In a breezy new memoir,
actress and mom Patricia Heaton
dishes about her sitcom and
C-sections, her tummy tuck and
tummy aches.
Driving around L.A. with her
four young sons in her dusty
Honda minivan, Patricia Heaton
heard, from somewhere in the
back, the words "Mom, you
stink!"
"It was my
3-year-old," she says.
"He wasn't mad. He was
just trying it out." It is
that kind of understanding that
informs Heaton's two-time
Emmy-winning role as the
long-suffering wife of
sportswriter Ray Barone on
Everybody Loves Raymond, CBS's
top-rated sitcom. And it is the
juggling of her two lives -- as
mom and as TV star -- that
serves as the subject of
Motherhood & Hollywood: How
to Get a Job Like Mine,
Heaton's first book.
"Because even though I'm a
working actor, I still think
the hardest job in the world is
being a mom. This book is sort
of a housewife's rant."
Heaton's own childhood began
idyllically in the Cleveland
suburb of Bay Village, as the
fourth of five kids of Chuck
Heaton, now 84, an
award-winning sportswriter for
the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and
Pat, a homemaker and social
activist. Then in 1971 Heaton's
mother died at the age of 46 of
an aneurysm. "I was
12," says Heaton. "I
came home from school for
lunch, and she was gone. And,
of course, it was the worst
thing you can imagine."
Despite that heartbreak, Heaton
soldiered on. Since second
grade, she had made a name for
herself at St. Raphael's
Catholic grade school by
belting out tunes from Barbra
Streisand's My Name Is Barbra
album. In 1980, after
graduating from Ohio State as a
theater major, she made the
move to New York City, where
for eight years she toiled as
an aspiring Broadway actress
(Don't Get God Started), shoe
model (size 6), investment firm
proofreader (Morgan Stanley)
and copy clerk at a national
magazine (full disclosure: it
was PEOPLE). Then in 1989 she
moved to L.A., marrying British
actor-producer David Hunt a
year later. In 1995 she landed
Raymond.
Since then, Heaton, 44, and
Hunt, 48, "have done a lot
of reorganizing of our lives to
keep things from falling
apart," she says.
"Now we all (sons Sam, 9,
John, 7, Joe, 5, and Danny, 3)
sit down to dinner every night
at 5:30, and we don't answer
the phone after 5."
In the following exclusive
excerpt, Heaton dishes just as
candidly about the work
involved in keeping up her
glamorous Hollywood front.
Evening Gowns....
Did I ever imagine there
would come a day when I hated
trying on evening gowns? I
guess I never imagined evening
gowns as a part of my daily
existence. But I used to love
dress-up. My mom had one silky,
satiny bathrobe that I loved to
put on, after which I would
pretend I was a captive
princess on a pirate ship --
well, that's another book.
Cut to Los Angeles, 2000. My
stylist Ricci (as in
"Ricky," but the L.A.
version) and I are standing in
front of two racks of designer
misogyny. These gowns are all
samples that have gone down a
runway in New York or Paris on
a model 25 years younger, 2
feet taller and 50 lbs. lighter
than me. And I'm the 5'2"
runt with four C-sections and
too many years of nursing who's
supposed to select one of these
outfits to appear (at the Emmy
Awards) in front of millions of
people. Thank you very much.
Now I know there are such
things as girdles and
Wonderbras to give a gal a bit
of help, but since all these
gowns are strapless, backless,
cut down to here, slit up to
there, sheer Lycra
stretch-cling fabric, the only
camouflage is possibly
Band-Aids over your nipples,
that is if you can find
Band-Aids big enough to go over
those babies since they nursed
those ungrateful little . . .
well, hell, it really doesn't
matter because your nipples are
actually pointing south, and if
you just tape them down around
your waist you'll have that
nice flat-chested look that's
so popular with the young
people today. Hi, Gwyneth!
The other way to go is to pick
the big beaded thing that looks
like it came straight from last
year's DAR convention. These
gowns weigh about a thousand
pounds, but they allow for an
entire team of architects to
erect scaffolding under there.
The really sick thing about the
Emmys is that they are
scheduled early in September,
just after I've come back from
four months of vacation.
Vacation meaning "I'm off
to England to eat my way
through the British countryside
with my husband, Lord Bangers
and Stout for Breakfast!"
There's the 10 lbs. the camera
adds, plus the 10 lbs. that the
strawberries with clotted cream
added, plus the ballast created
by the double-stuffed Oreos
dipped in peanut butter
(completely worth it, by the
way), plus beer. Thus, the Zone
diet.
