Everything's Coming Up Rosie -- O'donnell Makes Her Broadway Debut With Dream Role In `Grease'

After firmly establishing herself as a lovable, wisecracking sidekick to the stars in recent Hollywood hit films ("Sleepless in Seattle," "A League of Their Own"), Rosie O'Donnell is taking a hiatus from movies.

But does that mean the Long Island-bred, former stand-up comic is somewhere on a beach de-stressing - perhaps sharing suntan oil with her close personal pal (and "League of Their Own" cohort) Madonna?

No way.

O'Donnell is busier than ever trying on a new challenge: appearing in pedal pushers and sateen sports jacket, in a big-budget revival of the nostalgic '50s high school fantasia, "Grease."

O'Donnell arrives with the show, which also stars TV soap-opera actor Ricky Paul Goldin, when it visits the Paramount Theatre March 16-26. The Seattle run comes midway in a nine-city national tour that winds up on Broadway in April.

It won't be the first time O'Donnell has played Seattle. In 1992, she was here for eight weeks shooting "Sleepless in Seattle," with a little moonlighting at the Comedy Underground. ("I love the city," she says. "I just wish it didn't rain so much." )

"Grease," however, is something else entirely. It marks the musical theater debut of the 32-year-old actress, who co-stars in the chewy supporting role of Rizzo, the gum-snapping leader of the Pink Ladies gang at mythical Rydell High School. Actually it's the performer's stage debut, too - unless you count the five lines she delivered in a freshman play at Boston University.

Stage fright isn't a problem, swears O'Donnell. Fifteen years of stand-up comedy took care of that. Singing . . . well, that's different.

"I've had to overcome my angst to sing in public," O'Donnell acknowledged in a phone interview from Washington, D.C., where "Grease" was playing. "I'm not a real singer, like Patti LuPone. I'm more a singer like Tyne Daly was in `Gypsy.' "

But O'Donnell took umbrage at a Baltimore critic's suggestion that she "talks her way through some of her songs."

"I'm tentative, but I'm singing them," she promises. "Listen - you pay $60 a ticket, you hear me sing."

That blunt, no-guff attitude seems natural from O'Donnell, who reacts happily when she's compared to Eve Arden, a notable tart-tongued second banana from Hollywood's Golden Age ("That's a huge compliment, and very flattering to me"), and to another irrepressibly forthright comedic actor, Roseanne Arnold.

About that other Rosie, O'Donnell says, "She really paved the way for women like myself. She's done phenomenally well, and she's been a pioneer. I like her as a person, and I admire the courage she has to face her demons publicly."

`Everyone hhas demons'

O'Donnell can relate. She had her own share of heartache growing up in a big Irish Catholic clan she describes as "very stoic and non-emotional." At age 10, she lost her mother to cancer. And every stranger she meets in a mall asks about her up-and-down weight problem ("Haven't licked it yet"), and her search for Mr. Right (so far, he hasn't shown up).

But despite her unfussy candor, it's unlikely you'll see O'Donnell spilling her entrails to Vanity Fair or Oprah anytime soon. "Everyone has demons, and no one gets through childhood unscathed," she reflects.

"If I told the public what I tell my therapist, I'm sure they'd feel sorry for me. But sharing your pain publicly is a big price to pay. And I wonder about revealing so much of your hurt when you're trying to be funny. Roseanne makes me laugh, but I always feel her pain, too."

Clearly, this Rosie would rather make you chuckle. Yet from the time she was a teenager lobbing hardball one-liners in comedy clubs, she dreamed of going beyond stand-up.

"Bette Midler, Carol Burnett, Barbra Streisand - they were my idols, not Joan Rivers or Johnny Carson, though I respect them, too. It's been harder for women to make the jump from stand-up to acting, but it's always what I wanted to do."

And O'Donnell hasn't been shy chasing it. When she got wind of the planned revival of the 1972 mega-hit "Grease," she "called the producers and told them I wanted to play Rizzo. Years ago, when I saw the movie with Stockard Channing as Rizzo, I said, `I gotta play that part someday, that tough girl with the heart of gold.' I was a girl like that. That's me."

Apparently, producers Barry and Fran Weissler agreed. So did Broadway director Tommy Tune, who's billed as a producer on the show, but whose hand-picked protege Jeff Calhoun is directing and choreographing. What is Tune's contribution to the production? "Tommy's been around maybe 10 days since we started three months ago," O'Donnell notes. "I'm not really sure what he has to do with it. "

A learning experience

Even without Tune's direct tutelage, O'Donnell says she's learned a lot from her musical comedy baptism-by-fire.

With customary honesty, she dismisses the retro rock musical's "message" that "good girls should become trashy so they can be popular. I want to grab young girls in the audience and tell them, `Don't believe this!' But hey, it's entertainment, not world peace."

On the plus side, she enjoys the "family feeling on tour. It's a lot less lonely than doing stand-up. You have people to hang out with, eat with. It's sort of like high school, actually.

"You're also responsible to other people onstage, which is something new for me. If you screw up as a stand-up, it's your own thing. Here you have a lot of people to support."

O'Donnell signed a six-month Broadway contract, and hopes the show sells well enough to give her that extended time at home in New York. Then she'll get back to movies. Already in the can is her performance as Betty Rubble in "The Flintstones," and a role in Anne Rice's "Exit to Eden" due in July. Up next? "Girl Hoops," a feature she wrote.

"It's about a female basketball coach played by me, the sports queen," she explains. And yes, she's really athletic: "That's why I got cast in `League of Their Own.' I was one of the few girls on that picture who could really play ball. It goes back to my tomboy days."

Takes reviews in stride

O'Donnell's rookie theatrical experience has been almost as rigorous as pro sports. "Grease" has a punishing, 10-shows-a-week road schedule. And its sole celebrity cast member has fielded favorable-to-middling reviews.

"I've had to overcome my fear and deal with criticism," she says. "It's different when you do a movie, and the reviews come out a year later. By that time you don't care.

"When you get a bad review in the theater, you have to go do the same show the next night. I'm finding that it's not good to take any reviews to heart, the bad or the good."

But Rosie, has your chum the Material Girl seen you in "Grease" yet? What was her review?

"Madonna isn't coming until we get to New York," reports O'Donnell. "But she's always very supportive of my work, and of being courageous and bold in doing new things. She does tease me that I can't sing, though. She's always telling me, `Sing out, Rizzo!' "