Roseanne Biography and Pictures

Roseanne is the one-name moniker of an actress, writer, talk-show host and comedienne by the same name. (Former performance names due to marriage have been Roseanne Barr and Roseanne Arnold.) Roseanne was made famous in the early 1980s with her stand-up comedy routine, which was widely regarded as a hilarious depiction of the typical US middle-class housewife. This led to her own series, also called Roseanne. The show ran from 1988 to 1997, and co-starred Emmy winners Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman, as well as child actor Sara Gilbert. The late Glenn Quinn also had a recurring role in the later series as Becky's husband Mark, before going on to star in Angel.

After the show's cancellation, Roseanne went on to host her own talk show titled, appropriately enough, The Roseanne Show. The show ran for two years before it was cancelled in 2000; soon after she ventured back into stand-up comedy. 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 her illness and emergency hysterectomy brought a premature end to both projects.

Roseanne 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 somewhat 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. Roseanne 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 Roseanne dropped the charges, but they divorced in 2002.

Roseanne was also known for her off-screen persona and antics. Of note was the heavily publicized and controversial occasion on which Barr 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 because people found she was insulting American tradition.