Roseanne Barr

At 71 years old, Roseanne Barr has this physical status:

While in Colorado, Barr did 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.

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.

Barr was offered the role of Peg Bundy in Married... with Children but turned it down. 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.

In 1987, The Cosby Show executive producers Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner wanted to bring a "no-perks family comedy" to television. They hired Cosby writer Matt Williams to write a script about factory workers and signed Barr to play Roseanne Conner.

The show premiered on October 18, 1988, and was watched by 21.4 million households, making it the highest-rated debut of that season.

Barr became outraged when she watched the first episode of Roseanne and noticed that in the credits, Williams was listed as creator. She told Tanner Stransky of Entertainment Weekly, "We built the show around my actual life and my kids. The 'domestic goddess', the whole thing." In the same interview, Werner said, "I don't think Roseanne, to this day, understands that this is something legislated by the Writers Guild, and it's part of what every show has to deal with. They're the final arbiters."

During the first season, Barr sought more creative control over the show, opposing Williams' authority. Barr refused to say certain lines and eventually walked off set. She threatened to quit the show if Williams did not leave. ABC let Williams go after the thirteenth episode. Barr gave Amy Sherman-Palladino and Joss Whedon their first writing jobs on Roseanne.

Roseanne ran for nine seasons from 1988 to 1997. Barr won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, a Kids' Choice Award, and three American Comedy Awards for her part in the show. Barr had crafted a "fierce working-class domestic goddess" persona in the eight years preceding her sitcom and wanted to do a realistic show about a strong mother "who was not a victim of patriarchal consumerism."

For the final two seasons, Barr earned $40 million, making her the second-highest-paid woman in show business at the time, after Oprah Winfrey.

Barbara Ehrenreich called Barr a working-class spokesperson representing "the hopeless underclass of the female sex: polyester-clad, overweight occupants of the slow track; fast-food waitresses, factory workers, housewives, members of the invisible pink-collar army; the despised, the jilted, the underpaid," but a master of "the kind of class-militant populism that the Democrats, most of them anyway, never seem to get right." Barr refuses to use the term "blue collar" because it masks the issue of class.

During Roseanne's final season, Barr was in negotiations between Carsey-Werner Productions and ABC executives to continue playing Roseanne Conner in a spin-off. After failed discussions with ABC as well as CBS and Fox, Carsey-Werner and Barr agreed not to continue the negotiations.

She released her autobiography in 1989, titled Roseanne—My Life As a Woman. That same year, she made her film debut in She-Devil, playing a scorned housewife, Ruth. Film critic Roger Ebert gave her a positive review saying, "Barr could have made an easy, predictable and dumb comedy at any point in the last couple of years. Instead, she took her chances with an ambitious project—a real movie. It pays off, in that Barr demonstrates that there is a core of reality inside her TV persona, a core of identifiable human feelings like jealousy and pride, and they provide a sound foundation for her comic acting."

In 1991, she voiced the baby Julie in Look Who's Talking Too. She was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress.

She appeared three times on Saturday Night Live from 1991 to 1994, co-hosting with then-husband Tom Arnold in 1992.

In 1994, she released a second book, My Lives. That same year, Barr became the first female comedian to host the MTV Video Music Awards on her own. She remained the only one to have done so until comedian Chelsea Handler hosted in 2010. In 1997, she made guest appearances on 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Nanny.

In 1998, she portrayed the Wicked Witch of the West in a production of The Wizard of Oz at Madison Square Garden. That same year, Barr hosted her own talk show, The Roseanne Show, which ran for two years before it was canceled in 2000.

In the summer of 2003, she took on the dual role of hosting a cooking show called Domestic Goddess and starring in a reality show called The Real Roseanne Show about hosting a cooking show. Although 13 episodes were in production, a hysterectomy brought a premature end to both projects.

In 2004, she voiced Maggie, one of the main characters in the animated film Home on the Range.

In 2005, she returned to stand-up comedy with a world tour.

