Rosie got her first chance at stand-up while she was in high school. The brother of a classmate owned a comedy club and asked her to give it a try. That wasn't what she'd dreamed about, so she turned down the offer. But he kept asking and she finally gave in. At 16 she performed her first stand-up date by memorizing a Jerry Seinfeld routine she'd seen Jerry perform on The Merv Griffin Show. When she was told that you couldn't steal another comic's work, Rosie thought they were idiots because "When you're an actress, they don't ask you to write the movie."

Regardless, she began writing her own routines and began working steadily at the club while going to school. But her first paying job as a comic didn't come until after she'd left Boston University. She talked her way into a gig at Plums in Worcester, Mass., and shared the bill with Denis Leary. She didn't do very well, but they paid her $60 anyway. She hung around the Boston comedy scene for a few months before returning to Long Island to work in the catalog department at Sears. She spent her nights emceeing around the area while she created an act for herself

Developing an Act

After her "Jerry Seinfeld" incident, she decided instead to work as an emcee and introduced other comedians while she listened to the various acts and learned the ropes. "Even when people would tell me I'm too heavy, too tough or not pretty enough to succeed, I knew they were wrong. You have to believe in yourself."

The Road

At 20 she took her act on the road. There wasn't much money to be made doing stand-up in those days, and she often slept in filthy "communal condos" with the other comics on the bill - mostly male. "You'd arrive in town and they'd have a kid come pick you up in a used Vega with a door that didn't close. You'd have to get in on the driver's side and climb over his lunch from Hardee's. All of us would be scrunched in the backseat and he'd take us to this filthy condo where we would all live for days." "The other comics were much older. They'd pick up women at the bars, bring them home, and have sex in the rooms next to mine. I was like twenty and totally freaked out from hearing these noises through the wall. I put the dresser up against the door. Everybody was doing drugs and drinking."

Other Female Comics

In the early 80's, Rosie estimates she was one of about six women doing stand-up at the time. "It was such a rarity to have a female comic performing at all in a comedy club that it helped me to get noticed. There were about six women working the circuit when I started."

"When I started, some women comics were jealous of other women comics....My philosophy always was, 'If she did, I can too.' All of us who are working are already in the all-you-can-eat buffet. If you get to the table and there's no shrimp, wait one minute and they'll come out with more. There is no need to push people down."

On Drinking

"When I was a young comic I used to drink a lot… Instead of going back to the motel to be awake and afraid, I would stay and drink with the waitresses after the show and try to get sleepy. Then when I moved to L.A. and got on a sitcom [Gimme a Break], a friend of mine said, 'You drink too much, and you've had a lot of alcoholism in your family.' I was so mad. I said, 'Are you implying that I'm an alcoholic?' She was a therapist, this friend, and she said, 'I just think you have a problem.' So I stopped drinking totally for 5 years, just to show her I could. And I think it's good that I did, because if I had continued along the way that I was, I seriously feel that it would have become a problem for me."

Still, Rosie is not a teetotaler. She prefers a Sam Adams beer over wine or cocktails.

Opening Act

One step up from playing the comedy clubs is getting to open for other entertainers, either on the road or in cities like Las Vegas or Atlantic City. By 1985 she was the opening act for illusionist David Copperfield at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. She went on to tour with country stars Dolly Parton and Wynonna Judd. Dolly remembers that her fans loved Rosie, even though she was a New Yorker, because “she was so real and so down-home and they understood her comedy. We made a good team.” And Rosie credits Wynonna with coining her signature line, “You rock, sister friend.”