Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Cherrie Barr (born November 3, 1952) is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer. She began her career in stand-up comedy before gaining acclaim in the television sitcom Roseanne (1988–1997; 2018). She won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her work on the show.
Roseanne Barr
Actress, comedian, writer, producer
1970–present
- Peace and Freedom (2012–2013)
- Green (2008–2012)
- Democratic (before 2008)
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Bill Pentland(m. 1974; div. 1990)
-
Ben Thomas(m. 1995; div. 2002)
Johnny Argent (2003–present)
5
Barr became a stand-up comedian in 1980. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she gained fame through her role in Roseanne and other performances. She sparked controversy when performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a nationally aired baseball game on July 25, 1990. After singing the anthem in what many perceived to be a deliberately disrespectful manner, she grabbed her groin and spat. This performance was met with condemnation from baseball fans and sportswriters, and was called "disgraceful" by then-President George H. W. Bush.[1]
Barr has been active and outspoken on political issues. She unsuccessfully sought the Green Party's nomination for president in 2012, losing to physician Jill Stein. Later nominated by the left-wing Peace and Freedom Party, Barr received nearly 70,000 votes for president in the 2012 presidential election.[2] After Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2015, Kelly Weill of The Daily Beast wrote that Barr "veered right" in her politics.[3] After Roseanne was revived, Trump called her to congratulate her on her show's ratings and thank her for her support.[4] She has frequently defended her support of Trump, and has been criticized for making personal attacks and promoting conspiracy theories.[5]
Roseanne was revived in 2018 on ABC. A ratings success, it was renewed for an additional season but was canceled after Barr made a tweet condemned as racist by many commentators. She referred to the tweet as a "bad joke".[6] In 2022, she announced a comeback comedy special to be released on Fox Nation in 2023.[7]
Early life
Barr was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to a Jewish family. She is the oldest of four children born to Helen (née Davis), a bookkeeper and cashier, and Jerome Hershel "Jerry" Barr,[8] a salesman.[9] Her father's family were Jewish emigrants from the Russian Empire, and her maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Austria-Hungary and Lithuania.[8] Her paternal grandfather changed his surname from "Borisofsky" to "Barr" upon entering the United States.[9] Barr's great-grandparents were murdered during the Holocaust.[10]
Her Jewish upbringing was influenced by her devoutly Orthodox Jewish maternal grandmother.[9] Barr's parents kept their Jewish heritage secret from their neighbors and were partially involved in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[9] Barr has stated, "Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning I was a Jew; Sunday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday afternoon we were Mormons."[11]
When Barr was three, she was inflicted with Bell's palsy on the left side of her face. She said, "[so] 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". Years later, she learned that Bell's palsy was usually temporary and that the Mormon elder came "exactly at the right time".[9]
Barr has stated that she is on the autism spectrum.[12] At six years old, she discovered her first public stage by lecturing at LDS churches around Utah and was elected president of a Mormon youth group.[9]
She attended East High School. At age 16, however, Barr was hit by a car, and the car's hood ornament impaled her skull; the incident left her with a traumatic brain injury.[9] Her behavior changed so radically that she was institutionalized for eight months at Utah State Hospital.[13][14]
In 1970, when Barr was 18, she moved out by informing her parents that she was going to visit a friend in Colorado for two weeks, and never returned.[13]
The following year, Barr had a baby, who she put up for adoption. She and her daughter amicably reunited 17 years later.[15]
Career
Stand-up comedian: 1980–1986
While in Colorado, Barr began doing stand-up gigs in clubs in Denver and other Colorado towns. She later tried out at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles, and went on to appear on The Tonight Show in 1985.[13]
In 1986, she performed on a Rodney Dangerfield special and on Late Night with David Letterman, and the following year had her own HBO special called The Roseanne Barr Show, which earned her an American Comedy Award for the funniest female performer in a television special.[16]
Barr was offered the role of Peg Bundy in Married... with Children but turned it down.[17] In her routine she popularized the phrase, "domestic goddess", to refer to a homemaker or housewife. The success of her act led to her own series on ABC, called Roseanne.
