Roseanne Barr, 69, shot to fame after starring in the classic sitcom Roseanne, which aired between 1988 and 1997.
As the brutally honest Roseanne Conner, her character was the star of the series. The sitcom offered a realistic and wonderful portrayal of the typical, working-class American family, and was widely loved as a result.
”Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning I was a Jew; Sunday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday afternoon we were Mormons,” Barr said.
As a Jewish outcast in the strict Mormon society of Salt Lake City, Roseanne’s life story was one of drama and challenges.
”You weren’t supposed to think there. First of all it was frowned upon to be a girl, and second of all to be a fat, dark-haired girl who had no waist, and third to be a loudmouthed, short, fat, dark girl,” Roseanne told The Guardian in 2008.
When she was only three years old, she was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, also known as “acute facial palsy of unknown cause.” Roseanne’s facial paralysis resulted in a temporary inability to control her facial muscles on the left side of her face.
“My mother called in a rabbi to pray for me, but nothing happened. Then my mother got a Mormon preacher, he prayed, and I was miraculously cured,” Roseanne told the Jewish Journal in 2006.
Roseanne, who says she’s also on the autism spectrum, was involved in another traumatic event when she was 16. After being hit by a car, she suffered a traumatic brain injury that would affect her life for a long time. The brain injury was severe, and Roseanne’s behavior changed so much that she spent months at a psychiatric hospital.
When Hollywood’s anti-celebrity spoke with reporters in 2006, she said that she still suffers from the effects from time to time.
As a 6-year-old, Roseanne started to “perform” on public stages when she was elected president of a Mormon youth group, and lectured at churches around Utah. Upon turning 18, Roseanne left her parents’ home and moved to Colorado. She said that she was only going to visit a friend, but Roseanne never returned.
During the early ’80s, she took ”every minimum wage job you could get” in Colorado. Only, the outspoken Roseanne always got fired for talking back to her bosses. However, her life would change completely while she worked as a rude cocktail waitress who made harsh jokes to everyone at the bar.
”My customers encouraged me to go down to this comedy club. I didn’t know it was there. So I went down there and watched everybody,” Barr told Hawaii Tribune-Herald.
A year later, she had put together five minutes of her own material and traveled to California. After a successful performance at the famous Comedy Store in Los Angeles, she was discovered by comedy producer George Schlatter. After that, she landed a gig on The Tonight Show in 1985, and appeared on Late Night with David Letterman in 1986.
Roseanne burst into the male-dominated standup-comic world with her hilarious acts; she was often seen joking about her seemingly worthless husband.
During her breakthrough, she became strongly associated with the phrase ”Domestic Goddess”, referring to a housewife. Her humor often had a working-class edge, and in 1987 she revealed where she had gotten her inspiration from.
In the late 1980s, Barr rose to megastar after portraying Roseanne Conner in ABC’s sitcom Roseanne. The idea for the popular series came when the producers of The Cosby Show wanted to do “no-perks family comedy.” They hired writer Matt Williams, and he based the script on some factory workers and the story evolved around a fat, blue-collar couple and their children.
The conflict with Williams would rage on for several years. Roseanne wanted more control over the script – sometimes, she refused to say certain lines; other times she just walked off stage. It went so far that Roseanne threatened to quit if Williams was not replaced.
Since Barr was the show’s big star, she eventually got what she wanted. Other writers replaced Williams after the thirteenth episode.
Perhaps it was the right decision. After all, Roseanne was a real success, and would go on to last for nine seasons. In addition, Barr won several awards, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe.