By Hugh Hart | San Francisco Chronicle

Looking far more chic than the housewife she plays on "Everybody Loves Raymond," a perfectly coiffed, tautly toned Patricia Heaton makes her high-heeled entrance in a sleek yolk-yellow shift, which, surely, must be a designer frock of some kind. 

"I don't know who designed this -- why don't you take a look," she says, offering the nape of her neck. "Zip it down." A brief inspection reveals no label. 

Heaton can't be bothered with false modesty or high fashion status. On this whirlwind break from "Raymond," the 45-year-old actress and mother of four has a plane to catch in a few hours to Washington, D.C., where she'll host a benefit concert for Children's National Medical Center. 

But first, there's "The Goodbye Girl" to talk about. 

Taking on the title role originated by Marsha Mason in Neil Simon's 1977 Oscar-nominated movie, Heaton plays Paula McFadden, an unemployed dancer living in an ex-boyfriend's apartment with her 10-year-old daughter Lucy (Hallie Kate Eisenberg). The broke, embittered single mom is in no mood to make room for a new man in her life when out-of-town actor Elliot Garfield (Jeff Daniels) shows up unexpectedly to take over the sublease. 

"It was sort of a no-brainer when I was offered this part," Heaton says, perched, legs crossed, on a stuffed chair in a Beverly Hills hotel suite. "Being a mom, I know the amount of responsibility there is in having children, so to be in Paula's position where you're about to be thrown out of your apartment and you've got this child who's staring at you wanting to know if she's going to have a meal, the pressure is unbelievable. Paula's at her wit's end." 

Heaton, like her character, knows what it feels like to be scraping by on the fringes of show business. "Really, I didn't have to do any kind of research for this role," she says. "I struggled in New York for nine years myself. It was a very unsuccessful time for me, professionally and financially, so I could really relate to Paula's situation." 

Heaton's own New York story resembled Simon's script right down to the romantic comedy's opposites-attract dynamic. "I actually met my husband sub- letting his apartment," Heaton says. "He was an actor, and I hated him instantly on sight. I'm serious! I had already been with an actor and I had enough of actors. I meet this guy and he's British, and he'd gone to Juilliard, and I just thought, 'Yuck! Not another one of these.' 

"When you have that kind of friction, it makes sparks," Heaton continues. "In the beginning when Elliot and Paula are fighting with each other, even though they're at loggerheads they're very passionate about what they believe and that causes this wonderful friction that can be very sexual." 

It certainly worked for Heaton. Having met her mate, she was eager to put her starving-artist days behind her and came to Los Angeles when she was 31. "That's really late out of the gate, particularly for L.A.," Heaton says. "I didn't have an agent, a manager, a job, nothing. I had a crappy old car that barely ran. But I also felt a sense of confidence, having gone through so many apartments and a million different jobs. I felt everybody out here was so young and inexperienced and didn't know anything about real literature or theater -- I wasn't intimidated by anybody." 

By the time "Raymond" came along in 1996, Heaton had married producer David Hunt, the man she'd hooked up with through her sublet, and started a family. Heaton's priorities further changed after she spent a week in Mexico with her church working with kids in an orphanage. 

"When I saw what real people in the world go through most of the time I decided acting wasn't the be-all and end-all anymore," Heaton says. "I could take it or leave it. I didn't feel desperate. It's interesting because once I had that epiphany, I relaxed about the whole thing and the work started coming in." 

Heaton starred in two quickly canceled sitcoms before she was tapped to play bickering wife and mother Debra Barone in "Everybody Loves Raymond." Heaton now says her role is "as comfortable as an old shoe," but early on the character was not exactly a natural fit. 

"It's the one time I thought there would be a possibility I would get fired because I was getting so many notes from the director," Heaton recalls. "I think he figured I could make the adjustments and Ray (Romano, who plays her husband), who'd never acted before, would just do what Ray does. It was a difficult position. In the end it all worked out." 

That's an understatement. 

"Everybody Loves Raymond" earned Heaton two best actress Emmys and provided a measure of financial security that had eluded her all those years in New York. Heaton can also thank "Raymond" for her "Goodbye Girl" role. Actor-director Richard Benjamin, who staged this version of "Goodbye Girl," recalls, "The very first thing that happened in casting is that Neil Simon told me to look at Patricia on 'Raymond' because she didn't care if at some moments you didn't like her -- she'd much rather play it for real, and in that way you actually liked her more. She makes you believe this is a real kind of marriage, without that thing of winking at the audience and going, 'You like me, don't you?' So I saw that right away and we cast her." 

Benjamin used Heaton's sardonic persona as a starting point in "Goodbye Girl." 

"She can do that sarcastic thing so well, but that was something to be left behind," Benjamin explains. "In 'Goodbye Girl,' Patricia reached deeper inside of herself than she ever needs to do on 'Raymond.' Just as Neil suspected, Patricia is a real actress who can cry and be vulnerable and is wonderfully responsive emotionally. Yet you can't have a person in a piece like this who doesn't understand where the laughs are. So she's the whole thing." 

Benjamin filmed portions of "The Goodbye Girl" in New York, which proved to be a gratifying homecoming for Heaton. 

"There's something wonderful about going back to this town where at one point I couldn't get arrested, and now they were closing down Terry Street for me so that we could shoot this movie,'' she says. "That was something to savor. " 

Heaton, acutely aware of fame's fickle limelight, seems intent on savoring every opportunity that comes her way. Last year, she published her autobiography, "Motherhood and Hollywood: How to Get a Job Like Mine," which frankly detailed her plastic surgery, and she has also appeared in TV commercials for shampoos and a Los Angeles area supermarket. 

"The fact is, I've had these eight great years on 'Raymond' and that's going to be gone either this year or next. I may be lucky enough to have another successful show. Maybe not. We still have these four kids to support. So there's that aspect of making the most of the opportunities while you have the chance. There's plenty of time to rest when I'm dead."