
Rosie O’Donnell
She sings, she acts, she hosts a hugely successful nationally syndicated talk show, and still she finds time to be a mom to baby son Parker — Rosie O’Donnell has definitely been there, done that and bought the tee-shirt. With bucketfuls of that famous Irish trait, the “gift of the gab,” O’Donnell has firmly made her mark in star stratosphere and her star shows no sign of waning. Recently she signed a $3 million deal for her autobiography with Warner Books.
A versatile all-round performer, O’Donnell made her motion picture debut five years ago as a wise-cracking baseball player in A League of Their Own, and went on to star in Now and Then with Demi Moore and Melanie Griffith; weepy Sleepless in Seattle with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan; Exit to Eden with Dan Aykroyd; Another Stakeout with Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez (for which she received an American Comedy Award nomination) and Beautiful Girls with Timothy Hutton and Uma Thurman. She has also delighted children of all ages with her performances as Betty Rubble in The Flintstones and nanny to a precocious 11-year-old in Harriet the Spy.
Broadway has also been touched by O’Donnell’s talent, with her debut in the role of Rizzo in Tommy Tune’s revival of the ever-popular Grease.
But it is as talk-show host that O’Donnell really seems to have found her niche. Her unique blend of humor and down-to-earth demeanor have made her morning show a must-see for millions of dedicated viewers across the country. She has single-handedly managed to do for American talk TV the very thing that no one thought possible — ditch the down-and-dirty methods employed by other hosts and return to the chat-show format of yesteryear, good, old-fashioned entertainment.
O’Donnell’s mother died of cancer when she was ten years old, and her father, I’d, took his five children to Ireland, where they spent several months with relatives in Belfast and Dublin. She still remembers eating salt and vinegar Tayto crisps and Marathon candy bars, like any other Irish kid.