Personal life
Relationships and children
Barr has been married three times and has five children. In 1970, when she was 17, she had a child, Brandi Ann Brown, whom she placed for adoption; they were later reunited.[9][61] On February 4, 1974, Barr married Bill Pentland, a motel clerk she met while in Colorado. They had three children: Jessica, Jennifer, and Jake.[61] They divorced on January 16, 1990.[62] Four days later, on January 20, 1990, Barr married fellow comedian Tom Arnold and became known as Roseanne Arnold during the marriage. Barr had met Arnold in 1983 in Minneapolis, where he opened for her stand-up comedy act. In 1988, Barr brought Arnold onto her sitcom, Roseanne, as a writer.[63]
Barr filed for divorce from Arnold on April 18, 1994 in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, citing irreconcilable differences.[63] Their efforts to have children were unsuccessful.[64]
On February 14, 1995, Barr married Ben Thomas, her one-time personal security guard, at Caesars Tahoe with a reception at Planet Hollywood. In November 1994, she became pregnant through in vitro fertilization[64] and they had a son named Buck.[65] The couple stayed together until 2002.[66]
In 2002, Barr met Johnny Argent online after running a writing competition on her blog, and began dating him in 2003, after a year of phone conversations.[66][67] They live on a 46-acre (19-hectare) macadamia nut farm on the Big Island of Hawaii, which Barr purchased in 2007 for $1.78 million.[68] Barr has studied Kabbalah at the Kabbalah Centre and frequently comments on the discipline.[69]
Family conflicts
Barr's sister Geraldine[70][71] is a lesbian, and her brother Ben is gay.[70][71] Barr has said that this inspired her to introduce gay characters into her sitcom, and to support same-sex marriage.[72][70]
Geraldine worked as Barr's manager during the early part of her career and clashed with Barr's second husband, Tom Arnold.[73] Barr fired Geraldine, leading Geraldine to file a $70.3 million breach of contract lawsuit in Superior Court of Los Angeles County on December 18, 1991. She said Barr promised her half the earnings from the Roseanne show as recompense for helping invent the "domestic goddess" character in 1981, and for serving as "writer, organizer, accountant, bookkeeper and confidante".[74] Since the statute of limitations had expired, the suit was thrown out.[73]
In a 1991 interview with People, Barr described herself as an incest survivor, accusing both of her parents of physical and sexual abuse,[75] claims which they and Geraldine publicly denied.[76] Melvin Belli, her parents' lawyer, said they had passed a polygraph test "with flying colors".[76] Barr was part of an incest recovery group, something she said her parents knew about but for which they were "in denial".[76]
On February 14, 2011, Barr and Geraldine appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show where Barr admitted the word "incest" could have been the wrong word to use and that she should have waited until her therapy was over before revealing the "darkest time" in her life.[77] She told Oprah Winfrey, "I was in a very unhappy relationship and I was prescribed numerous psychiatric drugs ... to deal with the fact that I had some mental illness ... I totally lost touch with reality ... (and) I didn't know what the truth was ... I just wanted to drop a bomb on my family".[77] She added that not everything was "made up", saying, "Nobody accuses their parents of abusing them without justification".[77] Geraldine said they had not spoken for 12 years, but had reconciled.[77]
Health problems
In the mid-1990s, Barr had multiple cosmetic surgeries performed, such as a breast reduction, tummy tuck, and a nose job.[67] During the late 1990s, she had gastric bypass surgery.[35]
In 1994, Roseanne announced that she had dissociative identity disorder caused by childhood abuse. She had personalities named Baby, Cindy, Evangelina, Fucker, Heather, Joey, Kevin, Nobody, Somebody, and Susan as well as her main personality, Roseanne.[78] By 2001, her personalities had mostly fused into one personality after ten years of therapy.[79]
In 2015, Barr revealed she had been diagnosed with both macular degeneration and glaucoma, and thus was gradually losing her eyesight and expected to eventually go blind. She consumed medical marijuana to decrease her high intraocular pressure (a feature of the diseases).[80] Barr later revealed that she was misdiagnosed and that her vision problem is really due to a mole resting behind her eye, which could be corrected through surgery.[81] In November 2018, Barr was said to have had a heart attack, but she later stated on social media that she was not experiencing any medical issues.[82]
Controversies
Hitler photoshoot
