By David Martindale
Biography Magazine
Thanks D. for the transcript

In the casting director's office for the hit TV sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, there is a stack of 8x10 photos of actresses who are vying for tiny two-line, walk-on parts. Patricia Heaton, whom everyone calls Patty, is the show's Emmy-winning female star, but she still shudders every time she sees that deep pile. "I was in that stack!" she declares. "I used to be one of those 8x10's! My god, how did I ever get out of that stack?" 

Good question. What is it that transformed her from just anther face in the talent pool into one of TV's favorite stars? "It's not because of my talent," says Patty. "And it's certainly not because of my looks." 

But somewhere along the way, surely there must have been an opportunity, an open door, that changed everything? Maybe the answer is right under her nose. "I was one of the few actresses actually willing to kiss [co-star] Ray Romano during the audition," Patty says with a laugh. "That alone might have gotten me the job." Could it really be that simple? Something as nothing as a kiss?

"Well, I wouldn't call it nothing." She replies, ready with an expertly timed zinger. "I mean, have you kissed Ray?!?"

Patty is now in her seventh season playing Debra Barone, the stay-at-home wife and mom whose annoying in-laws live right across the street. And in that role, she's accomplished her goal - set long ago as a kid in Cleveland - of "winning my way into the hearts of millions." Viewers who have mad Raymond one of TV's highest ranked shows often tell Patty how "real" her character is, and they're right - no other actress does the frazzled housewife or the bone-tired lover as brilliantly as Patty. "When I meet people who watch the show," she says, "they treat me like I'm an old friend."

Her peers adore her work too, awarding her the Emmy for lead actress in a comedy series in 2000 and 2001 (she was nominated again this year; the Emmy telecast took place after press time). And her popularity has even led to writing a high-profile book: Motherhood and Hollywood: How to Get a Job Like Mine (Random House). Patty describes the series of essays as "housewife rants" that are part Erma Bombeck and part Dennis Miller.

All the success is indeed sweet. But Patty, 44, points out that she paid her dues. "It was a long haul - it took me 10, 15 years to get here," she says. "Sometimes I can't believe I actually made it. But it's become a reality beyond my wildest dreams." 

The great irony of it all is that, after years of being consumed by her career, "everything finally fell into place when I wasn't so obsessed with it anymore." Like the character she plays on TV, Patty is a wife and mother. She and actor/producer David Hunt, 48, her British-born husband of 12 years, have four sons; Sam, 9; John, 7; Joe, 5; and Dan3. Starting her family changed her, she says. She became a healthier, more well-rounded person, which by extension made her a better actress.

"My first sitcom [in 1992] was Room for Two," Patty recalls. "It was a terrific show and I thought my work was really good. But when I look at it now, it's very tight. It's like I was trying too hard and, because of that, something's missing. Looking back, I realize I was never not thinking about the show. I worked very hard on it all day. Every time we ran a scene, I did it full-out, at performance level. And when I came home, I was still constantly working on it and thinking about it. I kind of got a little ill. I was very thin and I wasn't sleeping well and I was really exhausted because I was just so obsessed with getting it right."

Not any longer, "What I've discovered since I've had kids is, they've necessarily taken a lot of the focus off my work, and it's for the better," She reports. "I certainly don't think about work after I leave it there, except maybe on the night before we film, when I will sit in bed with the script and go over the lines. But that's it. And what's great is I've found that my performances now are so much better than when I was forcing it."

Plus, being a star of a 30-minute show is a mighty sweet job, and Patty is the first to admit she has it easier than most working moms. She and the rest of the Raymond cast - Romano, Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts, and Peter Boyle - enjoy four-day, Monday through Thursday work weeks. Each day begins around 9 or 10 a.m., allowing Patty time to get her kids fed, dressed, and off to school before she heads to the studio. And except for shooting days, she's often home by 4. "So sometimes I even pick the kids up from school. And I'm there for dinner and homework and bedtime."

Which is not to say that Patty's career is less important to her now. She loves playing Debra, whom she thinks of as a sitcom Every woman, and the camaraderie of the cast. She enjoyed writing her book with help from her brother Michael, a journalist-turned-screenwriter. And she and her husband recently entered the production end of the business with their company, FourBoys Films - although its name reveals where her priorities will always lie.

