Mama Mia

Doris Roberts hopes for an Emmy Award for her portrayal of an Italian mom
on the hit TV show "Everybody Loves Raymond."

ALICE BURDICK SCHWEIGER
Special to the Jewish News

out of your system with Raymond and not do it to
me.'' Michael has three children, and so it's very
close to my own life. [But] he lives about 40 min-
utes away
not across the street.

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or the past four years, Doris Roberts has
played a meddling, overbearing mom on
CBS's Everybody Loves Raymond. On
Sunday, when the 52nd annual Primetime
Emmy Awards are handed out, she hopes she will walk
away with a coveted gold statuette for the role of
Marie Barone. Nominated for Outstanding
Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, Roberts says
winning would mean her career "has come full circle."
"I want to win this one badly," says the seasoned
actress, who was nominated last year in the same
category but didn't win. "This will be my seventh
nomination. I won one for drama in a St. Elsewhere
episode, where I played a bag lady, but this would be
the first one for comedy."
Everybody Loves Raymond stars Ray Romano as
successful sportswriter Ray Barone, who lives on
Long Island with his wife Debra (Patricia Heaton)
and their three children. Right across the street are
his meddling parents, Marie and Frank (Joe Boyle)
Barone, and his obsessive-compulsive older brother,
Robert (Brad Garrett).
Last year, the show received five nominations.
This year the comedy nabbed nine, including nods
for lead actors Romano and Heaton, supporting
actor Garrett, director Will Mackenzie, and Romano
and Philip Rosenthal for outstanding writing.
"It is wonderful that so many on our show have
been recognized," says Roberts, who goes up against
Jennifer Aniston (Friends), Kim Cattrall (Sex in the
City), Lisa Kudrow (Friends) and Megan Mullally
( Will & Grace) in her category.
For Roberts, being part of an enormously success-
ful show was a childhood dream. The St. Louis-born
actress' parents divorced when she was very young.
She moved to New York with her mother into her
grandparents' home in the Bronx.
Soon, Roberts' mother opened a steno firm, which
typed up Broadway scripts. "This allowed us to get
tickets to many Broadway shows," says Roberts.
"That's when I fell in love with the theater."
After graduating from high school, where she
starred in school plays, Roberts attended New York
University, majoring in journalism. But with a burning
passion to act, she quit and enrolled in New York's
Neighborhood Playhouse to hone her thespian skills.
For the next five decades, Roberts, age 70, landed
role after role in film, television and theater, estab-
lishing an impressive resume. She's been a TV series
regular on Remington Steele, St. Elsewhere, The Boys
and Angie. Feature film credits include The Grass
Hay, Barefoot in the Park, The Rose and My Giant.
Off camera, Roberts was busy raising her son,
Michael, now 43.
After her divorce from lawyer Michael Cannata,

JN: Of all the episodes, do you have a favorite?
DR: I love the one where you could see how sweet
Marie and Frank could be to one another. I had cold
cream on my face and he took it off and said, "I like
you without all that garbage on your face." That.was
a dear one. Then there was one where you find out
that Marie and Frank are having more fun in bed
than Ray and Debra.

JN: Who are some of the other mothers you have
played?
DR: I played a mother to Billy Crystal and to Bette
Midler, the mother of them all. But this is my
favorite.

Doris Roberts: "The writer, Phil Rosenthal,
is Jewish, so what we get is a combination
of a Jewish and an Italian mother"

when her son was still young, Roberts married writer
William Goyen, who died in 1982 of leukemia.
Today, her son Michael is her manager, and, Roberts
says, "his three children are the love of my life."
Recently Roberts talked to the Jewish News about
her hit TV show, her family and her career.

JN: Why do you think Everybody Loves Raymond is
such a success?
DR: I think the show is based on reality. All the
characters are brilliantly delineated, and I think
mothers can identify with me. Certainly couples
who have been married for some time can relate. It's
a show that can make you laugh at yourself.

JN: In what ways are you like Marie Barone?
DR: I am a mother. I understand her quite clearly.
Most of those women were never taught to do any-
thing except get married and have children. But when
the kids leave the house, [these] mothers feel they have
no purpose in life anymore. So, they want to live their
kids' lives [for them] and try and prevent any foolish
mistakes they may make. Although it manifests itself as
being intrusive and a control freak, it stems from love.

JN: Your son, Michael, is the same age as Raymond.
Does he identify at all?
DR: Absolutely. He says, "This way you can ger this

JN: You just came back from Rome shooting new
episodes?
DR: Yes, they are going to be done as a one-hour
special on Oct. 3 — the season pretniere. I had a
great time because I brought my family with me
my son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren.

JN: What do you consider your first big break?
DR: The Death of Bessie Smith, Off-Broadway. That
was before Desk Set. The biggest break, however, was
Neil Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers, and the one
that put me over the top was a play called Bad Habits,
written by Terence McNally. I won the Outer Critics
Circle Award for that. Because of the recognition for
that play, Lily Tomlin brought me to California to do
the Lily Tomlin Comedy Hour. We won all the Emmys,
but we didn't get picked up.

JN: Do you get recognized wherever you go?
DR: It's amazing. I travel extensively and since our
show is seen all over the world, people come up to me
in the most unexpected places, including Africa and
New Zealand. The most touching moment was not too
long ago when a woman told me she has cancer and
watches me every Monday night and laughs, and I
make her forget she is ill. It doesn't get better than that.

JN: You are Jewish. Were you raised in a religious
home?
DR: I hate to say this, but my grandfather was a
womanizer — he didn't have time to go to shul. We
did celebrate the holidays, though.

JN: What about now. Does Judaism impact your life?
DR: Spiritually it does. But I don't have a kosher
house. My first husband was Italian and he was a
Catholic. So that didn't work out.
MAMA MR on page 93

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