Rosie: Rosie O'Donnell's Biography

Unlike most teen performers whose ambitious parents shepherded their careers, Rosie O'Donnell suffered her mother's death when she was only 11. She used to sneak into comedy clubs with a fake ID; the first evening she took the stage on an amateur night, she won $50. In this unauthorized bio, seasoned Hollywood journalist and author Parish (The Liza Minnelli Story, etc.) has researched O'Donnell's climb to fame mostly through secondary sources, drawing on print and TV interviews, critical reviews and press releases, as well as interviews with her colleagues. O'Donnell's comic career, feature films and Broadway show are well detailed here nonetheless, and her story is an inspiring one. Her fans will buy and enjoy this book, particularly as it's the first full-length bio of the talk-show star, but even they may be disappointed with the author's thin rendering of his subject's private life. Parish hints that, as an executive producer, O'Donnell has been known to be tyrannical and bad-tempered. Yet she has become known as the ""Queen of Nice,"" as a star-struck hostess with a heart of gold, and he provides too little information about the mature, successful woman behind the persona. But until O'Donnell writes her autobiography, as she's under contract to Warner to do, this bio may be the most thorough we'll get. (Apr.)