TORONTO - "Drop Dead Diva" star Brooke Elliott says she'll always be grateful to Rosie O'Donnell for giving her one of the biggest breaks of her career.

It happened in 2004 when O'Donnell was producing the Boy George musical "Taboo" on Broadway. The actress playing Big Sue went on maternity leave and O'Donnell gave Elliott a shot at the role.

"Rosie plucked me from the ensemble and gave me the lead role, which was really great and such old-school producing," Elliott said in a recent telephone interview from Los Angeles.

Elliott said O'Donnell has been "a huge supporter" of hers ever since and didn't hesitate to guest-star in "Drop Dead Diva," airing Tuesdays on Showcase.

"We asked her to come on the show and she generously said yes and so it was really fun," said Elliott of the story arc, which begins Tuesday and sees O'Donnell playing a sharp-tongued judge.

In "Drop Dead Diva" - which has already enjoyed a hugely successful run on the Lifetime channel in the U.S. - Elliott plays Jane, a Size-16 lawyer who is shot to death and inhabited by the spirit of a recently deceased, vapid model wannabe named Deb (Toronto native Brooke D'Orsay).

Deb is at first dismayed with her new, bigger body, which often craves doughnuts ("Oh, God, you sent me to hell?" she remarks to her guardian angel, played by Ben Feldman, when she first sees her figure).

But with help from her loyal legal assistant, Teri (Margaret Cho) and her exercise-obsessed best friend, Stacy (April Bowlby), Deb learns to embrace Jane's figure.

"She learns more and more about how shallow or self-obsessed she's been and how her view on life was so tainted by looks," said Elliott, whose film credits include "What Women Want" and "Liar's Club."

"There are so many different levels of the show, which is why it's so great, but one of the things is that we (as a society) constantly label people: It's not that she's 'beautiful,' it's she's 'plus-sized and beautiful.' We tend to make sure that we tell people what they look like.

"And I think that one of the things the show is capable of doing is going, 'We don't need to do that. We can just say 'she's beautiful."'

In addition to O'Donnell, the A-list parade of guest stars on "Drop Dead Diva" include Liza Minnelli, Paula Abdul and Delta Burke.

Then there are the first-rate legal stories, some of which are taken from real life, said Elliott. The expert handling of such cases can be attributed to the background of the show's creator, Emmy-winning writer Josh Berman, who has graduate degrees in law and business from Stanford University.

Elliott said the show is "enlightening and so poignant to everyone, whether you struggle with weight or something else."

"I think we all struggle with identity at some point in our lives and we're all trying to figure out who we are and what we want and what we're doing and that's what the show is."