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Overview (4) |
Mini Bio (1) |
Family (3) |
Trade Mark (3) |
Trivia (50) |
Personal Quotes (6)
Overview (4)
| Born | in Commack, Long Island, New York, USA |
| Birth Name | Roseann O'Donnell |
| Nicknames |
Dolly Rosie |
| Height | 5' 6½" (1.69 m) |
Mini Bio (1)
Rosie O'Donnell was born into an Irish-American family in Commack, Long Island. She is the middle of 5 children, and is the daughter of Roseann Teresa (Murtha) and Edward Joseph O'Donnell, an electrical engineer for the defense industry. Her mother died when she was ten. She said that she watched TV nearly 24 hours a day. When she was 18, she dropped out of college and went on to do shows like Gimme a Break! (1981), and she produced and hosted Stand-Up Spotlight (1988). She worked on her own down-to-earth syndicated daytime talk show: The Rosie O'Donnell Show (1996).
- IMDb Mini Biography By: <polo@prolog.net>
Family (3)
| Spouse |
Michelle Rounds (9 June 2012 -
30 March 2016) (divorced)
(1 child)
Kelli O'Donnell (26 February 2004 - 12 August 2004) (annulled) (4 children) |
| Children |
Chelsea O'Donnell Parker Jaren O'Donnell Blake Christopher O'Donnell |
| Relatives |
Daniel O'Donnell (sibling)
Bridget Moynahan (cousin) |
Trade Mark (3)
Phrase: "What a cutie patootie"
Giving things away to her audience
Long Island accent
Trivia (50)
Used to work in the catalog department at Sears. Her job was to attach the orders to the catalogs, dump the catalogs in the correct bins, and then fetch the orders for the customers.
Has said that she will never have biological children because of a family history of alcoholism and cancer. She plans to adopt more children, and is also becoming a certified foster parent (as of December 1999).
Voted most popular in her high school class.
Has a very big toy collection, especially McDonald's Happy Meal toys.
Started out doing stand-up comedy.
Rose has the best friendship with Madonna. She had a good friendship with Penny Marshall when they appeared in Kmart commercials as its spokeswomen.
Was a VH-1 VeeJay.
Is allergic to cats and horses.
Dropped out of Boston University after one year. Dropped out of Dickinson College (Carlisle, Pennsylvania) as well.
Father was born in Belfast, N. Ireland.
Won $20,000 on Star Search (1983).
Appeared as a lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (1999), correctly answering the question, and helping the contestant win $32,000. She later invited the contestant onto her show, and gave him a week-long trip to London, England, UK.
Fell and broke her right hand. [March 2000]
Has a chain of roses tattoo on her ankle.
She refuses to sign autographs for adults.
Anjelica Huston wanted her to play the lead in the film Agnes Browne (1999) but she turned it down because the offer came shortly after the shootings at Columbine High-School and O'Donnell felt that she was too emotional to do a film at that time.
Voted high school homecoming queen.
Is a big New York Jets fan.
Attended Sawmill Junior High School in Commack, New York.
Rosie's father, Edward, was a spy-camera engineer for a defense corporation.
A TV special she co-hosted on Nickelodeon, "Nick News Special Edition: My Family is Different", logged some 100,000 e-mails and calls in protest about its gay-parenting content, before the show even aired 18 June 2002. The campaign was reportedly organized by the Traditional Values Coalition. Linda Ellerbee hosted and produced the show.
Once owned and lived in the late Helen Hayes's former home in Nyack, New York.
Attended Commack High School South, the same high school as sportscaster Bob Costas.
Born on the same day as actor Matthew Broderick.
She is a big fan of the Harry Potter book series, and even offered to play "Molly Weasley" in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) for free.
Auditioned for role of Elaine on Seinfeld (1989).
Is a third cousin to Bridget Moynahan on her father's side, a fact that Rosie O'Donnell did not know until Bridget was a guest on The View (1997).
In 2006, she donated $5,700,000 to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts including Renaissance Village (a temporary shelter for Katrina victims), day care centers, a rehabilitation center in San Antonio, Texas, and a Habitat for Humanity subdivision in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Stated on The View (1997) that she keeps her Emmy Awards in storage, and when queried by Elisabeth Hasselbeck, confirmed that she lets her kids paint them.
