E! True Hollywood Story Roseanne

[Music] she's rockers I don't call myself a feminist I call myself a killer [ __ ] irreverent you're ask me the most boring questions I can't even believe it and irrepressible thank you my man in the next two hours we'll take a probing look at Roseanne one tough woman who turned one tough industry upside down all of a sudden you've got this very robust ballsy large woman running around on television virtually overnight Roseanne transformed herself from Trailer Park housewife to trash talking queen of controversy hey off I'm having a good time she very quickly became the outrageous darling of the tabloids America is fascinated by the continuing ability of Rosanne Arnold to surprise the out of people Roseanne's fiery onset temper became legendary no it'sing written I'd hate to meet her in the street in a fist fight she a tough bro and her Untamed marriage to actor Tom Arnold launched a thousand tabloid headlines we're really sick and horribly mentally deranged Tom Arnold said we are America's worst nightmare we're white trash with money the fiery comedian waged war with even her most Ardent fans and then dropped the biggest bombshell of all in a sorted tale of True Confession rosan needs to be a Perpetual victim very bored with the drama dour this is a story of a Brash and Brazen Diva who lets it all hang out this is the story of Roseanne The E True Hollywood Story I think that makes me the Undisputed queen of all trailer trash I'm very proud of that thank you the dream of being one of life's [Music] ambition Roseanne's parents Jerry and Helen sold blankets and crucifixes door too to support the family which included two sisters Geraldine and Stephanie and a brother Ben growing up Roseanne was acutely aware that the bar family stood out in their workingclass neighborhood Roseanne's first husband bill pendland her family was Jewish one of the really few families in Salt Lake City which is heavily Mormon and I think that as a child what she had told me later would gave her real real sense of perspective of kind of being an outsider because there were their basic religion was so different from the predominant one in Salt Lake it was unbelievably terrible we were also Jewish there which was unbelievably terrible and we were poor and I was was fat so I guess it was like a I guess like a non-ending thing in 1957 4-year-old Roseanne suffered an injury that tested her family's Faith she fell and hit her head against I think a coffee table and it caused a temporary Paralysis on the the right side of her face Helen bar called their Rabbi who said a prayer but nothing happened and her mother who called some Mormon Bishops over and they prayed over Rosanne and the the paralysis went away within 48 hours this was uh a miracle to her mother the God-fearing woman decided that on Fridays Saturdays and Sunday mornings the family would be Jewish and on Sunday afternoons Tuesdays and Wednesdays they'd be Mormon the religious dichotomy troubled and Confused Roseanne throughout her Elementary School years Roseanne would often escape to her grandmother Bubby Mar's house my grandmother really was the person who influenced me cuz she was like this really incredible strong woman like she's 72 and she's beating up cops and stuff Ted Schwarz co-author of my sister Roseanne she was just one tough eccentric woman who had survived hell who's lost a lot of family in the Holocaust and was determined to make it in a city that she perceived as I I'm guessing part hostile but part naive Roseanne took after her grandmother stubborn and self-reliant it was Roseanne's father however who influenced inuenced her love of laughter rosanne's younger sister Geraldine comedy was a major part of all of our Lives my dad's really funny um rosan and my father are twins they're very much alike as a child every Sunday night they would gather around and watch ad Sullivan primarily just to see the standup comic her dad was very much into standup and stand-up comedians of course these were more of those borch belt cat skills kind of guys that were on Ed Sullivan at that time but she grew up knowing all of them you know seeing them and having a very keen sense of it there was one particular performer who struck a chord with Roseanne I always thought Johnny Carson was just awesome when I was a little kid and I I was uh my my father would reward me if I was good by letting me watch the monologue stay up 10 till 10:35 and um so I always tried to be real good so I could watch Johnny he just made you feel like you were there and that everything was understandable and that you were part of it Roseanne desperately wanted to be part of that comic world with Sister Geraldine as her sidekick from a very early age somehow they found out about the men who went out to early Hollywood all of whom were Jewish and it became their goal as young girls to one day go out to Hollywood as sisters instead of Brothers instead of the Warner Brothers it would be the bar sisters at age 16 Roseanne made a startling Discovery while flipping through a medical journal Rosanne learned that the facial paralysis she suffered as a child was actually Belle's paly a temporary nerve disorder the Mormon Miracle wasn't a miracle after all she kind of had a sense that everything was just kind of bass or crap at that point the uh the church everything that she had had invested in you know with her belief systems and all that and she just did kind of go go nuts there you know a lot of acting out she did have a a real tough spell Roseanne became a teenager out of control she drank smoked pot and had sex her parents did little if anything to stop her the family was very LAX in discipline the kids just essentially went wild so you're looking at a kid who is rebellious because she was raised to be rebellious no one said no early on in 1969 when she was 17 Roseanne's Reckless Behavior almost cost her her life she was walking in tra and was hit by a car and the hood ornament appears to puncture the back of her head and she says since that time she had felt possibly a certain kind of insanity or being out of control or something from that point she went to um she always called it the nut house but it was a you know a facility for troubled kids Roseanne's parents admitted her to Utah State Hospital a mental institution in nearby Provo where she stayed for8 months she felt more like a political prisoner I think she felt that she was put in there against her will and that was actually an unnecessary place for her to be Roseanne turned all of her anger towards her religion I actually thought God was bad I thought God stood aside when terrible things happened and didn't stopped them I thought that God punished after Roseanne was released from the hospital she decided to drop out of high school 3 months later the 17-year-old discovered that her promiscuity had resulted in pregnancy upset and embarrassed by the news Helen and Jerry bar offered their daughter little support when she became pregnant with the conservative atmosphere in Salt Lake City she was sent to an unwed mother's home in Denver Colorado on May 16th 1971 Roseanne gave birth to a baby girl with regret she gave the infant up for adoption 5 days later Roseanne returned to Salt Lake City to collect her belongings she took $300 that she had in savings got on a bus and never looked back [Music] up Roseanne battles the forces of evil we're being possessed by demons we would look in the mirrors every half hour to see if our eyes were turning yellow and later Roseanne throws her weight around Hollywood no it'sing written I gave it to you in theing trailer [Music] by 1971 Roseanne Bar was carrying a lot of baggage mental patient High School Dropout unwed mother and she was only 18 hoping to escape the ghosts of her past Rosanne fled the confines of conservative Salt Lake [Music] City in the fall of 19 71 rosanne's travels landed her in Georgetown Colorado an old silver mining community and Haven for the 60s free love movement there she met a soft spoken hippie Bill pentland well she rode out on a Greyhound bus and uh being on the bus for 12 hours she needed to use the bathroom pretty bad and I was a night clerk at the motel in town so they brought her over to use the bathroom and she had a wonderful energy of spirit a very strange sense of humor and I was kind of immediately captivated by that the feeling was Mutual homeless Roseanne shacked up with her new bow at the motel but fearing the owner would disapprove of the arrangement Roseanne lived like a fugitive she had to climb out the window every morning and come back through the lobby door so she could hang out in the daytime she had to sleep in the closet in the motel by the fall of 1972 Roseanne and Bill were tired of playing hide-and seek so they traded in their temporary digs for a more permanent home we ultimately moved into a log cabin a few miles down down the road your literal log cabin with a two hleer ouse in the back water pump we did have electricity that was quite a thing money was tight and Roseanne pitched in to make 's meet she would do various OD jobs around town as a motel M as a Cooks assistant we just kind of work for minimum wage and and weared our cabin down the road and pretty much just whatever was hippie at that time including smoking lots of pot and hitchhiking throughout the area when they weren't exploring Bill and Roseanne liked to catch a good movie but they