By Ray Richmond | The Hollywood Reporter

Everybody loves the rest of Raymond's clan, too.

[ Patricia Heaton ] [ Brad Garrett ] [ Doris Roberts ] [ Peter Boyle ]

Patricia Heaton

Patricia Heaton failed to answer the bell for a "Raymond" episode shoot only once in nine years; unfortunately, it was for the final episode, with the audience already seated and waiting for the "Applause" sign to flash. The actress who played Ray's infinitely tolerant (if sarcastic) wife Debra for all those seasons had lost her voice.

"There was nothing I could do," Heaton says. "We have this special audience all ready to explode, Ray's family had flown in from back east, and there I am with a cracking voice. But it wound up being almost a blessing: We came back the following week to shoot it after having already said all of our goodbyes, and it was almost like our own private farewell."

Heaton admits that she was "the biggest crybaby" while making the series finale.

"I wept and wept and wept," she says. "But that's not to say it wasn't the right time for us to go. We had a great run."

Heaton believes that "Raymond's" exceptionally tight-knit cast will remain close, but having no workplace for the first time in a long while has been disorienting.

"It's like I had been living in this foreign country for nine years where I was the queen and everyone worshipped me," she says. "Now I'm back home with four kids, in the thick of all of their school projects -- that's my new full-time job. But at home, I'm not treated like the queen anymore."

Heaton is likely to get that chance again soon -- she inked a deal this year with ABC and Touchstone Television to star in and produce films and series through her Four Boys Films banner on the Walt Disney Co. lot in Burbank -- but still, she has reservations.

"It's hard to feel very queenly when my new office address is on Dopey Drive," Heaton says.

Brad Garrett

Having conquered TV sitcoms as Ray's lovable sad-sack brother on "Raymond," movie stardom is next on Brad Garrett's wish list. There are two obstacles to that happening, though.

"I'm very picky, and I'm not in demand," Garrett says. "It's a brutal combination; I find that I literally turn down roles I'm not even up for. The other day I called someone at DreamWorks and said to them, 'I'm not up for your new spy movie,' and they went, 'Great!' So that's where things stand for me in the movies."

But shed few tears for Garrett, who parlayed a successful stand-up comedy career into his life-changing gig on "Raymond." The towering actor (he stands at 6 feet 8-1/2 inches) emerged on the scene during the 1980s as the first "Star Search" $100,000 grand-champion winner in comedy. He went on to headline gigs nationwide, but not until he won the "Raymond" role did Garrett, now 45, become a household name.

"I am just very grateful to have had this come into my life," he says. "If the downside is risking being typecast now, well, I'll take that in a heartbeat. I'd much rather have that hurdle than everybody asking, 'Who's he?' Having had this job gives me the right to audition now."

Since "Raymond" wrapped, Garrett -- who has won two Emmys on four nominations for "Raymond" and earned another mention for his portrayal of Jackie Gleason in the 2002 CBS telefilm "Gleason" -- has pitched a four-camera comedy series idea to HBO. He hopes to develop the show soon with the pay-cable outlet.

"Now I'm trying to decide if I want to act in it or just executive-produce it," Garrett says. "It's a show about a real loser, on a different level from 'Raymond,' and the great thing about doing it at HBO is that you don't have to say, 'Fiddlesticks!' when you drop your keys in the toilet."
But Garrett is wary of potential "Raymond" spinoffs.

"For every 'Frasier,' you have an 'After M*A*S*H,'" he says. "I already sat around for nine years knowing I was one of the luckiest guys in the world; I realize there are people every bit as funny as me who never get that shot. That's where I prefer my head to stay right now, rather than worrying about how to milk it."

Doris Roberts

Everyone else agrees publicly that it was time to leave "Raymond" while the show was at the top of its game, but Doris Roberts is the lone dissenter.

"I was still having a great time, and I thought the scripts this season were fabulous," says Roberts, who believes that the meddlesome mother she created has been the best role of her career. "I'd love for this thing to go for another year or two, but it wasn't up to me."
But Roberts is not hurting for work: She co-stars in the upcoming comedy feature "Grandma's Boy," which is executive produced by Adam Sandler and has her playing oppose fellow sitcom veterans Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight. Nor does she worry about future jobs -- it's just that none of them will be "Raymond."

"I just came back from a trip to South America, and everywhere I stopped -- from Buenos Aires (Argentina) to Santiago (Chile) -- they knew Doris, they knew Marie," Roberts says. "It doesn't matter where in the world you live -- you can relate to a dysfunctional family."

Roberts credits the writing on "Raymond" for a large part of its success. "But I think we actors deserve credit for bringing those words to life and making those people real," she adds.

The Barone family became synonymous with fractious instability, but Roberts notes that that was not the dynamic among the show's cast members.

"We completely trusted each other, which is very unusual on a series like this," she says. "No one tried to do a star turn or put on airs or act out; whatever neuroses we had, we kept to ourselves. The laughs and the attention were spread around because that's how Ray Romano wanted it. He's just a wonderful guy."

Peter Boyle

"Raymond's" end means many things to many people -- and the airline industry might notice a sudden pinch with a drop in business from Peter Boyle, who commuted weekly to Los Angeles while keeping his home in New York.

"It's been tough, but it's had its advantages," Boyle says. "I didn't want to uproot my family, and somehow I was able to make it work. Now, I guess, I'll be spending a lot more time at home. I already don't know what to do with myself and all of this free time."

Boyle has not had much free time during his three decades in television, but "Raymond" provided stability that often had eluded one of the industry's most successful character actors.

"This has been such a remarkable run," says Boyle, who has earned six Emmy nominations for the show. "You never realize how much you're going to miss the people you've worked with for the better part of a decade and how much they've become a part of your daily reality."

Boyle has been around long enough that he takes none of what he experienced on "Raymond" for granted.

"It's just mysterious why something catches on, while another pilot that was also very good never makes it out of infancy," he says. "It's especially gratifying for me considering how hot reality shows are right now, and with comedy on the ebb. We were somehow able to buck the trend."

While he chooses between golf or poker to fill his days, Boyle also is considering a few feature-film roles -- though nothing was definite at press time. His immediate goal is to take advantage of his downtime by seeing a lot of plays and spending time with his college-age daughters.

"It's good to be home," Boyle says. "But it isn't easy letting go of my second family."