As she strode to the witness box, she might have hoped that her longtime musical director, John McDaniel, would bang out Everything's Comin' Up Rosie on an upright piano. She might have wanted to pass out free Taboo T shirts to the standing-room-only crowd. It might have helped if the star she called "my Tommy"―Cruise, not Selleck―were there to say what a wonderful person Rosie O'Donnell is. But this was not Broadway, where she played feisty, fun-loving Betty Rizzo in a Grease revival. This was not her G-rated TV chat show, which ran for six years and won her the sobriquet the Queen of Nice from Newsweek. This was New York State Supreme Court, and last week O'Donnell was testifying as the defendant in a $100 million suit brought by Gruner+Jahr USA, publisher of the short-lived monthly Rosie. The charge, as articulated by G+J CEO Daniel Brewster Jr.: she "walked away from her obligations" after a battle over editorial control of the magazine. O'Donnell has countersued for $125 million, charging that, by cutting her out of key decisions, G+J violated the contract.
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