"I joke about kids a lot and what a pain they can be," she says, "But I really, really enjoy my boys. They're the joy of my life. And I know that when I get toward the end of my life, when work becomes unimportant and everything else fades away, I'm still going to have something that's meaningful - and that's my family."

The importance of family is something she's always known. Patty Heaton was born on March 4, 1958, in Cleveland, Ohio- the fourth in a Catholic family of five kids. Her father, Chuck, was a sportswriter for The Plain Dealer newspaper; her mother, Pat, was a homemaker who died of a brain aneurysm when Patty was 12. She remembers that loss as "the worst year of my life, a period of grieving and depression, and feeling a void in my life."

But even as a child, Patty knew she was destined to be a performer. "I've always been blessed - or cursed, depending on who you talk to - with an outgoing personality," she says. "And very early on, I saw some Shirley Temple movies. After that, I just knew I had to be up onstage." Yet she studied journalism as Ohio State University for two and half years before switching her major. "I was just too depressed doing anything but theatre."

After graduating in 1980, Patty chose to pursue her dream in New York City, where she lived for nine long, often frustrating years. She made her Broadway debut in '87 in the gospel musical Don't Get God Started. But more often, her New York years were characterized by off-Broadway theatre work that netted little pay, and the usual struggling-actress jobs, which included waitress, proofreader, and copy clerk at People magazine. "No wonder my father kept saying, 'Why don't you just come back to Cleveland?' Because there was no indication that any of this was going to go anywhere."

But there also were encouraging moments that kept her afloat. "I was a room service waitress at the Hotel Parker Meridian in New York and waited on Dustin Hoffman," Patty recalls. "In five minutes, he changed my day. He was like, 'Oh, you're an actress? Who are you studying with?' And we had a big conversation and he gave me hope. And there were other times, people I met in church who told me, 'You are going to a success,. I just know it."

They were right. When one of her off-Broadway productions played in Los Angeles in 1989, Patty was noticed by the casting director for TV's thirtysomething, and she was hired to portray Patricia Wettig's doctor in a half a dozen episodes. That break came at a critical point: "I was thinking, 'I can't do this one more day. Ten yeas without any sign of progress is enough.' And then they cast me as the doctor and I knew I had turned some sort of corner."

Before long, she was staring in Room for Two (1992-93), Someone Like Me (1994) and Women of the House (1995). Each sitcom was short-lived, but each one allowed her to prove her mettle to the point that, by 1996, the producers of Everybody Loves Raymond wanted a "Patty Heaton type."

Oddly, Patty's agent initially said she was unavailable for the role. "Meanwhile, I'm sitting on the back porch cutting out coupons for 50? off packages of Ballpark Franks, because neither me nor my husband had jobs and we've got two kids and we're trying to cut every corner."

Patty didn't meet with Romano and executive producer Phil Rosenthal until several other actresses had been rejected by the network. But once she arrived for her audition, it was quickly evident she was perfect for the job.

"I was late," she recalls. "I had a babysitter who needed to leave. So all that was on my mind was to read the thing and get out. But once I'm in there, they're just chatting and chatting and I'm thinking, 'Man, I've got to get out of her!' So I said, 'Well, should we read this or what?' And when I read it, they seemed really happy. It just all came together, maybe because I wasn't obsessing about it. I mean, I was just playing the harried housewife, which is what I am and what they wanted."

And clearly, what the viewers wanted too. "I knew from the start that the show deserved to make it," she says. "But whether it's going to catch on with people and critics is a whole other thing. So to have all the pieces come together the way they have, it's just been miraculous."

Celebrity Dossier

Name: Patricia Heaton
Date of Birth: March 4, 1958
Place of Birth: Cleveland, Ohio
Parents: Chuck, a sportswriter, and Pat (deceased)
Siblings: Three sisters and one brother
Education: Graduate of Ohio State University
Family: Husband David Hunt; four sons
FYI: Unlike Debra, her TV character, Patty is a good cook. But she's never made lemon chicken, Debra's often-mocked favorite dish, and swears she never will. "I could never serve it without getting a lot of smart remarks!"