By Mark Dawidziak |  The Cleveland Plain Dealer 

Cleveland native Patricia Heaton, Jeff Daniels pair up in new version of '77 Neil Simon movie

Hollywood- It seems that everybody loves Patricia Heaton when she's playing Debra Barone on "Everybody Loves Raymond." The Bay Village native has won two Emmys for her work on the CBS sitcom that remains a top-10 show after seven seasons. 

But will everybody love Patty when she's playing Paula McFadden, the title character of Neil Simon's "The Goodbye Girl"? Simon says: The answer is an unqualified yes. 

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer never had any doubts. And Simon was going on more than instinct when he said Heaton would be perfect for a cable remake of the beloved 1977 film. The only comedy shows he catches on a regular basis are "Everybody Loves Raymond" and reruns of "Seinfeld." 

So Simon was overjoyed to discover that Heaton was eager to star in an updated cable version of "The Goodbye Girl," which TNT will air next year. Richard Benjamin is her director. Jeff Daniels, whose films range from "Gettysburg" to "Dumb and Dumber," is her co-star. 

"I jumped at the chance to do it, the minute it was offered to me," Heaton told TV critics. "Neil's writing is really special for an actor and you don't often get a chance to do something like that." 

Still, the question isn't, "Why cast Patty as Paula?" It's more like, "Why remake 'The Goodbye Girl' with anybody?" 

Simon's Oscar-nominated screenplay is considered his best script written originally for the movies. Most films bearing the much-honored writer's name are based on one of his many hit Broadway plays, from "The Odd Couple" and "The Sunshine Boys" to "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Biloxi Blues." 

Marsha Mason, then Simon's second wife ("we're still good friends," he says), received an Oscar nomination for playing Paula, a single mother recently dumped by her actor boyfriend. And Richard Dreyfuss won an Academy Award for playing Elliott Garfield, the high-energy Chicago actor with whom the jaded divorcee must share her New York City apartment. 

"Well, first of all, it was 25 years ago," said Simon, also the executive producer of TNT's version of "The Goodbye Girl." "So a lot of time has gone by, and I think there's millions of people who haven't seen it. . . . We have a great cast, great director." 

"Why did it need to be remade?" said Mark Lazarus, president of Turner Entertainment. "We think it's a terrific story that we could contemporize with today's stars. Working with Neil Simon is a real treat for us. His adaptation of his own story with contemporary stars in today's environment we think will be compelling for an audience." 

Yet Simon says the script didn't really need much updating or revising: "Why change something when it works so well? It has worked, and, I think, it's working just as well now. . . . Yes, we have the cell phone in it. This is going to be revolutionary. It looks the same in some respects, but different people are doing it and they bring something else to it, and it becomes new again and fresh again." 

The remake began filming in May, with cast and crew recently moving from Vancouver to New York City. Also in TNT's "The Goodbye Girl" are Hallie Eisenberg, who plays Paula's daughter, and Alan Cummings, who plays the eccentric director of an offbeat off-off-off-Broadway production of "Richard III." 

Sitting in directors' chairs set up on a Manhattan sidewalk, Simon and his cast spoke via satellite to critics assembled in Hollywood for their semiannual meetings with programmers and stars of network, cable and PBS shows. During a break from filming, Heaton and Daniels remembered the days when, like Elliott, they were looking for their big break in the Big Apple. 

"Jeff gave us his heartbreak tour around New York City," Heaton said, "and at every location it was, 'Oh, and that's where I lived when I couldn't get a job.' It was very pathetic." 

"Yeah, it took two days," Daniels said. "I told everybody, this just speaks to me. I was this guy" in "The Goodbye Girl." 

But his Emmy-winning co-star, the daughter of retired Plain Dealer sports columnist Chuck Heaton, had her own heartbreak tour to conduct: "Yeah, well, I actually tease Jeff about it, but I had a lot of apartments here. I lived in eight different places in New York in the nine years that I was here. And I moved from Ohio. . . . And it was very much like that for Paula - really big ups and really big downs. I mean, that's the thing about New York City. It has very vibrant energy, so whatever you're experiencing, you experience in a very big way. 

"And I had a lot of heartbreak here, like Paula, so it's kind of thrilling to come back here and get to play it in a movie. Also, when I was living here, I really didn't get any work at all as an actor. I couldn't get arrested. So it's kind of sweet to be filming on the streets of New York, and there's a lot of people who watch 'Raymond' and they love the show. So much to Jeff's chagrin, I'm being mobbed by fans."" 

Getting jobs was easier when Heaton moved to Hollywood. Keeping them was the tough part, as one network series after another was hit with cancellation instead of becoming a hit. Remember "Room for Two" (ABC, 1992-93), "Someone Like Me" (NBC, 1994) and "Women of the House" (CBS, 1995)? 

Relating to Paula's track record of disappointment, therefore, is no problem for Heaton. She did have a little trouble with her character's dancing experience. 

"The only change that's happened is now she's a very bad dancer," Heaton joked. "I begged Neil to make her a singer, but it would have screwed up the whole script. So, yeah, it was a very painful, humiliating experience for me. And I'm going pay the editor a lot of money to make sure that the body double they got is in most of those shots. 

"So just bear with me, people. Be kind when you watch this movie. Suspend your disbelief."