Girls Gone Mild

The gloved gossip columnist recently posted this photo of a very pregnant Sara Gilbert, who played the smart-alecky Darlene on the classic 1988-97 sitcom "Roseanne,"and notes that Sara and her girlfriend of five years, Allison Adler, are taking turns carrying their babies. (I guess Allison gave birth to their first child -- a boy named Levi in 2004.) I'm happy for Sara, who is a great actress, but I do find it kind of ironic that Roseanne Barr wanted so badly to have the D.J. character turn out to be gay (the young boy who played him, Michael Fishman, is rumored to have pleaded with her not to saying it would be too difficult for him) yet Darlene and Becky -- (Alicia "Lecy" Goranson), at least until graduation -- both turned out to be homos in real life. (A friend of mine who went to Marist College knew firsthand of Lecy's lezzie shenanigans back when she quit the show to attend nearby Vassar, and more recently Lecy was on Larry King with some of the other cast members promoting the "Roseanne" DVDs and dropped about a dozen none-too-subtle hints about her bisexuality to the delight of Roseanne and John Goodman, as Larry King paid no attention whatsoever and repeatedly asked: "Why do you think it was so successful?'")

Roseanne ended up settling on gaying the Nancy character (Sandra Bernhard) and later even her own mother, Bev, played by the brilliant (Academy Award winner) Estelle Parsons, got in on the lezzie action. It makes me wonder if Roseanne knew of the girls' orientations at the time and made a conscious decision not to quasi-typecast them, or if having them date the Healy brothers just suited the show better. I guess we'll never know.

Related: Alicia Goranson Tells All (Curve) (and by "all" they mean absolutely nothing about her sexuality, even though Curve is a lesbian magazine!)