Here’s What Happened to ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ Star Doris Roberts Before and After the Show

She was born Doris May Green (but would take her stepfather’s last name of Roberts) on November 4, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. When her father deserted the family, she was raised by her mother and grandparents in the Bronx, New York. As she made clear, the experience of her father leaving definitely had an impact on her. “For years, I thought it was my fault,” she told The Sacramento Bee in 1979. “All little kids think divorce or desertion has to do with them. It took me years to let go of that; years not to expect any man I loved to ‘take a walk.’”

As Doris remembers it, her first taste of “show business” began when she was four or five. “I had one line in a play in kindergarten,” she reflected to The Sela Enterprise, “in which I said, ‘I am Patrick Potato and this is my cousin, Mrs. Tomato.’ There was laughter in the room and I loved the sound of that. It made me feel very important and that’s what I wanted to do from that moment on.” And she refused to allow a debacle the following year to dissuade her: “The first thing I did was when I was five. I auditioned for the Hearn’s Amateur Hour in New York. I sang ‘Winter Wonderland’ with a lisp. I got the bell, the hook and the gong. I was awful, but I kept at it.”

Marrying Michael E. Cannata in 1956, the two of them lived in New York as she persistently tried to get work. “In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s,” she recalled in 1979, “I couldn’t get arrested on or off Broadway. So I made work for myself. From midnight until 3 a.m., I studied at the Actor’s Studio. Why at that hour? Because I couldn’t get my then-husband to babysit until then. And I needed the work for my sense of self. Even then, it was hard to keep believing in my talent when I wasn’t getting paid for the work I did. Still, what I learned at the Studio was priceless.”

And the work did come. Slowly. In the early 1950s, she appeared on several television anthology series, including Starlight Theatre (1951), Studio One in Hollywood and Suspense (both 1952) and Look Up and Live (1954). Doris also managed parts on Broadway in The Time of Your Life and The Desk Set (both 1955). She kept pushing from there at the same time losing the battle to keep her marriage together, the two of them splitting up in 1962.

“I was terrified to be alone,” she admitted to The Sacramento Bee. “Yet I knew I had to do it; I had to make a commitment to my life. To me. I dreaded it. In those days, women were taught not only that they couldn’t, but that they shouldn’t be independent. A man, they said, doesn’t want a woman who is too strong. When I first tried to go it alone, I made myself sick. Truly. Every time I came close to succeeding, I’d become ill. A part of me didn’t want to make it on my own. My sickness in wanting a man, a Big Daddy-like man to take over my life and make it all wonderful. It took years of psychotherapy and self-analysis, but I learned to depend on me only. It was damn hard, but it was worth it.”

She worked steadily in the 1960s and 1970s with more TV guest spots (Ben Casey, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Medical Center, All in the Family and three episodes of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, among them); and movies (No Way to Treat a Lady, The Heartbreak Kid, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Rose). But Doris really began to make her name on Broadway with noted performances in Marathon ’33 (1963 to 1964), Malcolm, The Office and Under the Weather (all 1966), The Natural Look (1967), Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1969), The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild (1972), Bad Habits (1974) and Cheaters (1978).

In her personal life, she married writer William Goyen in 1963, the two of them happily together until his death 20 years later.

Through much of it, Doris found herself becoming an increasingly angry woman, frustrated over what she felt were limitations of her career; that she wasn’t achieving the level of stardom that she was hoping for. But that attitude changed when her son, Michael, had a water skiing accident that very nearly left him a quadriplegic, but miraculously didn’t. This seemed to put things in perspective for her. “To think,” she shared, “there was a time when I was so worried about tomorrow, and so angry about what didn’t happen yesterday, that I couldn’t enjoy today. Michael’s accident changed me. It slowed me down. It grounded me in the present. The accident taught me the past is just that — past. To anguish over was was or what may be is the worst of all possible diseases. Because it was always about how wonderful everything would be when I reached the promised land, I never enjoyed what I had. Life went right on by me. Never again.”

In 1979, she was part of the cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (about a show within a variety show), which people were predicting would have a long run. At the same time, she was offered the part of Theresa Falco, the mother of central character Angelina “Angie” Falco (played by Donna Pescow, who had been featured in Saturday Night Fever two years earlier). The Garry Marshall-produced sitcom Angie turned out to be Doris’ first regular TV gig and she was thrilled.

“I’ve worked hard at making my life work,” she said at the time. “At 40-plus, success tastes very sweet indeed. A lot of people ask if now is ‘the time of my life.’ They think because Angie is such a success, that it should be. Well, it is, but it is not the time of my life. When Michael was born, when I married Bill, those were the times of my life. Angie does make me feel like I’m attending my own birthday party every day, but my family, my husband and son, are the cake and Angie’s the icing. I have the most wonderful marriage. Bill and I have a very real friendship in addition to a very deep love. We respect and trust one another. Neither, I might add, came with the marriage license. We worked at what we have.”