got more than they bargained for with the Exorcist the next three or four weeks we were pretty convinced we were being possessed by demons we would look in the mirrors every half hour to see if our eyes were turning yellow and we were hiding the knives and these um two Mormon guys said it was kind of because we were living in sin so it was their recommendation that we tie the knot and get right with God on February 4th 1974 21-year-old Roseanne Bar and 20 3-year-old Bill pentland were married by the justice of the peace in Golden Colorado author Ted Schwarz the relationship with Bill pentland was a very loving one early on uh she adored him he adored her the newly wedge moved from the Log Cabin to a low rent trailer park I was a new wife and so excited about cleaning my own house starting a family cooking for them being a total suie Homemaker and then of course in my spare time time making crafts to hang on the walls and such it was typical trailer park there's no money uh you're living from paycheck to paycheck you're eating whatever you can afford which which can be anything very often it's the old bakery or whatever uh there are good times and and bad times and some very strange times in May 1974 a religious cult came to town which sent Roseanne and Bill packing there was this character down in Denver called the guhu maharaji and he was getting people to sign over their homes and their cars and the whole thing to shave their heads and follow him rosan pretty much just gave me an ultimatum that Georgetown was done let's get out of here and we moved to Colorado Springs and the trailer caught fire the following night they did burn the trailer up all of our worldly possessions at that point at the same time we became Rosanne became pregnant with our first daughter the transient swept up the ashes and moved to nitu Springs Colorado on March 18th 1975 22-year-old Roseanne gave birth to Jessica Bill immediately went looking for work I got hired by the postal service but it necessitated moving to Denver Denver was a big city one with seemingly a lot of opportunity one that was growing by Leafs and vs Rosanne and Bill moved into a tiny two-bedroom house on J Street when we got to Denver she quickly became pregnant with our second child Jennifer this this time we were a little more prepared I was uh had the insurance I knew we could pay for the bill for the hospital 2 years later the family grew once more with the addition of son Jake born on June 30th 1978 we wanted to be like the Walton so after we were married we decided to go for having five kids what we ultimately ended up was having three of them in about a just under a fouryear spell motherhood and the strain of running a household was overwhelming Roseanne became Sullen and withdrawn on I think that would contribute her being locked up in the house a lot of it possibly having that many kids in that short of a time and these were extremely difficult times for Roseanne she just began to isolate herself Roseanne developed agoraphobia the fear of public places she began to slide deeper and deeper into depression so she channeled her energy into dieting she limited herself to just one meal a day and basically just wanted to be thin but was not really happy in that Roseanne's life was a mess and so were things back home in Salt Lake City where her parents tried to cope with shocking news out of four kids two of them were coming out of the closet within a relatively short period of time I watched two people uh my brother and my sister grow up gay in Salt Lake City Utah and gay and lesbian because my sister doesn't want to be called Gay she wants to be called a lesbian she's very radical the bar family was dealt another blow in late 1981 when Roseanne's grandmother Bubby Mary passed away there was a lot of shock when the grandmother died I mean it couldn't be unexpected but she was a beloved woman and that just UPS everyone in their own way Roseanne and Bill struggled along virtually broke to help pay the mounting bills Roseanne went back to work ironically the menial job changed her life she worked as a cocktail waitress at aans and that's when she found out that she could be funny she was cracking jokes with the customers and that's kind of what stepped her up into wanting to give comedy a shot meanwhile Roseanne's Sister Geraldine moved in with the pentland to help with the chores at that time she was a very radical feminist and this being in my house and exposing these things I told her as long as you're staying here I don't want to have to listen to this BS Geraldine however was very persuasive I really believed that just because a woman was going to be in power that there would be no war that she would be a great boss and that we wouldn't have um we wouldn't abuse power to Bill's dismay Geraldine soon made a convert of Roseanne the first thing was refusal to shave her armpits or her legs so I I wasn't quite that European at that point and I had some issues with it she got involved with the women's group and began doing public speaking began getting interested in the feminist movement she kind of made 180° turnaround politically she's reading books that U are frightening I mean I would look at it and go you're doing the same thing to men that Hitler did to the Jews I was that terrified I've always felt that workingclass women are the women who've been left out and the women who the movement really is about following her political Awakening Roseanne decided to take action the wise cracking waitress boldly stepped on stage we went down one night here were probably eight or nine local people in Denver that had also wanted to do stand up and they came up and did their little 5 minutes and it just opened up a whole new world to her I from that point on she was driven she was focused that was what she was going to do I started to do comedy that um I felt was kind of an answer to all the men comics I'd heard my whole life and that and that uh specific joke and I wanted to tell a new joke but Roseanne's idea of a good joke was anything but funny try to imagine her at 105 lb but not shaving her armpits and putting all the men down and she would have things thrown at the stage I know she was blacklisted from a couple of the clubs in Denver because what she was doing was alienating the audiences and didn't want her there Roseanne was relegated to biker bars and lesbian clubs where she learned to work a crowd thanks in part to her Sister Geraldine would tape record the act and critique it she would analyze what was going on she would watch it she'd work on the timing uh she was really as close to a totally involved personal drama coach as you could get rosanne's career was based on the belief that Sisterhood is powerful for Rosanne and I was sharing almost like sharing a mind not needing words to communicate meaning Geraldine advised Roseanne to soften her harsh delivery and audiences took notice fellow Denver comedian Vince Curran when it wasn't all 100% shock comedy when she moved away from that I think that's when she started uh getting a certain amount of Acclaim at that point there was no real looking back coming up the housewife becomes a hit I hate that word housewife I prefer to be called domestic goddess and later Roseanne breaks the ties That Bind for me it feels like my sister's dead I lost a sister [Music] in 1980 a new standup comic who was Brash angry and overthe toop burst onto the Denver scene her name was Roseanne Bar at first audiences hated her but the 28-year-old housewife wasn't about to quit not by a long [Music] shot after Tony rning down her radical feminist act Roseanne was welcomed back into mainstream Denver clubs in 1981 but her humor was still hit or miss fellow Denver comedian Vince Curran Rosanne would come up and some of the jokes were actually quite funny and some of them just bombed the greatest biggest hugest death in the world it was a LoveHate Thing with the audience they either loved her or they hated her with a passion Roseanne began to study female Headliners like Judy Tuda and Diane Ford when they passed through Town Roseanne befriended Ford who explained the challenges of being a female in a male-dominated field women on the road in the'80s were not accepted you know there were there were guys out there that just did not believe a woman was funny period you know so they would be tough on you you know they'd go up and they tell blatant sex jokes about women but if a woman comic said one thing about a guy oh she's a male Basher it was like women were fair game and men were not to be picked on you know like they can't handle it you know it's like oh buddy wear a cup you know get over yourself Roseanne was not dissuaded determined to win over the audience Roseanne asked Diane to critique her routine I gave her some pointers I told her to talk about her life as a mother and as a wife if she wanted to be political to find a way to bring make the personal political Roseanne took Diane's advice she started talking about her life as being married and as a mother mother and all those things and she was very feminist about that but when she started doing that then the audience has responded to her in a very big way you know and she was always very likable on stage just because you know she was very non-threatening by the end of 1981 Roseanne landed a weekly spot at a local Denver Club The Comedy Works manager Ed Nichols watched Roseanne become more