Big Stars and Their Big Break$

Before they became big-time celebs, Emmy-winning “Sopranos” moll Edie Falco and mouthy funnygal Rosie O’Donnell were starving artists struggling to make the rent.

So what did they do when they finally landed their first big paycheck?

Edie, channeling her TV alter ego Carmela Soprano, invested in New York real estate.

“By that, I mean just something decent,” Falco laughed, “I’d lived down in Greenwich Village in a dinky studio walk-up on the fifth floor. With no bathroom, yet . . . The minute I saw a few dollars coming in, I moved out.”

O’Donnell’s first big payout wasn’t even close to the bucks the comedian brings in these days. But her $23,000 check from “Star Search” felt “like $10 million” at the time, she told Parade maggie.

“I put the whole 23 grand in my pocket so I could keep feeling it, and I walked to the nearest Mazda dealership,” the former host of “The View” said. “The sales guy sold me a maroon stick shift. I didn’t know how to drive that, but it didn’t stop me.”

“Today” host Matt Lauer waited for three years until he was sure of his footing as NBC’s morning man until he attempted to build a house in the Hamptons.

“I never ever felt that I was really OK,” he confessed. “I always worried that I’d be fired . . . Even now I can hardly come to grips with the fact that maybe I’m finally permanently all right.”

Both Julianne Moore and James Earl Jones invested their first substantial chunk of cash in items for those they loved most. The “Children of Men” beauty bought a “hugely expensive cashmere sweater” for her mom when she scored her gig on “As the World Turns.” And the “Star Wars” star picked up a wedding ring for his first wife.

“To me, it was a lot then,” Jones says of the bauble, “but still it wasn’t very expensive.” (His second wife got a much bigger one, Mrs. Jones No. 2 told Parade.)

Then there’s “Pushing Daisies” darling Kristin Chenoweth, who went wild with her big-time payout.

She bought her Maltese pup, Madeline, as well as a pink doggy car seat for her new furry companion.

“Securely strapped in, Maddie likes to sit in the front near me with the window rolled down, so she can feel the air,” Chenoweth said. “Her long white hair flies in the breeze like she’s Marilyn Monroe.”

Money well spent, don’t cha think?

(c) 2008 Boston Herald. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.