In February 2006, Barr performed her first-ever live dates in Europe as part of the Leicester Comedy Festival in Leicester, England. The shows took place at De Montfort Hall. She released her first children's DVD, Rockin' with Roseanne: Calling All Kids, that month.

Barr's return to the stage culminated in an HBO Comedy Special Roseanne Barr: Blonde N Bitchin', which aired November 2006, on HBO. Two nights earlier, Barr had returned to primetime network TV with a guest spot on NBC's My Name Is Earl, playing a crazy trailer park manager.

In April 2007, Barr hosted season three of The Search for the Funniest Mom in America on Nick at Nite.

In March 2008, she headlined an act at the Sahara Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

From 2009 to 2010, she hosted a politically themed radio show on KPFK.

Since 2008, she and partner Johnny Argent have hosted a weekly radio show on Sundays, on KCAA in the Los Angeles area, called "The Roseanne and Johnny Show".

On March 23, 2009, it was announced that Barr would be returning to primetime with a new sitcom, wherein she would once again play the matriarch. Jim Vallely of Arrested Development had been tapped to pen the series. She later stated on her website that the project had been canceled.

On April 15, 2009, Barr made an appearance on Bravo's 2nd Annual A-List Awards in the opening scenes. She played Kathy Griffin's fairy godmother, granting her wish to be on the A-List for one night only.

In February 2010, Barr headlined the inaugural Traverse City Comedy Arts Festival in a project of the Traverse City Film Festival, founded by filmmaker Michael Moore. Moore developed the comedy fest with comedian Jeff Garlin.

In 2010, Barr appeared in Jordan Brady's documentary about stand-up comedy, I Am Comic.

In January 2011, Barr released her third book, Roseannearchy: Dispatches from the Nut Farm.

In 2011, she appeared in a Super Bowl XLV commercial for Snickers along with comedian Richard Lewis. It was the most popular ad, based on the number of TiVo users rewinding and watching it over.

On July 13, 2011, Roseanne's Nuts, a reality show featuring Barr, boyfriend Johnny Argent, and son Jake as they run a macadamia nut and livestock farm in Big Island, Hawaii was premiered on Lifetime, but was canceled in September of that year.

In August 2011, it was reported that Barr was working on a new sitcom with 20th Century Fox Television titled Downwardly Mobile. Eric Gilliland was attached as co-creator, writer and executive producer; Gilliland was also a writer on Roseanne. In October 2011, NBC picked up the show but later dropped it. A pilot was filmed but initially ended up being shelved by the network. Barr called her progressive politics the sole reason behind the pilot's rejection. She said she was notified that the show would not be picked up due to its being labeled "too polarizing" by network executives.

Barr was roasted by Comedy Central in August 2012. After stating that he would not, Barr's former spouse Tom Arnold appeared on the roast.

In the summer of 2014 Barr joined Keenen Ivory Wayans and Russell Peters as a judge on Last Comic Standing on NBC.

On November 28, 2014, Barr's series, Momsters: When Moms Go Bad debuted on the Investigation Discovery cable network, a network that she says she's a "little obsessed with". Barr hosts the show as herself.

On April 28, 2017, it was reported that Barr, along with most of the original cast, were shopping an eight-episode revival of Roseanne, with its original cast and Barr serving as producer, to various networks and Netflix. On May 16, 2017, ABC picked up the revival for mid-season 2018.

On March 27, 2018, the revived, 10th season of Roseanne premiered on ABC to high ratings. On March 30, 2018, ABC renewed the series for an 11th season, with thirteen episodes. On May 29, 2018, the series was canceled by ABC in the aftermath of a tweet widely considered to be racist. Barr and Tom Werner later came to an agreement on relinquishing her producer's stake in a spin-off titled The Conners, which ABC ordered for the fall season soon after.

In September 2022, it was announced that Barr would appear in a new comedy special, simply titled A Roseanne Comedy Special. It is set to be released in early 2023 on the streaming service Fox Nation.

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