comfortable on stage there were more smiles and she was friendlier and D and Drew the audience in made them part of the act as Roseanne's confidence grew so did her appetite ex-husband Bill pentland through this time she started to put the weight back on she felt she was safe behind the wall that she didn't have that frightening vulnerability that happened when she was very thin for 2 years Roseanne honed her comic Persona and built a strong local following she hit a cord that was great it was mindbending it wasn't I'm so fat I can't get date it was I run the house my husband's an idiot and some days I want to kill my kids comedian Scott Hansen she was able to come across and P this whininess that she has in her act and uh you know basically do complaints of her everyday life and not and people you know endear themselves to they empathized with her in 1983 31-year-old Roseanne took first place at the Denver laugh off competition by the time she won the laugh off it was clear that um she's becoming quite a celebrity in Denver she got like a little local cover on the The Denver Post and then she started working as a headliner in clubs out of 10 after 12 months on the road Roseanne felt ready to conquer the Los Angeles club scene at the urging of Her Sister Geraldine Roseanne made an appointment to audition at LA's renowned Comedy Store the first time that I was on this stage right here I had just driven in from Denver with all three of my kids and I was uh doing six minut in the small room which is next to this and Mitsy Shore who owns this place came up and she said go do 20 in the big room and all the waitresses said that had never happened before that someone had gone from there to here in the same night and I walked in here and I was just I was just awesome Roseanne's former publicist Jim Dobson represented The Comedy Store at the time the college kids went wild for her that night instantly she was a hit uh and mity knew it because Mitsy has a good eye and she knew that start putting her on a regular [ __ ] she called me about midnight and said I killed and I said what's that mean she says it means we got to live in California Bill agreed to quit his 10-year job at The Denver Post Office and started packing for the move to Hollywood meanwhile Roseanne performed nightly at The Comedy Store and only two weeks later she was discovered Jim mcau who was the town Scout for The Tonight Show saw her and as she came off stage said we're going to put you on the tonight's show next week would you welcome Rosanne bar Rosanne on August 23rd 1985 Roseanne made her first appearance on The Tonight Show the holy grail for Comics this bugs me the worst is when the husband thinks that the wife knows where everything is huh like they think the uterus is a tracking device Cassy comes in there hey rosan do we have any Cheetos left like he can't go over and lift up that sofa cushion him s Roseanne brought down the house she felt that Johnny Carson gave her the break of a lifetime the next day my whole life was changed I I could uh I you know move my kids out here I I had a career I had uh a way out of a lot of poverty that I lived through in my life so I thank him for that it was a great great opportunity he gave me Hollywood manager herb nanis had seen a lot of comics but he quickly realized that Rosanne was special she was elevating the stature of the American woman and the American housewife when you explain that a woman is capable of doing everything and all a man can do is urinate his name into the snow and a guy's laughing he's an idiot but she's getting away with it women were loving her because she was going yes for us and the men were laughing because she going hey that's right we are stupid aren't we nanis signed Roseanne immediately the manager was Charmed by her naive about Hollywood we were in a restaurant where she was fascinated the menu matched the tablecloth wow the menu looks like the tablecloth I mean so all of that innocence all of that pure Mid-American values that blue those blue collar values that she had was all genuine although the unglamorous Roseanne didn't fit the mold of female performers she refused to conform that time I Woman comic had to be dressed pretty look pretty be pretty don't go too far over the edge or you're considered you know nasty or [ __ ] and Roseanne kind of just said the hell with that I'm going to be who I want to be up there nanis was quick to capitalize on rosanne's Blue Collar style he booked Roseanne on the when do we eat tour with comic Louie Anderson she was overweight she acknowledged her being overweight and yet she felt good about herself and she was like I'm a goddess you know I'm this even though I'm 75 lbs overweight and not the most attractive woman on the planet I think I'm beautiful and I you know I think you should think the same about yourself and I think that struck a cord with millions of American women because most are not you know Cosmopolitan gals Bill supported his wife's new found success since I wasn't working at all anymore then I could become a full-time house husband so I took over full-blown shopping cooking taking the school the whole nine yards which would free her up entirely for what she needed to do in 1986 Roseanne hit the road again as the opening act for Julio gasius this was the peak of when Julio was setting America on fire he wasn't going to do any press didn't speak a whole lot of English wasn't interested in doing press I knew that I could get Roseanne to do every interview in every town that you know for for the shows that they were doing she opened for Julio in Madison Square Garden and is up doing her AC and nothing Dead Silence until she realized every single person in Madison Square Garden spoke Spanish The Domestic Goddess I don't know what that would be in Spanish uh Kasa gesso by the end of the 18we tour however Roseanne gained National recognition that tour was a huge breakthrough for her it was a huge amount of press but it almost killed her because she had to be away from the kids for so long and uh uh she was having a hard time being on the road over a period of six or seven months on tour with him and missing those children so she was starting to crack towards the end Roseanne was determined to give up touring so she set her sights on television we managed to take her to a place important enough in that in the line of where her comedy was where there was a supermarket chain here in Southern California a local chain that offered her $100,000 to do a commercial well this guy comes on and tells us G's on the home front to save money we should SLE from Market to Market to find specials yeah I'll get right on it but I can go to one place of a giant and save tons of doll then I can use my time for more important things like laying around and criticizing others an HBO special soon followed on September 19th 1987 Roseanne headlined the Roseanne Bar show one part of the show featured her standup comedy another depicted her in a family setting with husband and kids the special received critical Acclaim and caught the attention of a successful production company you know we were just pimping we were using parts of our real life to um to do this HBO thing and that was what Cary Ward responded to you get on that phone and tell Ary we're going F F coming up Rosanne takes Prime Time by storm the minute she said I won't let this be bu there was a [Music] [Applause] [Music] war they walk after seven years on The Comedy Club Circuit Rosanne bar gained national attention as the The Domestic Goddess by 1989 she would become known as a force to reckon with in Hollywood in 1984 executive producers Marcy Cary and Tom Werner struck gold with their groundbreaking Hit The Cosby Show 3 years later they were looking to cast a new sitcom we had sold the idea about a workingclass mom a working heroin cuz we were going through the same experiences you work all day and you come home and you you do the same eight hours only you know with kids and husband and groceries and dinner and stuff and it was an absurd situation so we wanted to put that on television and then we saw Roseanne do a monologue and we thought what a wonderful edgy personality that is Cary approached Roseanne with the job offer ex-husband bill pentland so they came and said we want to do a show about a bluecollar woman and uh kind of conveniently helped them El to our lives the show's premise centered around Roseanne and Dan Connor played by bar and John Goodman raising their three young kids in Lanford Illinois it's our marriage it's our two daughters it's our smaller son it's meddling sister-in-law the 15-year marriage the blue collar all right nice and quiet everyone in the summer of 1988 filming began on the series but it wasn't smooth sailing Roseanne immediately clashed with the executive producer Matt Williams from the The Cosby Show Producer Danny Jacobson they basically said this is what I was told we have this actress for you to write a pilot format and they said to Roseanne we have this writer that's going to write a pilot for you so in a way uh it was a little bit set up to be somewhat of a train wreck Roseanne claimed that Williams who titled the show life and stuff was trying to dilute and belittle her character he did not get her and he wrote her very soft and very wrong those first four episodes were very tense very um a lot of rewrites going on a lot of her refusing to do a line The Way It