her work on the television show.

Roseanne's career did not begin in network dramatic television. In the mid-1980s, she starred in two HBO comedy specials and in the feature film She-Devil with Meryl Streep. When she did create the series character, it was based on her own comic persona, a brash, loudmouthed, working class mother and wife who jokes and mocks the unfairness of her situation and who is especially blunt about her views of men and sexism. Her humor aggressively attacks whomever and whatever would denigrate fat poor women--husbands, family and friends, the media, or government welfare policies. She has written two books about her life, Roseanne: My Life As a Woman and My Lives, and has often stated that her life experiences are the basis for the TV character and her comedy. Critics have described the persona as a classic example of the "unruly" woman who challenges gender and class stereotypes in her performances.

Roseanne's published self-disclosures provide a detailed public record of her life. She grew up in Salt Lake City in a working class Jewish family she has defined as "dysfunctional," a description that includes assertions of having been sexually molested by family members. A high school dropout, she reports getting married while still in her teens in order to get away from her family. She worked as a waitress and according to People magazine, began her comedy by being rude to her customers. Her career as a standup comic began in Denver, where her club appearances gained a following among the local feminist and gay communities. She toured nationally on the comedy club circuit and made well-received appearances on late night talk shows before starring in her own comedy specials on HBO. In 1986, the Carsey-Werner Company approached her with a proposal for developing a situation comedy based on the standup routines. The show would be an antidote to the upper middle class wholesomeness of the previous Carsey-Werner hit, The Cosby Show. The popularity of her sitcom, which first aired in the fall of 1988, has broadened the audience for Roseanne as a public persona and greatly increased her power within show business (she has been compared to Lucille Ball in this regard). But there have been missteps.

One highly publicized gaffe was her off-key performance of the national anthem at a professional baseball game, a performance that ended with a crude gesture. Still, the resulting flurry of outraged criticism from public officials and in the media did not diminish the popularity of the show. In another exercise of industry clout, she threatened to move Roseanne to a different network when ABC decided to cancel the low-rated The Jackie Thomas Show, which starred her then-husband Tom Arnold. The threat created real jitters among network executives until it was discovered that she did not own the rights to the show--only Carsey-Werner could make such a decision. Roseanne has also pushed boundaries by having her series take a number of risks by raising issues of gender, homosexuality, and family dysfunction. The forthrightness of these dramatic moments is rare in primetime sitcoms and despite their frankness, the series continues to appeal to a wide segment of the viewing audience.

The show's treatment of such charged issues is consistent with Roseanne's stated political and social views. While she does not write the scripts (for a time, then-husband Arnold was heavily involved in writing), she retains a good deal of artistic control. Many of the plots draw on aspects of Roseanne's life prior to her success, or refer to contemporaneous events in her "real" life. Other episodes may include entire dialogues proposed by Roseanne to address specific themes or issues. The show occasionally strays from the sitcom formula of neatly tying up all the plotlines by the end of the episode. As Kathleen Rowe notes, one year saw Darlene (Sara Gilbert), the younger daughter character, going through an early adolescent depression that continued for the entire season.

After eight years, the program continues to be extremely popular, now in syndication as well first-run, and some critics have argued that it has improved over its earlier seasons. Most recently, Roseanne herself has had a good deal more media exposure about her personal life--cosmetic surgery, divorce, remarriage, pregnancy--than about her political views or her career as an actor. In almost every case she seems able to turn such public discussions into more authority and control within the media industries, and her position as a major figure in that context seems assured for some time to come.

-Kathy Cirksena