The Zone diet
For six weeks I hang in there.
I have no bread. No cereal, no
rice, no nothin'. Didn't lose a
pound.
Now it probably would have
helped if I had exercised a
bit. At my age, hard, long
hours of gut-wrenching exercise
works; that or plastic surgery.
Which is what I opt for. Yep,
under the knife for no good
reason other than sheer,
unadulterated vanity. 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.
Not to mention the ridge of
scar tissue from the four
C-sections. When I tried to
suck it in, it just got more
wrinkly, like one of those cute
Chinese dogs with the folds
around their necks except
without the cute.
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. That's right!
Who knew? It was as if cutting
me open, creating a new belly
button and scraping out seven
years of scar tissue never
happened!
Would I have gone through all
this if I wasn't an actress, if
I didn't have a huge awards
show to attend? Hard to say.
I've been pretty
vain-slash-insecure all my
life, so maybe plastic surgery
was always in my future. Well,
the future is here!
The next hurdle is the shoes.
And the jewelry. And the bag,
and the wrap, and the hair and
makeup. Does all this sound
shallow?
It takes about three hours to
put the whole thing together on
the day. Glamorous? Perhaps.
But since the Emmys happen on a
Sunday, that morning consists
of rounding up all my reluctant
boys for church, sitting
through my Sunday school class
daydreaming about winning,
hauling everyone home, getting
them lunch, then sitting in my
dining room in my bathrobe in
front of the big picture window
(better light) while makeup
artist Brett tries to do
something with the front of my
head. They're not called makeup
artists for nothing.
Husband Dave
Did I mention my husband in all
of this? Yes, he's actually
around and actually has to look
presentable, and after all the
bow-tie trauma he ends up
miserably holding my handbag in
the background while the
paparazzi shoot me. I sometimes
think he wishes they would. Or
him. Fairy-tale Hollywood
couple, right? (Actually) I
think my husband, Dave, and I
have a better than average
chance (at least in Hollywood)
of having a lasting marriage.
We fight a lot, we don't have
much in common, and we each
have habits that drive the
other person totally,
nerve-nakedly insane. (In
Hollywood) you'll read story
after story about instant
attraction, hugely romantic
gestures, great sex. That's
when I give the relationship
anywhere from three months to
three years to fall apart.
Which brings us to -- the Red
Carpet. For all my complaining,
it's a pretty heady experience.
The minute you step out of your
limo, your name is announced
and hordes of fans start
screaming. If you're lucky.
Unlucky is when you arrive at
the same time as Julia Roberts,
and then you might as well be
wearing your Catholic school
uniform for all the attention
people will be paying you. But
eventually someone will notice
you are there, and then you get
to be queen for a day (or a few
minutes).
The awards themselves are like
a different world altogether. I
find myself constantly on edge
as I sit in my seat, fighting a
huge emotional battle -- trying
not to care, trying not to look
like I care, trying to be okay
with the fact that I care way
too much. All this with a
camera on me. Now, there's
acting!
Raymond is a regular loser at
these things, so there is some
resignation on our parts. We're
the uncool lunch table at
Hollywood High School.
Emmy Awards
One of the special perks that
go along with lucking into a
role on a Top-10-rated
television show is that you
become fresh meat and fair game
for the tabloids.
Unfortunately, my first
appearance in a tabloid ended
up being a "Don't" in
one of their fashion pages.
According to this tabloid's
fashion "expert," I
had made the unforgivable
mistake of not wearing
stockings -- I mean, who calls
them stockings anymore?
The next time I made the
papers, it wasn't about me. It
was just about my breasts. The
article included a
"renowned" plastic
surgeon commenting on the
photos, pointing out that the
right breast was higher than
the left breast, indicating
some surgical work. Now, this
is not to say that I never had
any work done on my two little
friends. However, I had stuff
removed, not added. See, after
nursing four boys in rapid
succession, my poor breasts
were two empty flesh sacks
plaintively whap-whap-whapping
against my chest on my morning
jog. Ricci is a magician, but
not a miracle worker. The day
he held up a turtleneck muumuu
for me, insisting that the
comeback of the
"Maude" look was just
around the corner and that I
could be the first one to get
in on it, was the day I knew it
was time for the knife.
Ultimately, it's a no-win
situation with these papers. If
I complain, it only makes the
allegations seem more
authentic. If I sue, it costs a
fortune. I figure there's only
one way to go: confess. Confess
to everything. I did it. And if
I haven't done it, I will.
The above is the Motherhood
and Hollywood book excerpt that
appears in the Sept 30. issue
of People Magazine.