Was Written was not what her character would say Roseanne was fiercely protective of her vision although she was a newcomer to Hollywood Bar was not afraid to rumble with her producing and writing staff Natalie West played rosanne's friend Crystal Anderson nothing was sugarcoated and uh she uh was just very honest brutally so at times she was turning pag me I was like well this line this this line sucks this ain't funny this ain't good we spent uh hours hold up in her dressing room we would walk off the stage and go in the dressing room with some very pretty heavyweight threats coming down through the uh through the lawyers and through the network you know essentially never work in this town again uh you're going to go back to liveing in a mobile home and all the time I was Thinking Inside My Head soon as it goes to number one I'm kicking all these mof was out of here you know I just uh bid my time and had a lot of fights and fired a lot of people and had to dig my heels in a lot and not come out of my dressing room a lot and threaten to quit a lot comedian Diane Ford Rosanne never took anything you know if you walked on her if you uh had an affront to her I mean she got right back in your face and pushed it down your throat often times a woman in this business especially is given two choices you're either a victim or you're a [ __ ] and for rosan it was never a choice I'm not going to be your victim and that's just it call me what you want you go to hell former manager herb nanis I'd hate to meet her in the street in a fist fight she's a tough broad the feuding on the set tested the patience of the other cast members F the cast was very professional and I think they also knew that they were sitting on a hit and they didn't want to let this see see this the star ruin it for herself were for them and you know they found it frustrating I know times I'd see Goodman outside just like you know wanting to like pick a car up and throw it through a wall because it was frustrated you never knew what you were walking into of a week everybody I think learned how to uh maneuver in those Waters I mean the battles were there for her to fight and she was more than capable of fighting them there were a lot of days when I was like praying myself like oh fire me too fire me too fire me too as the premier dat approached initial reviews of the sitcom were mixed I remember a lot of the critics saying who's going to want to watch these people and who's going to want to look at these people who cares about a a dirty sofa with a bunch of you know big people making jokes reviewers were skeptical that the blue collar humor would fly I think that any discussion of class in America really freaks people out and we're not supposed to talk about it I've always talked about it and it's a scary thing but Roseanne chose to ignore the critics not the people that's just some whiny ass reviewer so I don't have very much respect for reviewers especially TV reviewers because they never put anything into its social context or what it means they just say uh say what you wear and uh whether they personally liked it or not like if anybody gives a damn you know on October 18th 1988 Roseanne premiered on ABC viewers instantly embraced the sitcom it jumped into the meil number five spot the show just broke all kinds of ground I mean you know people lost jobs people got knocked up people smoked grass people overd drank people you know made mistakes with their lives it was a human show and because it was human it was funny and it was honest uh tell us about the stud we're going to be meeting tonight mother you're not going to meet him well we're going to be at the bowling alley and chips going to be at the bowling alley we're bound to run into one another please don't embarrass me please oh honey there's no way we'd embarrass [Applause] you please if you really love me you'll pretend you're not my parents all right get out of our house little girl thank you so little Becky's got her first boyfriend huh oh I wonder what this guy is like oh come on Rosie you know girls always go for guys that remind them of their fathers not if they listen to their mothers the best jokes um that you can make I think are from serious things which we did on Rosanne we took serious subjects made jokes and that's just the funniest because it's unexp Ed but also breaks a lot of tension rosanne's sister Jackie was played by Lori metf the fact that the characters are are deeply flawed and everyone is at some point the huge the butt of a huge joke in that sense it's got a real family feel I think you know no one gets off easy there's always pecking where there's blood and everybody goes after everybody else F despite the show's success tensions still ran high on the set by December 198 8 Rosanne issued an ultimatum either she or executive producer Williams had to go Cary Werner chose Roseanne because it was her face she won you know we got that producer out uh it's not that he's an untalented guy he just had a very different Vision so once Rosanne was able to come in and have control and control her character and really let it out that's what the public responded to Roseanne won the battle but paid a price she developed a reputation in Hollywood for being difficult and the minute she said I won't let this be bull it was a war so they went God she's pain in the ass God she's tough and from that point on she became America's favorite problem and the Press will jump on that every day they don't sell issues by having a headline saying Rosanne totally healthy back to normal living a balanced life and eating all her vegetables they sell papers by saying you know Roseanne turmoil lights up you know she and her producer slug each other Roseanne struggled with the negative press it was hard to play Roseanne Connor and then read stuff in the paper that was filtered through somebody else or somebody else's opinion of what I said or what I thought it would be very frustrating and it would upset me a lot by the time the first season of Roseanne wrapped in 1989 the pressure had taken a toll on the star's marriage Roseanne filed for divorce from her husband husband bill I was angry cuz I was being divorced from you know I was being booted out after I felt 17 years of getting finally to this point where there's a hit show and I'm being told goodbye Roseanne faced another crisis at home when she discovered that her 14-year-old daughter Jessica was drinking in April Jessica entered a rehab center for alcohol abuse with her daughter in the hospital Roseanne reluctantly had to leave town her Newfound Fame gave her a shot at the big screen so she flew to newor York to act opposite Merill Street in shevil rosanne's former publicist Jim Dobson The Experience on shevil was a terrible experience for her I remember she hated the experience because it wasn't something she had created she wants to do things that she creates cuz she knows what's funny and feature films had Studios that told her what to do and she's never liked that she's never liked having people tell her what to do mostly you just sit in a trailer and watch TV all day it's kind of exactly like being a housewife and uh then act about 2 minutes a day so you get like all hyped up and then do it for 2 minutes and then go back to your trailer rosanne's life was further thrown into upheaval in May when Bill pentland received a startling phone call from the national Inquirer one of the Tabloid reporters called me and said we hear from a reliable source that Roseanne gave a baby up for adoption I just panicked cuz all these years we wondered who this baby was did she know she was adopted so I notified Roseanne's people I said somebody sniffing around about the baby she was very upset it was something that came completely out of left field she was not expecting it her name's Brandy and they found her shy about two weeks shy of her 18th birthday the inquire tracked her down where she was living called rosan and said either you give us an exclusive or we're going to tell her who her mom is she was blackmailed Roseanne was into having to um do that exclusive with the inquir so that she could meet Brandy with as little interference as possible Roseanne arranged a meeting with her daughter Brandy at a hotel in Hollywood and on June 7th 1989 the two were reunited and they instantly became friends it's not unlike Rosanne to to bond with someone especially a younger person like that they've become very close ever since and they're still close a few months later Roseanne was in the Press again when her film shevil was released and bombed at the box office the critics were not nice to her in the film they were very abusive to her but somebody who's a success in television when they miss in the movies they miss quickly and the movie business goes Bingo little box back done finished you see so you your huge success in television doesn't give you a lot of shots in the movies during 1989 Roseanne achieved an unlikely Milestone she was featured on More Magazine covers in one year than anyone in in history it was tumultuous the entire growth of her Fame was very painful I think because it came so fast she was not good at dealing with it in the beginning cuz she didn't know who was lying to her and who was hurting her she felt like there was always someone out to get her she was upset uh by uh a lot of the Tabloid attention and and how they just tried to portray uh her life into