Elisabeth Hasselbeck

The Softball Swan

Elisabeth Filarski – the elder child of Ken, an architect, and Elizabeth (with a "z"), a lawyer – enjoys an athletic childhood in Cranston, R.I. She attends St. Mary's Academy Bay-View, where she's a member of a state-champion softball team. "The years growing up were so important to me," she tells the Providence Journal in 2004. "The support I've always had from my parents is amazing. They've always let me go beyond the norm."

Survivor's Sweetheart

Filarski – now working as a shoe designer for Puma – attempts to outwit, outplay and outlast 15 other contestants in Survivor: The Australian Outback (the second season of the wildly successful reality show). She auditions as "a whimisical thing," her younger brother Ken tells PEOPLE in 2001. "She told people she was doing it as a joke." But the fierce – if perky – competitor makes it all the way to the final four. But when she returns to civilization, she's diagnosed with celiac disease, a serious immune-system reaction to gluten.

July 06

I Do!

College sweeties, Filarski and Hasselbeck, tie the knot in Filarski's hometown of Cranston, R.I., as 200 guests – including Survivor champ Tina Wesson – look on. Afterward, the blushing bride changes her last name to Hasselbeck.

September 23

Baby on Board

The entire View crew comes onstage sporting fake baby bumps (right), as Barbara Walters asks the audience to guess which cohost is pregnant. As the crowd goes wild, Hasselbeck confirms that she is 13 weeks along with her first child. On April 6, 2005, she welcomes daughter, Grace. "Grace is amazing," the new mom says when she returns to the show. "She likes to eat a lot and sleep a lot – just like her father."

February 28

Rosie: Round One

The gloves are off! Hasselbeck spars with Rosie O'Donnell (right), who joined the show as moderator in September, replacing Meredith Vieira. When Hasselbeck says the government should be allowed to monitor citizens' private telephone conversations, O'Donnell snaps back, "Elisabeth, you are very young, and you are very wrong." Two days later, the famously liberal comedienne apologizes on her haiku-style blog: "i said some of elisabeths comments were ignorant / which was ignorant itself."

November 09

It's a Boy

The Hasselbecks welcome their second child, a son, Taylor Thomas (right). Two months after giving birth, Hasselbeck returns to work – with baby Taylor in her arms. And the newborn certainly has a healthy appetite, Hasselbeck says, adding "I call myself the Dairy Queen." More than seven months after her televised shouting match with Hasselbeck, O'Donnell tells PEOPLE that they have finally buried the hatchet. Calling Taylor "very, very cute," the comedienne says she "sent him a lovely gift."