By Greg Archer | Satellite Direct Magazine 

For the star of TV's hottest comedy, life on and off the set is one big balancing act

"Hi, it's Patty."

This is how Patricia Heaton introduces herself. 

Everybody knows Patricia. Nobody knows Patty.

Patty stumbles out of bed in the morning, whips up breakfast for her four young sons, carts them off to school, then dashes off to work where she'll suddenly become Debra on the CBS hit Everybody Loves Raymond. Later, Patty turns off actress and flips on mommy. She picks up the kids, drops one off at Tae Kwon Do, deposits another at a piano lesson, then manages to squeeze in an interview where she'll expound upon the roles available for forty-something actresses - 'they're scarce' and how TV could really use another Roseanne to reflect the working class, or ponder the perfect New Year's resolution. Afterward, Patty chows down with the hubby and kids and later, when her hands are dripping in dishwashing liquid, the remnants of dinner sticking to her fingernails, she'll sneak a peek at her son sitting at the kitchen table and quiz him on his spelling homework. 

How do you spell success? P-A-T-T-Y. 

Long before she collected two Emmys for her work on Raymond and watched her celebrity soar, Patricia Heaton was full of surprises. 

"It's been there since the day I could walk and talk," Heaton says of her passion for acting. Even when she was making the rounds on Broadway, she wouldn't settle for the ordinary. She turned heads by giving birth to her very own theater company, where her performances wowed and eventually caught the eye of a casting director who was instrumental in landing her a memorable gig on thirtysomething playing Patricia Wetig's doctor. 

Suddenly Miss TV Guest Star, there were a few series misfires before she found Raymond in the mid-'90s, inspired by Ray Romano, then an up-and-coming comic. Eight years later, Heaton makes up a small demographic, by Hollywood standards - she's a 45-year-old actress, one of the highest paid for a sitcom, who takes home one gorgeous paycheck. 

If thank-yous were being passed out, Heaton would certainly hand a few over to Raymond . The comedy series starring Romano, Brad Garrett, Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts has raked in a dozen Emmys, including Outstanding Series. Fortunately, the show tackles two topics Heaton finds amusing: marriage and relationships. 

"I just don't know a couple that's been married more than three years that doesn't annoy the heck out of each other every 15 minutes," Heaton says, laughing. "It's just unavoidable. I don't care if you started out as Romeo and Juliet. If Romeo and Juliet hadn't killed themselves, they'd be bickering just like Ray and Debra [on Everybody Loves Raymond ]. I don't really know what God was thinking when he came up with this plan, which is very flawed to me."

Flawed but rife with hilarities, much like Heaton's headlining role in the much-buzzed about TNT movie The Goodbye Girl , a modern-day makeover of the 1977 Neil Simon film that pit Marsha Mason against Richard Dreyfuss, who won an Oscar for his work. 

Goodbye Time 

"I think finding a character that rich to play for a woman my age is few and far between," Heaton says of The Goodbye Girl , directed by Richard Benjamin. I jumped at the opportunity because to be able to do Neil Simon - we're talking about one of the greatest American writers of American theater."

In The Goodbye Girl, Heaton delivers a knockout performance as Paula, a down-on-her-luck Broadway actress whose thespian Don Juan morphs into Mr. Can't Commit and exits stage left. It gets worse when Paula discovers her ex has sublet the apartment they shared to another aspiring actor (Jeff Daniels). The unlikely roommates eventually agree to share space, but tossed into the mix is Paula's wise-before-her-years daughter, Lucy (Hallie Kate Eisenberg), who curiously watches the pair zigzag toward love. 

"I think I was allowed to be more expressive with the character," Heaton notes about the differences between the two movie versions. "And we're just two different people, Jeff and I, and you really bring that to the part. I think Jeff had the more difficult job because Richard Dreyfuss won an Oscar for his role. To reprise an Oscar-winning role is a bit of pressure and Jeff did a masterful job."

The Goodbye Girl is just one of the surprises Heaton will deliver to TV audiences in 2004. Another is this: Heaton says Raymond may bow this spring. 

Farewell to Raymond? 

"I think this will be our last year," Heaton admits with a sigh. "It's bittersweet. Nobody wants to be burned out. The writers want to be fresh. It would be sad to see it end and it has to end some time. I'd rather end [having] the best season ever as opposed to running it into the ground."

Good point, but nobody really wants to see Raymond roll over. 

"I think Raymond is very honest about human relationships," she says of the show's appeal, "and what keeps it from being mean spirited is that there's commitment to marriage and family. There's love, ultimately."

Heaton can't help noting the real-life parallels - she finds her own commitments to both family and show biz challenging. 

"I constantly gets out of balance," she says of managing time for each, "and you have to reel it back in again. It's an ongoing struggle."

Ongoing, but worth it, because by the time Patty calls it a wrap on the spelling quiz with one son, she'll explore TiVo - an episode of Raymond and something marvelous on BBC - or finally get around to answering a few e-mails before tucking in the rest of the family. Too late. One son has just fallen asleep on her lap. 

Who loves Patricia Heaton? Everybody, it seems.