this negative hell pit she would look at the tabloids and and and ask me why am I the most hated woman in America what have I done wrong and she would start [Music] crying coming up season two The Wrath of John Goodman was like dripping with sweat and you just like looked at Tom Arnold and made a fist and just started like pounding the wall [Music] can you EV PR bar was catapulted from Trailer Park housewife to Star of a toprated sitcom but her quick rise to fame took a toll on her personal life and rosanne's roller coaster ride was far from [Music] over when the second season of Rosanne began in the fall of 1989 the sitcom was the number one show in America unseating longtime champ The Cosby Show director John pasquin well I was through the RO all of a sudden you've got this very robust sexy ballsy large woman running around on television and with her inyour face kind of Comedy 37-year-old Roseanne was hailed as a hero for the working class woman Shelley Winters played Roseanne grandmother on the series I think that's why the show is such a big hit because she says what so many women feel she loves her husband but uh you know she she tells them off she Y at the kids executive producer Jay Daniel she creates controversy and that's one of the reasons for the show's success quite frankly is that people were fascinated not only by the show but by rosan as a personality that fall rosanne's love life landed her back in the headlines after her split from Bill pentland her husband of 17 years Roseanne became engaged to 30-year-old comic Tom Arnold Rosanne first met Arnold in 1983 when she headlined the comedy Gallery in Minneapolis Tom was her opening act comedian Scott Hansen introduced the couple as soon as she got off stage she said you know you were really funny this was great and uh Tom said I'll be over at the bar they just partied all night long and they partied every night the whole we she was here I mean there was not they were inseparable from that point on for six years Roseanne and Tom remained close friends when Roseanne's first marriage began to disintegrate in 1989 her friendship with Arnold quickly turned to romance former publicist Jim Dobson I think What attracted Rosanda Tom the most is she felt sexy around him he doed on her and he loved her and he held her hand and he kissed her and he was madly in love with her the feeling was Mutual he is every single childhood little girl fantasy I ever had about uh the man yeah he's every single one of them things he's my dream man he's a big dream boat he's so cute director Andrew Wayman Rosanne and Tom were very lovey-dovey we had to bust them up often kissing on the couch or behind the set interrupting those moments wasn't always easy during the second season Roseanne hired Tom as a writer on the sitcom the writing staff was understandably skeptical they weren't particularly accepting of him they don't think they had a lot of confidence in his humor I don't think they respected him and they respected him less because he was sort of leveraged on by her apprehension about Arnold increased when it became apparent that he had a drug problem I mean it was fairly common knowledge that he was that he had a um that he liked cocaine he would have a hard time sort of holding still it was like he was jazzed all the time he added so much frenetic energy to the situation and at the time Rosanne did not need ftic energy she needed someone to calm her down and when you had the two of them in a room they were literally bouncing off walls together and she was so stressed out already that she would even be pushed further up a few episodes into the season Rosanne insisted that Tom appear on the show as Dan Connor's friend Arie producer Danny Jacobson the idea was that one of Dan's friends kissed her it was smart because the tabloids were running this whole thing that she was having an affair with this IC Tom Arnold and now he's doing the show the shoot did not go smoothly I thought actually for a while that John Goodman was going to kill him because John is a very disciplined actor and he and here he had Tom who had a hard time sort of concentrating I remember the night before the show Tom was all amped up he was going yeah this show yeah we're we're going to do a 50 share this they promote this right with me and Rosie kissing this this going to be it's going to take off so Goodman you know he would be sitting there and he would be seething and seething and seething just s of say okay I got to get through the day I just have to get through the day get through the day Goodman was like dripping with sweat and I said what's going on and he said he just like looked at Tom Arnold and made a fist and just started like pounding the wall and I said to him you're going to have a heart attack people didn't like him on the set people didn't like Rosie when he was around Roseanne and Tom also became notorious for their onset arguments we try to involve other people in our fights to do the totally incorrect thing that you're not supposed to do like we'll ask all our employees whose side they're on we like being really childish and then then we probably end up slugging each other it was a very volatile thing they would blow it up each other they wouldn't talk to each other and then next moment they'd be kissing each other and they'd be in the dressing room and you know it was uh obviously very tempestuous to make matters worse in November 1989 Roseanne discovered that Tom sold information about her to a tabloid Tom was using the national Inquirer by alerting them when had a date with Roseanne so they'd be lurking in the bushes taking pictures getting both their names in the paper bar finally issued an ultimatum she wouldn't marry Arnold unless he cleaned up his act Tom had a real bad drug breakdown in La um and Roseanne was there for him she was willing to make demands of him and say your career is over our relationship is over unless you do something about this Tom entered a detox center in December after a one Monon stay Arnold was on the road to recovery the wedding was back on and Roseanne and Tom joked publicly about their tumultuous relationship we're going to see a psychiatrist now though and he's helping us so we don't fight so much he's getting on our nerves though on January 20th 1990 Roseanne and Tom finally married at their Beverly Hills Home the wedding was wild every tabid in magazines across the world were trying to get the photo of them getting married an hour before the wedding we had a death threat against Tom Arnold so I had to hire the FBI and the FBI sent snipers up into the hills around the house looking for uh assassin we had 20 guests and 40 bodyguards although Roseanne and Tom got through the wedding not everyone was pleased with the marriage namely Roseanne's children the problem was when she got into a relationship with Tom Arnold Tom Arnold was more of a resistant Force against the kids he became the the father that they didn't want so it became a a volatile situation with Tom in the house as well they did a lot of rebelling Tom would come in and pick them up and forcefully remove them from the floor and carry them somewhere else if they were screaming they didn't like that they were really shocked at that and they were shocked that he made him go to school cuz I never made him go to school so you know there was some tension there tension grew on the set as well just weeks after the wedding Rosanne and Tom began a major overhaul of the show staff we like our vision that we both have you know what we want to do and we think it's funny and we think it's good so you know we want we don't want to have to talk to any crack Poots anymore that have no clue so it's cool I just fired everyone and it's really great even Geraldine bar who had been Roseanne's personal assistant for n years was among the casualties when Tom Arnold came in they instantly clashed cuz Tom Arnold wanted to handle her affairs and her sister was no longer the one that had rosanne's ear and she was pretty much ostracized from that relationship I was fired and no one in my family was allowed to communicate with Roseanne except through Tom and his appointed lawyer ex-husband bill pendland I would just have to say if an individual did not want that kind of FL that individual might go out of his way to completely isolate her from everybody around her so any firings any alienation any changes of and your ship I don't really feel were Roseanne's decisions she was afraid of him I mean there was no question she was afraid of him and he got his way the Press began to refer to Tom as Roseanne's sengali there were times when you couldn't get a phone call into rosan without talking to Tom you couldn't write a letter without Tom you know making sure it was in the letter um I mean it was he was very very very protective of what he thought was his career you know through her ironically it was Tom who made a career decision for Roseanne that she would soon regret I'd mentioned to Tom Warner who owns the Rosanne show uh who's a friend of ours uh that you know she was singing and U you know maybe we should get her to sing the national anthem cuz he owns the Padres then he invited us to do it on July 25th 1990 Roseanne took the mic before the San Diego Padres Cincinnati Reds baseball game okay tell me when I should start I figure every everybody knew that I wasn't the world's greatest singer and all that you know but of course