Rosie O'Donnell opted to switch career tracks to the television industry in order to be a full- time mother to her son, Parker, whom she adopted as a newborn in 1995 (she has since adopted two other children, a daughter named Chelsea Belle and another son named Blake Christopher). Hailed by Newsweek as 'The Queen of Nice,' O'Donnell as a host is irreverent, gracious, frank, perky, and brazenly hilarious without being trashy, she's . . . well . . . nice — like Dinah Shore, only with chutzpah. O'Donnell played the faithful nanny Golly in the 1996 film version of Harriet the Spy, and portrayed a sports- loving nun- teacher in the 1998 kids movie Wide Awake. More recently, she provided the voice for Terk, Tarzan's best gorilla pal, in the Disney animated hit Tarzan. Following in the footsteps of Oprah and Martha, O'Donnell will take over and revamp McCall's magazine beginning in Spring 2001 — the mag will be renamed Rosie's McCall's when she assumes editorial directorship duties.
Rosie O'Donnell