She once sued KRSK-FM, a Portland, Oregon, radio station. She was the subject of scathing editorials in Portland as a result of her court action. KRSK had given itself the nickname "Rosie 105", a reference to Portland's nickname, "the Rose City". O'Donnell claimed that she owned the name Rosie, and that the station was trying to cash in on her celebrity nickname. The court found in favor of the radio station.
Split with Kelli O'Donnell in 2007.
Counts The Sound of Music (1965) as her all-time favorite movie, a declaration she made via video link to The Oprah Winfrey Show: Episode dated 28 October 2010 (2010) on the occasion of the movie's 45th anniversary and rare cast reunion.
Sister-in-law of John Banta who is married to her older brother, Daniel O'Donnell, a New York State Assemblyman representing the Upper West Side.
Suffered a heart attack. [August 2012]
Has 5 children: a son Parker Jaren O'Donnell (b. May 25, 1995, adopted), a daughter Chelsea O'Donnell (Chelsea Belle O'Donnell) (b. September 20, 1997, adopted), a son Blake Christopher O'Donnell (b. December 5, 1999, adopted) & a daughter Vivienne Rose O'Donnell (b. November 29, 2002, was born by her now ex-1st wife Kelli O'Donnell) with her now ex-1st wife, Kelli O'Donnell; a daughter Dakota O'Donnell (b. January 5, 2013, adopted) with her now estranged 2nd wife, Michelle Rounds.
Release of her book, "Celebrity Detox". [September 2007]
(February 27, 2015) Filed for divorce from her 2nd wife of 2 years, Michelle Rounds, following a 3-month-long separation.
Friends with Fran Drescher, Bill Cosby, Edward Asner, Jane Fonda, Star Jones, Martha Stewart, and Billy Porter.
Cites Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton" as her all-time favorite Broadway show. She confessed to Seth Meyers that she'd seen it 27 times through November 2017.
Occasionally refers to herself as the "Comic from Commack".
Was a close friend of writer-director Nora Ephron. When Ephron was diagnosed with leukemia, she hid the illness from even her dearest friends, including O'Donnell, until she died in 2012 at age 71.
She seriously thought performing the role of Mary Sanderson in Disney's Hocus Pocus (1993) would have been too obnoxious, so the role ultimately went to Kathy Najimy. Rosie would go on to voice Terk the gorilla in Tarzan (1999).
She has appeared in one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: A League of Their Own (1992).
Came close to replacing Bob Barker as the new host of The Price Is Right (1972). However, the permanent job would require her to move to California (from living on the East coast), in the end Drew Carey got the pick.
Collects Barbie dolls. In 1999, she received a Barbie brand doll sculpted in her likeness, based on her talk show.
Personal Quotes (6)
Unfortunately in the gay community, oftentimes people that get the most attention are the most flamboyant and loud. And that's not to dismiss them, because drag queens and, you know, leather motorcycle women, they have their place in the gay community as well. But they're not -- they don't define the gay community by any stretch of the imagination.
Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.
[Talking about actress Lindsay Lohan]: "Lindsay's behavior on her latest film Georgia Rule (2007) was unacceptable. It's not like she was doing Dumb & Dumber 2. It's a Jane Fonda movie! Be early! I saw Lohan stumbling around a club drunk once and her mother was going, 'She's all right!' I can say this from experience: it's hard to be famous, and she's not doing it well at this point. But she'll get into rehab, take care of the eating disorder, and be all better in two years and have a huge comeback".
[To participants at the launch of the 2011-12 TV season] I have gotten better. We had dinner last week, and I was pretty good the whole dinner. I made sure not to have one drink. I was, like, 'Give me a Diet Coke and talk slowly. Mommy needs to not scare the new employers, OK?' I can be overly enthusiastic, as some of you may know, but it's going well.
One guy, Leif Garrett, came with a fresh wound from a pipe that he used for crack. He sort of gnawed it out. So when I met him in the green room, he had a normal face and he came out a few minutes later and he had a huge red welt of burn from being in the green room those 20 minutes I didn't see him. People who are that messed up shouldn't be on TV.
The wave of fame eventually hits the shore. And then it goes back out, but it's never as strong as the first wave.