I'm not the world's worst either can you sing so I got out there and I sang about four notes and then you know I thought it was okay in the beginning and then everybody started booing me and I really went to this Panic [Music] thing she thought okay I'm going to turn into the comic now and be funny and grab my crotch like baseball players do and spit the tobacco out like baseball players do and the flag was waving and they felt she was spitting on the American flag and showing disrespect to the American flag the incident sparked a media frenzy even President George Bush called Rosanne a disgrace well it scared me when they started talking about you know to the degree that they were hyping it up like you know I turned on the news and they were going uh she's lucky she got off the field alive and it was like why don't you just you know just take a contract out on me for every weirdo in the world encourage them to come and shoot me or something and I resented that especially it was coming from like real pin head Sports casters you know they like the dumbest human beings that have ever lived anyway and they have a lot of room to talk cuz they're all really ugly The Star Spangled Fiasco hurt the sitcom's ratings the public started hating her and they started turning off the show um and it was part of the decline in ratings from the show let's face it I mean what media likes is people screwing up and this was her screwing up big time in public in front of an audience I lived through it and you know they're never going to nobody's ever going to really get [Music] me coming up will the real Roseanne please stand up I think if I had to live with Tom Arnold for 4 years I would have 20 personalities also [Music] week nights on E Steve kedco and Jules Asner bring you the latest from Hollywood in 1990 Roseanne Bar sparked a nationwide outrage when she gave an earsplitting rendition of the national anthem the incident left Hollywood wondering would the sitcom Queen be able to salvage her tarnished image and win back the hearts of her fans [Applause] [Music] by the third season of Roseanne in 1990 38-year-old bar obtained executive producer billing on the hit sitcom Roseanne finally won her hardfought battle for Creative control writer Eric gilland we didn't have any network intervention they weren't allowed on the set um it was just the writers and I like uh the work of being a producer which I never thought I'd like because generally have noing respect for any of those people but um now that I'm doing it I think it's really cool and irreverent comedians like Brett Butler applauded Roseanne for taking on the Hollywood System I watch Roseanne diligently to see what she does she toys with she's like a mouse that plays with a cat it's great off the set r suanne and her husband Tom Arnold celebrated their one-year anniversary and made plans to remarry he converted to Judaism so we wanted to have a Jewish wedding she changed her name too I'm no longer Roseanne Bar what are you Rosanne Arnold that's right honey cuz I told him if he converted I'd change my name legally so from now on it's Rosanne Arnold and then next year it's Mrs Tom Arnold and then the year after that it's just x no Tom's chick oh Tom's chick and then X on June 23rd 1991 Rosanne and Tom took their second stroll down the aisle at a synagogue in Los Angeles it was as close as I've come to an old polish wedding in Wisconsin being done with Jewish people in Los Angeles the comic Duo appeared to be Inseparable soulmates we're really sick and we're horribly mentally deranged because we really love being with each other and we could be together 24 hours a day which is a hideous frightening thought Hollywood thought so too Roseanne and Tom admittedly loveed To Raise Hell Tom Arnold had a wonderful line when they got married he said we are America's uh worst nightmare we're white trash with money hey go I'm having a good time the Arnolds became the couple that America loved to hate people had a death wish form them they wanted them to see them here what can we find these two you know yahoos doing now you know what are they what's the next what's the Adventures of Tom and Roseanne well are you making faces No I just I thought you were going to talk about your sperm again they would deliberately goof off like kids they would pull their pants down and moon people on the streets and they love doing stuff like that cuz they love getting the reaction and they loved reading about it the next day in the papers it was a power over the press that they had the more strength and more power they got the more they could tell people to go to hell and they like to do that every incident in Rose Zan and Tom's WrestleMania romance became fodder for the tabloids you are an evil person you pretend they'd have a fight it seemed to be in public but all a sudden everything they did there was either a photographer there or a reporter there or another friend who was willing to sell an article for $10,000 they kind of created their own monster and I think that monster really hurt them in the long run Hollywood wanted to see them tear each other report still Roseanne and Tom did not feel the need to hide anything from the public they're such a fine line to me and time between our work and our lives that they all they often intersect and overlap each other so we're just used to that we don't feel that we have to like totally live behind huge walls and protect our privacy or our secrets or anything you know we're pretty open at no time was Roseanne's openness more apparent than on October 4th 1991 standing before an audience of 1,000 at Mont View Presbyterian Church in Denver Roseanne publicly announced that as a child she was molested by her father and physically abused by her mother what happened to me was you know I was abused by my babysitter when I was growing up and I didn't remember till I was about 30 and when I got sober and I was in the hospital and I had these memories and I called up Rosie and I said I'm you know that my babysitter didn't molest me and he did this and this to me and that's what triggered her Memories One you are a victim or a survivor of child sexual AB use I mean the physical part of it horrid but the real scarring part of it the emotional part because you're forced to then keep the secret for your abuser and that really messes your head up it is a real healing thing to come out and say yes it did happen I'm not imagining it it did happen Roseanne's family was shocked by her accusations I was vacationing in New Mexico when I saw the cover of people that said I am an incest Survivor and I just stared at it then I had to fly home to San Francisco I met my parents who were there taking a lie detector test it was horrendous to see people I love go through that and they told me that it was humiliating Helen and Jerry bar denied all of Roseanne's allegations the next day they did the news and they said we took a lie detector test we're not pedophiles we we don't know why Rosanne is doing this Roseanne's statement the next day was pedophiles always pass lie detector tests because they have no conscience the bar family believed that the incest claims were just another instance of Roseanne manipulating the media Rosanne needs to be a Perpetual victim and I think that she was a victim when she was a workingclass woman and then she wanted a career as a mother she was a victim then we created a career for her she became rich and famous and she needed to create a new victimhood and the flip side of that is perpetrator rosanne's ties with her family were severed for forever I love Rosanne but I'm mad at her I'm disappointed at how she's chosen to use her voice I mean for me it feels like my sister's dead I lost a sister while the bar family fought to restore their good name Roseanne became furious at speculation that her announcement was a publicity stunt when you do come forward like I have about child abuse and child sexual abuse they the people in Hollywood sort of tend to look down on you and vilify you to escape the media scrutiny Rosanne and Tom fled to the farm they purchased in atuma Iowa while in seclusion Rosanne made plans to change her physical appearance I'm having several plastic surgeries she is doing that we went to a plastic surgeon just to stop by and uh you know in Beverly Hills there because we never been and uh it was so unbelievable she was like a kid in the candy store she wants everything what happened is people started riding about her looks and they started attacking her looks not attacking her talent but attacking her looks and she took that personally she thought I have money I can do something about this in the summer of 1992 Roseanne went under the knife she had breast reduction surgery a nose job a face lift and a tummy tuck now when I see her on television I don't recognize part of her I look at her and I go gosh you look so much like Latoya Roseanne revealed her new look to the public on September 28th 1992 when she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that week her sitcom also reached an important Milestone 100 episodes actor John Goodman it's a good feeling it's kind of a feeling of accomplishment I mean we've all been through a lot together and hopefully we'll be through quite a bit in the future and it won't be as stressful cuz that volcano is going to finish us off first hello Club M I want my deposit back and if the volcano is erupting