By R.D. Heldenfels | The Beacon Journal

Write now, worry later.

That seems to be the approach Bay Village native Patricia Heaton took to her hilarious new book, Motherhood and Hollywood: How To Get a Job Like Mine (Villard, $22.95).

Heaton-- who plays Debra Barone, wife of Raymond (Ray Romano), on Everybody Loves Raymond -- has concocted a fearless combination of autobiography and ruminations on her life.

It covers Heaton's Bay Village childhood (as the daughter of sportswriter Chuck Heaton), acting in New York and Hollywood, marriage and being the mother to four sons, with plenty of bumps along the way.

A few samples:

• "It probably wouldn't have mattered what my [high school] grade-point average was, because I ended up going to Ohio State, where the only requirements for acceptance were that you had to be breathing and carrying a number-two pencil.''

• "My last job in Cleveland... [was] at a restaurant in Cleveland called The Blue Fox. This place had a reputation for being a Mob hangout, and it had the waitresses to prove it. They all had names like `Dolly,' `Lil,' and `Bosoms'... I mean `Bunny.'... I lasted about a week.''

• "You want to know why I think my husband, Dave [Hunt], and I have a better than average chance... of having a lasting (more than 13.5 years) marriage? First of all, we don't get along that well. We fight a lot. We're not very compatible, we don't have much in common, and we each have habits that drive the other person totally, nerve-nakedly insane.''

• "That stomach had to go. It wasn't even a stomach anymore, really. It was more like a big old wrinkly suede bag hanging down, accented with a herniated belly button on a career of its own.... So off to my new best friend, the plastic surgeon, Dr. Hackensack. Not only does Hackensack do a bang-up job, I get to stay in a recovery center for three days and take Percocet, Valium and Ambien all at the same time.''

Now, Heaton did not back away from any of this in a recent telephone interview from Chicago while using a break in Raymond production for a book-promotion tour.

Reminded of the Ohio State line, she laughed and said, "I don't think I'll be getting an honorary degree from there any time soon.''

While Hunt looked over her shoulder during the writing of the book and complained a bit, the account of their marriage has a happy ending. And in the interview Heaton said that, like Debra and Ray on Raymond, "We're both in it for the long haul.''

But Heaton is still a worrier. She worried about the book's title after Romano said it might not appeal to men. She worried whether she had gone too far in talking about, say, the plastic surgery -- until other mothers with similarly overworked bodies began telling her stories about their experiences.

And she realized after completing the book that "there was a bunch of stuff I forgot to put in'' -- about jobs she had as a struggling actress, about the humiliations of auditions -- so she's thinking about a second book.

Some of that worrying stems from what she called "Catholic self-abasement,'' a feeling that is especially powerful when she looks at show business.

"I hate a lot of the pretense of Hollywood,'' she said, adding that it's easy to see how people get full of themselves.

"On the show, basically the set is run to make things as easy as possible for the actors to do their jobs,'' she said. "If you just look around, someone will ask, `What do you need?'... It's easy to kind of get used to people doing that.''

Marriage and motherhood provide an antidote, and she considers the book "an Erma-Bombeck-Meets-Dennis-Miller kind of rant.''

It began as a speech she was asked to give. "I wrote a 40-minute speech and thought, that was nice. This might make a good column.''

Then it became a book, one she would write at night after the children were in bed, or during breaks on the Raymond set. It also involved e-mails to her brother, writer Michael Heaton, for help along the way.

"I wouldn't know how to get something started, or didn't know how to close a chapter, and he would help,'' she said. "And we have a very similar voice.''

She is pleased with the reaction so far, noting dryly that "friends have said with a shocked look, `This is a good book.' ''

Heaton is especially happy that people like its honesty, which she sometimes finds in short supply in Hollywood. Witness plastic surgery.

"I'm all for plastic surgery,'' she said. "Having kids takes a toll on your body. I'm 44, and my body was looking like it was 72.''

"I object to people who have had it, and then say it's crazy,'' she said. "Or people that complain about it, when their photographs are getting air-brushed.''

Her ire rose again when we were talking about the Emmys. Heaton has two herself for Raymond (though she lost this year to Jennifer Aniston of Friends). And the latest round included acting Emmys for Romano, Brad Garrett and Doris Roberts -- but still no best-comedy award, this time won by Friends.

She had no explanation for its loss, except perhaps that Emmy voters don't find Raymond edgy enough.

At the same time, she said, "It's always been a mystery to me why Sex and the City won [in 2001].... It's not funny. I was a single woman in New York for nine years, and it wasn't like that.... No one has sex as much as they do and walks away unscathed. It's a big lie dressed up in Manolo Blahniks.''

In other words, Heaton has plenty to talk about for a next book. And she may have more free time if Raymond decides to ends its successful run. Romano has said the 2003-04 season could be the last. Not that Heaton is in a hurry to give up what she considers a dream job.

"I think CBS will fight tooth and nail to keep it,'' Heaton said. "And I believe our writers are talented enough to keep it going longer.''