By Bill DeYoung  | TCPalm

Two of the stars of "Everybody Loves Raymond" were in the area Saturday, as part of the Palm Beach International Film Festival.

Peter Boyle, who plays crusty family patriarch Frank Barone on the long-running situation comedy, and Patricia Heaton, who stars as his pragmatic daughter-in-law Debra, explained in separate interviews that the final "Raymond" episode - which will air May 16 on CBS - almost didn't happen.

"The episode itself is very funny, a wonderful script, and we're all sworn to secrecy and can't tell you about it," said Boyle with a wink.

"When it came time to film it, everybody was going through a little sadness. And Patricia, just before we went on, lost her voice entirely. We had an audience of invited friends and family, and network people and so on, and we had to cancel the filming."

That was on a Friday - the usual filming day for "Raymond" at CBS' Los Angeles studios - and two days later, the cast reconvened and tried it again. "Came back and rehearsed the whole show again," Boyle explained. "And again we couldn't do it. This had never happened in the nine years we'd been doing this show."

The Film Festival honored Boyle, a veteran movie actor whose work includes "Taxi Driver," "Young Frankenstein" and "Where the Buffalo Roam," with its 2005 Showmanship Award.

Heaton, who has won two Emmys for her work on "Raymond," said her bout with laryngitis wasn't totally unprecedented.

"I usually, once a year, lose my voice at work," she explained. "But it's never resulted in having to cancel an episode. In fact, in nine years we have never, ever had to cancel or postpone a taping. Until the final episode!"

Heaton was in town with her husband, director David Hunt, to premiere their documentary "The Bituminous Coal Queens of Pennsylvania." Heaton is the film's producer.

"Dave had been very sick that week, and my youngest son was sick, so not only was I stressed about the final episode, and working very hard, we were up a lot and taking care of everybody in the family."

It all worked out, "Raymond"-wise, and the goodbye episode finally made it into the can.

"It actually ended up being a blessing," Heaton said, "because all the final episode 'trappings' happened, and then we got to come back the next week and it was very quiet and calm. And it was just nice.

"It ended the way it began, which was just a group of us together."

Boyle said the occasion was "bittersweet and unique. We finally did it the following Saturday, and consequently had a little, intimate farewell party afterwards, in which everybody hugged each other and cried."

Ray Romano, the series' star and executive producer, is voluntarily ending "Everybody Loves Raymond" to concentrate on other projects. He has said he wanted to bring the story of Ray Barone and his dysfunctional family to a close while the series was still on top.

Heaton, who owns FourBoys Films with Hunt, has several projects in development, including documentaries, feature films and television movies.

FourBoys' recently-inked deal with Walt Disney Pictures calls for Heaton to develop and star in a half-hour sitcom of her own. "But we don't really know what that is yet," the actress said.

As for Boyle, who won an Emmy for a 1996 episode of "The X-Files," "I'll continue to do movies and television - and also enjoy life."