then it's only a matter of minutes before earthquake earthquake oh calm down little buddy despite four successful seasons of Roseanne the series and its star were continually snubbed at the Emmy Awards the casting crew generally felt disappointed and felt there was a political situation and uh the reason she wasn't getting votes was because she was alienating so many people and um they wanted to be recognized for their work they knew the show was good I believe they didn't give her an award every year because they didn't like her Hollywood did not like Rosanne it was a hard thing to deal with in 1992 however Emmy voters had a change of heart Roseanne was finally nominated for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series there was a lot of ambivalence on one hand I think she felt very very happy about it on the other hand she felt that if she was too happy she would be letting her guard down I'm actually excited and yet ashamed to be excited it's not like I live to win in Emmy or that you know or anything like that um I actually think I deserve an Oscar for what I do on television the EM is kind of beneath me in a way but I will accept it if called I will serve but Roseanne was not called to serve and Candace Bergen walked away with the Emmy for her role on Murphy Brown the following year Roseanne was nominated again this time when her name was announced on September 19th 1993 Rosanne was not there to receive the award she was at home sick with the flu as the end of 1993 approached the Arnolds continued their public Antics in November they served up loose meat sandwiches at the Grand Opening of Roseanne and Tom's big food diner near their aisle a farm a month later when rumors floated about Arnold having an affair with his 24-year-old assistant Kim Silva Roseanne and Tom announced plans to marry Silva Roseanne's an incredible skillful self-promoter you know she's really able to you know find ways to reinvent herself and to promote herself and and and she worked the media as much as the we media worked her but the most shocking revelation of Roseanne's career came on February 14th 1994 during an appearance on Oprah Roseanne publicly announced that she had been diagnosed with 21 personalities I think if I had to live with Tom Arnold for 4 years I would have 20 personalities also but you know it's tough for me to deal with because one of her personalities is named Bambi and there's just nothing Bambi asked about Roseanne that I knew the public also took rosanne's declaration with a grain of salt entertainment reporter Sam Ruben it was like here we go again she's had this she's had this and now there's 80 of her you know I don't think they're diagnosed personalities so but she definitely able to switch from happy to sad to loving and caring to mean and nasty very very quickly and that's hard for some people to accept you know in the middle of a [Music] conversation coming up Hell hath no fury like a Roseanne scorned people ask me who do I hate more Hitler or Tom Arnold and that is so hard for me because I'm [Applause] Jewish by 19 people ask me who do I hate more Hitler or Tom Arnold and that is so hard for me because I'm [Applause] Jewish by 1994 Roseanne and Tom Arnold's traveling media circus took on a life of its own despite their outrageous and sometimes offensive Behavior the terrible two prevailed in Hollywood [Applause] [Music] during the sixth season of Roseanne in 1994 the star continued to rule her show with an iron fist I gave it to you in theing trailer no it'sing written I gave it to you guys on paper in the trailer it'sing written I run my business like it's a queendom because you know it is and uh I I don't believe in democracy in this instance with husband Tom Arnold now sharing executive producer credit the sitcom experienced a heavy turnover of personnel that was remarkable even by Show Business standards I mean who hasn't been fired from the Roseanne show it was like a comedy Crucible oh Rosanne fired how many weeks did you last Roseanne encouraged her everchanging staff to push the envelope with show topics so what is this on top of the cake well see they didn't have anything with two Grooms so it's snapped off the bride and we glued on one of those action heroes from Pocahontas what is all this it's a gay wedding and I keep my head and my eyes open to see what isn't ever on television and I I try to go for what you're not supposed to put on television rosanne's revealing the incest incidents in her lifetime led her to want to explore that on the show we had a lesbian relationship between Sandra burnhard and Morgan Fairchild made the network very nervous we dealt with birth control we dealt with unemployment when Dan was struggling in his job we dealt with death when her father died she went to places that I hadn't seen on television before in a half hour comedy they were compelling and they were funny she likes to push those kind of boundaries she just can really read you know what people across the country are willing to accept and ultimately you know be able to accept it in a way that you know he can even laugh at it but execs at ABC weren't laughing in March 1994 when Rosanne went to battle over an episode in which her character visits a gay bar and shares a kiss with guest star Mariel Hemingway writers Stan Zimmerman and James ber the was having problems with it all the way through but that's something the Rosano has dealt with before during the masturbation episode and the pot episode but the controversy over this it it really surprised heightened the network even threatened to cancel the episode on the evening of March 1st 1994 the cast and crew gathered to watch the broadcast we still don't know what they're going to air there would still talk up to this morning that they were going to edit the kisss they were going to try to spe it's only 3 seconds I cannot believe that in this day and age that a woman cannot kiss another woman on television without somebody having a baby fit but anyway we're here to have some fun and uh I'm here to see a couple chicks kiss so I can get a and uh next at 9:00 ABC decided to air the first samex smooch on television [Applause] everybody's you know up in arms about it but I'm just glad we got it on the air I think it's a big victory for everybody the ratings just went like crazy because everyone made a big brewhaha over it America is fascinated by the continuing ability of Roseanne Arnold to surprise the out of people Roseanne's life re-entered Rough Waters a month later rumors of an alleged affair between Tom and his 24-year-old assistant Kim Silva surfaced again Roseanne and Tom's public fights reached Epic Proportions their relationship was like watching two grizzly bears go at each other on April 15th 1994 a high decel x-rated shouting match reportedly took place between the couple on the set Roseanne fired Tom on the spot along with Silva 3 Days Later Rosanne filed for divorce in Los Angeles Superior Court citing irreconcilable differences Roseanne claimed she was beaten and abused by Arnold and demanded a restraining order against him her petition was granted according to friends Arnold was unusually tight lipped about the allegations the day that I heard that they were getting divorced I called Tom and I said what happened and he said she's got 25 personalities and 15 of them PA my guts Roseanne predictably did the unexpected we had divorce day on the set and she had a roast Pig and had like strippers come in and play around and had a s little hawaian luow right there on the set one day middle of production Roseanne even announced that she was dropping Arnold from her name and from that point on she would simply go by Roseanne I saw her change from being being married to Tom Arnold to being more in control and I think she got happier as time went on I think it's very clear to timeline at the time of her second divorce is when she mellowed this was an element around her life that by every account was very destructive to her and at the time that she was freed from that situation then I think you'll see that that was the time that she wasn't really outrageous in public anymore over the next year Rosanne used her personal tribulations as material for her comedy well I just fought my way out of another heap of and managed to live through it Roseanne took great Glee in publicly ridiculing not only Tom's artistic ability but his sexual prowess as well Tom Arnold's penis is 3 in long [Applause] okay I'll say for cuz we're trying to settle you know people ask me who do I hate more Hitler or Tom Arnold and that is so hard for me because I'm [Applause] Jewish on the rebound 42-year-old Roseanne became involved with her former bodyguard and Driver 28-year-old Ben Thomas on February 14th 1995 Roseanne married Thomas in a Valentine's Day ceremony in Lake Tahoe I think he's a a quieter person that's kind of uh you know keeps her on an even Keel yeah Tom grab the mic and he go up there to the audience hey how yall doing now where you from I'm from Iowa too and he just going and going and going and going whereas Ben would sit and you know hang he was a Showbiz Outsider I think it was caling inspired by her Newfound peace and happiness Rosanne immediately set her sights on having another child she wanted that chance to raise one child under the circumstances she now enjoyed this tremendous affluence you know I'm helping my children now as adult children but I could