Roseanne Barr

Origin  

Born in Salt Lake City, Roseanne Barr is the eldest child of a bookkeeper and a salesman. She was raised both Jewish and Mormon, with her parents hiding the fact that they were Jewish from their mostly Mormon neighbours. At the age of four she contracted Bell's palsy, of which she was "miraculously" cured. At six she had her first experiences on stage, via her participation in Mormon events. When she was sixteen she suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of a car accident. This left her personality radically altered, and required a stint in a mental hospital for eight months. In 1970, at the age of seventeen, she had a child, who she gave up for adoption. That same year she ran away from home. In 1974 she married for the first time. 

Character Evolution

Barr initially became involved in comedy in 1980, when she began to perform stand-up in Colorado. She was fairly successful, and by 1985 she had appeared on The Tonight Show. This was followed the next year by an appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman, which in turn lead to an HBO special in 1987. The success of this special lead to a sitcom with Barr in the starring role. Though Roseanne was well-liked and very successful from the outset, Barr repeatedly threatened to walk off the show due to a vendetta against series creator Matt Williams. She successfully orchestrated his ouster after thirteen episodes. After this, the show continued to be a hit for nine seasons, during which Barr received a number of awards, including  an Emmy and a Golden Globe. She appeared on the silver screen for the first time in 1989, in the film She-Devil. In 1990 she divorced her first husband and married her second, fellow comedian Tom Arnold. In the 1990s she appeared in a few other movies, as well as hosting Saturday Night Live three times in the early 1990s. In 1994 she divorced her second husband, marrying her third the next year. In the late 1990s she made cameo appearances in a few television series, as well as hosting her own chat show, The Roseanne Show, which was cancelled two years later. In the early 2000s she began work on a cookery show, as well as a reality show about what it was like to star in a cookery show. Both shows were halted due to medical concerns. She divorced her third husband in 2002, starting a relationship with her current partner the following year.  
 
In 2005 she returned to stand-up, performing around the world. In 2006 she released a children's DVD. Also in 2006 she made a cameo appearance on television series My Names is Earl, as well as starring in her own HBO comedy special. In 2007 she was the host of a Nick at Nite series. For the remainder of the 2000s she continued doing comedy shows, as well as hosting a politically-based radio show. In 2010 she performed at a film festival, as well as appearing in a documentary film about comedy. In 2011 she began appearing in a reality television show about her life that was cancelled two months after its premiere. A sitcom starring her is presently in production, having begun in late 2011. In August of 2011 Barr announced that she was  a candidate for the presidency, running as a member of the "Green Tea Party". She also claimed to be running for Prime Minister of Israel. In September of that year she involved herself in the Occupy Wall Street protests, making several supportive comments that were undercut somewhat by her stated belief that guilty bankers should be re-educated and executed in noncompliant. In early 2012 she officially filed as a presidential candidate for the Green Party, a fact that she publicly announced in early February.