With Angie finishing its run in 1980, Doris began making guest star appearances again, but she also was a series regular on the Erma Bombeck-created Maggie, starring Miriam Flynn as a housewife dealing with her three kids and husband in the suburbs. Doris played the part of her friend and hairdresser, Loretta.

After winning an Emmy for her guest starring role on St. Elsewhere (playing a bag lady), her next regular gig was as a part of the cast of the romantic comedy-drama detective show Remington Steele, starring Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist. Doris plays former IRS agent Mildred Krebs, who began by working in the office but became a much more active participant as time went on. Her acting dreams had definitely come true.

“A lot of women who are past 45 feel obsolete, because they don’t find their purpose in life. They become resigned to their life and are usually intimidated by youth,” she mused to the Los Angeles Times in 1985. “I remember coming out here from New York feeling totally obsolete. I was angry that I was no longer that thin, pretty, sexy young woman. I was a mature woman and everyone around me was young and I hated them. I used to go to the Pacific Ocean and scream. I don’t know who I was screaming out to, but I was getting my anger at all this out of my system. But then I began to look at al the things I had accomplished, all the good work I had done on the Broadway stage and all the wonderful relationships I had made in my life.”

Following Remington Steele, she appeared on a number of different series (including six episodes of HBO’s Dream On) and then, in 1996, came Ray Romano’s Everybody Loves Raymond and the role that secured her place in TV history, Marie Barone. “They read over a hundred people for the part before they called me in,” she explained. “At the time I was directing a play with 23 people. I was in way over my head and my agent called and said, ‘We have an appointment for you at CBS Monday at 3:30.’ I said, ‘No, I can’t do it. I’m rehearsing this play. I don’t have time.’ And they said, ‘Yes you do. We talked to your producer, you have Monday off.’ So I didn’t give it the kind of time I usually do when I’m going to audition for a part, but I was so overwhelmed with what I was doing with the play that I just went in and did it from my gut reaction. They said I got every joke and then some they didn’t even know they had. And so that was it.”

“I had the feeling we had something special when we did the original pilot,” she related to the Democrat and Chronicle in 1999. “For one thing, the writing was so smashingly good. And we like each other so much. It’s really unlike anything I’ve ever done before. We often go to someone’s house to do an extra reading on the weekend. Some standup comics can’t act, but Raymond can. All of Raymond’s instincts are pure and honest.”

When Everybody Loves Raymond wrapped up production in 2005, Doris knew that they had created something special that would stand the test of time. “I think it will be as famous and go on as long as I Love Lucy,” she opined. “I traveled extensively and everywhere I went, people screamed about the show. It’s just a great show. It’s the perfect combination of everything; the writing to begin with, then the casting of these actors and their camaraderie and the ability of all these actors who are wonderful actors to perform those characters with honesty and reality. And people identify with every one of us, which is great. And they laugh at their own foibles or their mother or their mother-in-law. They can laugh at us, they can laugh at their own. And that’s great. We need a lot of laughter in our lives and to be able to do that is a great joy and a great blessing for me.”

After Raymond, Doris certainly kept busy. She appeared in 14 movies, ranging from 2006’s Grandma’s Boy to 2016’s Job’s Daughter. There were also six TV movies (her last being 2016’s Adam Astra Casting) and numerous TV show appearances, including three episodes each of The Middle and Melissa & Joey.

Over the course of her career, Doris was nominated for and won numerous awards. The wins were the 1983 Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for St. Elsewhere, and Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2005 for Everybody Loves Raymong as well as the 2015 CineRockom International Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award.

In her personal life, besides her two marriages and her son, Doris testified before Congress regarding age discrimination in Hollywood, she was an animal rights advocate, working with the group Puppies Behind Bars, and, with Danelle Morton, she wrote the 2003 combination memoir and cookbook, Are You Hungry, Dear?.

Doris passed away on April 17, 2016 following a stroke (having also suffered for many years from pulmonary hypertension). She was 90. When she heard the news, her Raymond costar Patricia Heaton tweeted, “My wonderful TV mother-in-law nemesis Doris Roberts was a consummate professional from whom I learned so much. She was funny and tough and loved life, living it to the fullest. Nothing gave her greater joy than her three wonderful grandchildren, of whom she was so proud. It was a privilege, Doris. I love you and miss you.”

Added Ray Romano in a statement, “Doris Roberts had an energy and a spirit that amazed me. She never stopped. Whether working professionally or with her many charities, or just nurturing and mentoring a young, green comic trying to make it as an actor; she did it all with such grand love for life and people and I will miss her dearly.”

In her interview with the the Television Academy, Doris was asked how she would like to be remembered and what her proudest achievement was. “She doesn’t give in,” was her response. “Doesn’t give up. Doesn’t take no for an answer. And my proudest achievement? I put my head on my pillow at night and know that I’ve been a good person. Beyond that, when I was acting I was told that Doris was not hiding in a character, she is finding a way to be that character. And it’s so freeing, so exciting. It’s so thrilling to have your imagination take you places that you never dreamed you could go to. So you see, that’s why I go to class. And that’s what an actor is always learning. It’s not just showing up; you have to keep working at it. And I love it.”