have a baby from scratch who could you know would never know any of the pain or the hassles my other kids went through unable to conceive on her own Rosanne underwent several invitro fertilization attempts it was really hard in the beginning I had four what do you call it embryos put in and all four of them took but then three of them absorbed so I got down to one but uh for a while there I was in bed for 12 weeks because for I didn't know if I was going to be able to keep any of them in March 1995 Roseanne learned that the procedure was a success the oldest child is yes and my husband's 28 your husband's 28 and I'm pregnant again with my fifth baby so I think that makes me the Undisputed queen of all trailer trash I'm very proud of that do you have a name yet it's Buck Thomas I'm going to be more obnoxious than Kathy Lee about my kid it's my goal Roseanne gave birth to her son Buck on August 5th 1995 when the sitcom began taping its eighth season a few weeks later the change in Rosanne was immediately evident it was very sweet to see her with the baby actually it was really you know she's she's Rosanne and she's you know the uh the the queen of Hollywood and and there she is with this little little baby and you know talking you know talking making faces and making the baby laugh and you're like oh look at that she's a mom she's great it was a time of new beginnings for Roseanne that spring she developed and executive produced Saturday Night Special a sketch comedy show I want went to this party once and uh Demi Moore and uh Julia Roberts and Michelle fiber uh dragged me in a closet and make me do them and then at the end when they're leaving they let in uh what's her name Michelle or Merl Street yeah and I did her too I have multiple personality disorder and it really comes in handy for this kind of thing I just kind of scream at everybody and blow off a lot of steam and uh you know like to push people around and abuse them for no reason and that's basically my input on April 13th the series premiered on Fox but critics ripped it apart the show was cancelled after only six episodes disappointed Roseanne returned to her sitcom in September 1996 with plans to revamp the series The Season began with the Connors winning the lottery but the new storyline lost viewers I don't know that America wanted to see that you know I think they liked the Connors the way they were and not uh not rich it was a very different show stylistic of the show became much broader and wackier and spoofy Roseanne suddenly is doing a you know I'm rich and here all my rich friends kind of thing that was a betrayal of the storyline it was a betrayal of the of what's known as the Bible the whole history of that show and I think it cost her dearly the ratings took a note no dive and ABC did not renew the show on April 4th 1997 after nine Seasons the cast and crew of Roseanne took their final [Applause] Vow cast members joked about leaving the series I think like any Pony Hollywood crap we're going to promise to keep in touch and we'll never see each other again the crew reflected on their War Stories this show has done everything to like accelerate my baldness to increase my waistline to raise my blood pressure it all blurs together I was drunk at I was on the rosan show for four years and I've got the damage deler to show for it and as always Roseanne was sarcastic about her future plans I planned to fade into Oblivion like all other ex sitcom stars and never do another thing that is true then Roseanne received an offer that she couldn't refuse on May 13th 1997 she made her theatrical you at Madison Square Garden in The Wizard of ozs in a role that some described as typ casting Rosanne played the Wicked Witch of the West what a world what a world the play was unfortunately Roseanne's love life wasn't in January 1998 she filed for divorce from her third husband Ben Thomas citing spousal abuse and requesting custody of their 2-year-old son [Music] Buck coming up Roseanne turns [Music] rockar and Rosanne was was out of work and out of favor in Hollywood hoping to Breathe new life into her career television's petulant primadana plotted a move from prime time to [Music] daytime in January 1998 45-year-old Roseanne announced plans to tackle the highly competitive field of daytime talk as host of the Roseanne show I have many things to say and I believe there's an audience that actually wants to listen but most of all if I'm a hit I'll get faster service at the catering truck and being back on the air will keep my name alive in the tabloids without having to divorce any more husband to prepare for the show's September Premiere Roseanne focused on her physique after years of diet therapy liposuction tummy tucks and other attempts to trim down Roseanne still weighed over 200 pounds in April 1998 she underwent a controversial surgery called the phobe pouch the radical operation reduces the capacity of the stomach to a mere 1 o Rosanne also made a transformation of Faith she joined Madonna Elizabeth Taylor and other celebrities in the trendy study of cabala a Jewish mystical tradition I changed my life in many many ways it made me be ultimately responsible for myself and like the the short of it to uh stop to stop reacting and be proactive when I am kind and calm I actually live in a kind world that's what it's taught me Roseanne's spiritual enlightenment helped rekindle her love life that June Roseanne reunited with Ben Thomas her estranged third husband I'm feeling more and more back to my roots as like a mother and a housewife sort she's got this very earthy mother together thing going on she's very together and she doesn't have fear in her eyes anymore and she doesn't have worry in her eyes anymore America was introduced to the newly subdued and slim down Roseanne when her talk show premiered on September 14th 1998 Roseanne expected the usual media attacks but to her surprise critics praised the show for its distinctive style and for the cander of its host what you see on her talk show that's pretty much Rosie what you see and when she goes on interviews and that's the same person that I sit in a room with for the most part she's not very guarded she doesn't put on a facade for the public and then be some other person in the secrecy of her home or her dressing room and she's pretty much Rosy viewers however weren't impressed the ratings for the the first season of the Roseanne show were a major disappointment talk show didn't work that's not her strong point maybe fun sitting in a living room with it but not when you have to do it every day despite the Dismal performance King World which syndicated the show opted to renew it for a second season we're so happy that we get another year because we feel like we finally have worked our Kinks out and we're ready to like go like a smooth machine and great that we get another year but during the summer of 19 99 NBC owned stations pulled the plug and many markets which did carry the show stuck Roseanne in a 1:00 a.m. time slot variety and other industry Publications reported that it was clear the talker would not survive for season 3 it's a tough business and it's a business that's fickle and can forget you quickly if you don't stay in front of the of the of the public with the writing on the wall Roseanne set out to reinvent herself once again she discovered a new outlet to speak her mind rock music on September 30th 1999 Roseanne unveiled herself as the lead singer of Rosanne and the dicks at New York's legendary Punk club cbgbs I'm going to be real honest with you I had a real hard year I had like my show wasn't getting no ratings and you know they were like telling me that I got to be like Rosie O'Donald and the whole thing and I was like trying to sue everybody but nothing was working my kids W listen to me you know my husband I don't know he don't pay no attention to me in order to handle all that pain I turned as I have so many times before in my life I turned to rock and roll I hate my mom I hate my dad I hate my mom she's such a [ __ ] I wish she would go into a ditch I hate my dad he's that big he makes me sick the jury is still out on Roseanne the singer but whether she's a housewife standup comic sitcom Queen talk show host or Rockstar one thing won't change Rosanne will continue to keep the world guessing good night ladies and gentlemen she's an enigma in the grandest scale of it she's different she's special she's you know not always right she's offensive but bottom line say anything you want she's funny maybe she'll eventually be the center square on Hollywood Square genius and I think people that are geniuses tend to be a little loopy that's going to be on my gravestone I'm having that what in the hell was I thinking hi I'm Delta Burke and I'm coming up on E right now excuse me just a minute shut up damn unplug the goddamn thing I've been released from the state mental institution and um now I'm free I hate every living fing human being you're a bad crowd you suck not too funny tonight can't think of anything to say I don't know I have no idea no idea at all I I don't really know oh God I don't know I'm so bored with answering that question i e e just a minute you know we're filming down here sorry who's this than all the movie stars anyway I'm so damn good looking why out I think what got what we needed oh really oh you don't want me to [ __ ] anymore that's good I'm Rosanne and I'm watching e [Music]