BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.
Actress Patricia Heaton was
absolutely through with dating
actors. "I'd been with actors
before and said, 'I'm NOT going
to be with an actor again. I'm
going to find a nice
businessman who has both feet
on the ground, has a steady job,'"she recalls in an
empty sun-lit suite at a hotel
here.
When she met actor David Hunt
she didn't change her mind. In
fact, Hunt sublet his New York
apartment to her while he was
off doing "Hamlet"in
Baltimore. "We had to stay in
touch because of some phone
bills, and I had to send him
his mail. Or he would come back
on a break to get his stuff.
"And he just bugged me
because he was an actor, and I
saw right through his
posturing. And he had this
English accent because he was
British. I just thought he was
sort of a dog like all these
other actors. Then of course,
now we're married with four
children. I don't know what
happened.
What happened was momentous.
Not only has she been married
to Hunt for 13 years but has
temporarily forsaken the
healthy hearth of the Ray
Barone home on "Everybody
Loves Raymond"to star (as an
actress who's absolutely
through with dating actors) in
Neil Simon's "The Goodbye
Girl.
It's just now, says Heaton,
that she realizes the parallels
to her own life. As a wretched
divorcee who finds herself
plagued with yet another
struggling actor (Jeff
Daniels), Heaton gets to
redefine her comic timing in
the TNT movie, which premieres
Jan. 16.
Being married to a fellow
thespian can have its
advantages, she admits, as she
intertwines her small hands in
her lap. "He understands what
I'm going through as an actor
and the demands of our business,"she says, dressed
in a bright-yellow sheath with
bare shoulders and gold heels
with pointed toes.
"But I also tend to take on
more than I should, because as
an actor you feel like, 'Well,
you strike while the iron is
hot, and we need to keep these
things going.' I'm reluctant to
take a break. And he has to
kind of pull me back and say,
'We need a break and the family
needs a break from all this.'
And he's right. What's been
difficult is he's sort of taken
a back seat to what's been
going on with me and 'Raymond.'
"But now the show is kind of
winding down it'll be
either this year or next year
that it ends. So I think it'll
be time to give my husband an
opportunity to pursue his
career more. He's probably
going to go to London (this
month) anyway and start looking
for work there.
She may be America's darling
for her role as the spunky mom
Debra Ramone, but Heaton
doesn't find it easy mothering
her own four boys ages 5,
6, 8 and 10.
"They're loud, but they're manageable,"she says.
"And
I think I was meant to be a
mother of boys because I like a
lot of shoot-em-up, blow-it-up
action stuff. So I enjoy going
to the movies with them and
showing them movies. They have
that vulgar sense of boy-humor.
There's something really cute
about it I enjoy.
"And boys love their moms,
she sighs.
Her husband is no better at
"Mr. Mom"chores than any
other man, she says. "All men
are bad at it. I'm very
suspicious of any man who
enjoys it. I'm afraid to leave
my kids alone with him,
frankly. You don't know if
they're going to be fed or
clothed or anything,"she
smiles.
"It's been a fact of our
lives for the last eight years
and he's been a good sport
about it, and become very good
at it. In fact, when we were
shooting 'The Goodbye Girl'
they all went to England
together. He pretty much
single-handedly took care of
all of them. It was great too
because they got to bond in a
way that wouldn't ordinarily
happen because kids tend to go
to their moms when they're that
age anyway. So this was an
opportunity for them to rely
solely on their dad. And that
was good.
Heaton, 45, lost her mother
when she was 12. She and her
four siblings were reared by
their father, who remarried a
few years after her mother's
death.
After years of trying to make
it as an actress in New York,
Heaton moved to Los Angeles.
But it wasn't a meaty part or
even a juicy contract that
brought her eventual peace of
mind. It was a trip to a
Mexican orphanage.
"That completely changed
me,"she says, her dark hair
curling around her ears. "I
went with our church to lay
down some grass at the
orphanage and we also had a
party for the kids. Up to that
point I had been completely and
obsessively focused on getting
acting work. And when I came
back from that trip I realized:
in the scheme of things it did
not matter if I got to be an
actress.
"There were other things in
life that I could contribute to
and make a difference in
people's lives that was
ultimately more satisfying than
me being the center of
everything. And it really hit
me.
Now in her own life, her
children always come first.
"My husband and I have tried
repeatedly to go to movie
premieres. And we have canceled
every single one of them
because somebody's shadow box
is due the next day or their
book report or somebody gets
sick. So you just really learn
the meaning of sacrifice when
you have kids. But the payback
is so huge it doesn't seem like
a sacrifice at all in the big
scheme of things."