Barr elicited criticism in July 2009 when she posed as Adolf Hitler in a feature for the satirical Jewish publication Heeb magazine called "That Oven Feelin'".[83][84] The Nazi theme was her suggestion, and featured her with a Hitler mustache and swastika arm-band, holding a tray of burnt gingerbread man cookies the article referred to as "burnt Jew cookies".[85] The magazine's publisher, Josh Neuman, said the photos were taken for satire and were not done for shock value. Barr, who is Jewish, said she was "making fun of Hitler, not his victims".[86] Fox News TV host Bill O'Reilly was highly critical of her for "mocking the Holocaust" and Extra's Mario Lopez stated "Come on, Roseanne. Hitler jokes are never funny."[87][88] The revival of her show in March 2018 caused the photos to resurface on social media and renewed mentions of the incident in the Jewish magazine The Forward and the Los Angeles Times, among others.[84][89][88]
Zimmerman and Parkland shooting tweets
In 2014, the parents of George Zimmerman, the man known for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, filed a lawsuit against Barr for tweeting their home address and phone number in 2012.[90] Zimmerman's parents alleged that Barr sought to "cause a lynch mob to descend" on their home.[91][92] In August 2015, summary judgment was granted in favor of Barr.[93]
In late March 2018, Barr tweeted about a conspiracy theory involving David Hogg, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. The conspiracy theory falsely claimed that Hogg gave a Nazi salute at a March for Our Lives rally on March 24. Barr later deleted her tweet.[94]
Political activities
2012 presidential campaign
On August 5, 2011, Barr appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and announced her candidacy for president in the 2012 presidential election, running on the self-created "Green Tea Party" ticket.[115][116] Her candidacy called attention to economics, personal health, and meditation.[117]
She also stated she would run for Prime Minister of Israel. In an interview with The Jewish Daily Forward, she invoked tikkun olam in her support of bringing women into politics and religion.[117]
On September 19, she appeared at the Occupy Wall Street protests and spoke in support of the protestors.[118] "She stated any 'guilty' Wall Street bankers should be forced to give up any income over $100 million, and if they are unable to live on that, be sent to re-education camps, and if that doesn't help be beheaded".[119]
Barr filed with the Federal Election Commission as a Green Party presidential candidate in January 2012. She formally announced her candidacy for the party's presidential nomination on February 2.[120][121][122][123] On July 14, she came in second in the 2012 Green Party presidential primaries and subsequent convention roll call,[124] losing the nomination to Jill Stein.[124] Stein chose Cheri Honkala as her running-mate[125] after campaign manager Ben Manski said Barr was shortlisted for the job.[126]
Barr was given a prime speaking role at the Green Party National Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, but decided to instead send a surrogate (Farheen Hakeem) to speak on her behalf. Barr's surrogate reportedly chided the party for not respecting Barr's candidacy. A shouting match in a hallway reportedly ensued.[127]
Barr repeatedly criticized Jill Stein after losing the Green Party nomination,[128][129][130] and used alleged transphobic words in statements about Stein on Twitter.[131]
Shortly after losing the Green Party nomination,[132] on August 4, 2012, Barr won the presidential nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party with activist Cindy Sheehan as her running mate.[133][134]
Sheehan immediately had disagreements with Barr's views on policy, desire to campaign only online, and treatment of Green Party nominee Jill Stein, leading Sheehan to request that her name be taken off the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. Sheehan was told it was too late to have her name removed, so she instead announced that she would be leaving the campaign.[135][136]
Barr appeared on the ballot in California, Colorado, and Florida. She did not appear on the ballot in her home state of Hawaii (which did not allow write-in votes). She ended up voting for President Obama. She received 67,326 votes nationwide, placing sixth overall with 0.05% of the popular vote; Stein, who appeared on the ballot of thirty-six states and the District of Columbia, placed far ahead of her in fourth place with 0.36% of the popular vote and 469,627 votes.[2]
Barr was followed by a film crew throughout her entire campaign, with documentarian Eric Weinrib directing, leading to questions about the sincerity of her campaign. Over 300 hours were filmed and were released as a film called Roseanne for President! Despite questions of her sincerity regarding her campaign, Barr and her family have insisted her desire to run for president was "very real."[137][138][139][140]
Awards
Roseanne Barr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on the north side of the 6700 block of Hollywood Boulevard.[151]
