Trivia: A true-to-life case of childhood dreams coming true, one gets the impression that the success of humble comedian turned actor Ray Romano is more of a surprise to him than it is to those who supported him in his years as a struggling futon deliveryman moonlighting in standup. Born in Queens, NY, in 1957 and raised in nearby Forest Hills, Queens, Romano found happiness early in life by tickling the funny bones of family, friends, and of course, girls. The middle child of three sons, the aspiring funnyman refined his comic talents when he formed the bravely titled "No Talent" comedy troupe at age 16 to the delight of the congregation they regularly performed for. Romano later put his spotlight aspirations on hold when he enrolled in Queens College as an accountants major after graduating high school in 1975. Dabbling in odd jobs as he developed his stage skills on the late-night comedy circuit, Romano began an exhausting decade-long struggle to succeed as a standup while holding a more reliable day job. Married to wife Anna in the mid-'80s, Romano decided to pursue comedy full-time in 1987. It was shortly after winning a N.Y.C. radio station-sponsored comedy contest two years later that Romano acquired a manager and his dreams began to become a reality. One of those dreams, to perform in front of legendary late-night television host Johnny Carson, came true in 1991. Finally gaining national exposure and seemingly on the fast track to stardom, more television appearances soon followed, with a 1995 appearance on Late Night With David Letterman prompting Letterman to begin talks with Romano about the idea of developing a sitcom. Premiering in September 13, 1996, Everyboy Loves Raymond found the now-popular comic's offbeat domestic observations striking a chord with both audiences and critics alike. Nominated multiple times for numerous awards (including three Emmy and two Golden Globes), ELR carried on well into the new millennium, which saw the now-established comic branching out into other arenas as well. A June 1999 recording of a Carnegie Hall performance was nominated for a Grammy, and his novel Everything and a Kite turned up on the New York Times bestseller list. Television appearances on Hollywood Squares, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and a somber turn in America: A Tribute to Heroes found American households increasingly willing to welcome the good-humored everyman into their homes. It was only a matter of time before Romano tackled feature films, and with his vocal role in 2002's Ice Age, the likable comic did just that. A lighthearted animated romp which followed the adventures of a group of animals weathering the new frozen landscape in order to return a human child to its father, Ice Age gave Disney a run for their money and further proved that popular computer-animated family fare was no longer exclusive to the Mouse House. Romano lent his voice to the Ice Age franchise again in 2006 for Ice Age: The Meltdown, as well as Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 2009. The actor delivered a solid performance in a supporting role for 2007's The Grand, a mockumentary following a television star trying to win a high-stakes poker tournament, and was praised for his lead performance in TNT's comedy-drama Men of a Certain Age.

Trivia: Born and raised in Ohio, actress Patricia Heaton got her start on the stage, performing with the off-Broadway company Stage Three. In 1989, she got her screen-acting big break when she was cast in a recurring role on ABC's thirtysomething. Over the next several years, she could be seen in a number of failed sitcoms, small TV guest roles, and bit film parts. But in 1996, Heaton landed the role that would make her career, that of long-suffering matriarch Debra Barone on the hit CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Heaton starred on the show through its nine-year run, receiving seven consecutive Emmy nominations and two wins. Following the conclusion of Everybody Loves Raymond in 2005, Heaton appeared in a pair of made-for-TV movies (The Engagement Ring and The Path to 9/11) before making her way back to sitcom territory in 2007, when she began starring as a TV news anchor opposite Kelsey Grammer on Fox's Back to You, and again 2009 for The Middle, in which she plays the lead role of Frankie Heck, a working-class mother devoted to her family despite her struggles at work and as caretaker for her ailing mother.

Trivia: In 1999, Doris Roberts achieved "overnight" stardom in the role of Marie Barone in the series Everybody Loves Raymond, going from working actress -- which she'd been for more than 40 years -- to being an instantly recognized performer. It was an improbable climb to the top rank of popular culture stardom. Roberts was born in St. Louis, MO, in 1925, to a family that was soon shattered when the father abandoned them. She had a difficult but loving childhood as her mother sought to provide for both of them by herself, and eventually Roberts gravitated toward the idea of an acting career. To do this, she had to work at any jobs that she could find, including clerk typist, to afford the lessons that she needed from teachers that included Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner. She made her first television appearance in the early '50s, in a Studio One production of Jane Eyre, and made the usual rounds between theater and television. Her theatrical debut came on the a stage at New York's City Center in 1955, and she was Shirley Booth's understudy in the theatrical version of the comedy Desk Set. She distinguished herself in the role of Mommy in the original production of Edward Albee's The American Dream, and since the early '60s, had carved a niche for herself in maternal and neighborly roles, on both stage and screen. Following her screen debut in Jack Garfein's New York-filmed drama Something Wild (1961), she tended more toward comedy (albeit often black comedy), with performances in Jack Smight's No Way to Treat a Lady, where she played the skeptical onlooker whose questions and low-key intervention save the life of a would-be victim; Leonard Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers (1970), in which she played the roommate of the nurse-turned-murderer played by Shirley Stoler; and Alan Arkin's Little Murders (1971), where she played Elliott Gould's mother. Female comics seemed to perceive Roberts' gifts as an actress especially well, as she got two of her better roles, in A New Leaf (1971) and Rabbit Test (1978), from Elaine May and Joan Rivers, respectively. Although she began appearing in television in the 1950s, with appearances on Ben Casey, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Baretta, All in the Family, The Streets of San Francisco, Rhoda, Soap, and Barney Miller, Roberts didn't start to make a lasting impression in the medium -- which would become her vehicle for stardom -- until the 1970s. She was supposed to have a role in a proposed new series starring Mary Tyler Moore, but when that series failed to sell, she was cast in the role of Donna Pescow's mother in the series Angie (1979), which got Roberts her first real notice by the public or the press. After that, the television appearances grew more frequent, and finally in 1983, she joined the cast of Remington Steele midway through the series' run, as Mildred Krebs, an IRS investigator-turned-secretary-turned-detective, working alongside Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist, and often stealing the show with her low-key comedic work. Roberts' first marriage ended in divorce, and her second, to novelist William Goyen, ended when he died in 1983 -- her son from her first marriage, Michael Cannata, has been her manager since the 1970s. It was a dozen years after Remington Steele, and some notable guest star appearances on shows like St. Elsewhere, that she landed the role of Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond. Since then, she has been a guest on talk shows and an acting celebrity, with a brace of Emmy nominations to her credit.In 2003 Roberts published the book Are You Hungry, Dear?: Life, Laughs and Lasagna, and the following year she was appointed a cultural ambassador by the U.S. Department of State. But back on the small screen Roberts was more recognizable than ever before, with appearances in Grey's Anatomy, Hot in Cleveland, and Desperate Housewives keeping her as active as ever. Roberts continued to work steadily until her death in 2016, at age 90.

Trivia: Well-reputed for his "extreme" cinematic personifications in multiple genres, the American character player Peter Boyle doubtless made his onscreen personas doubly intense by pulling directly from his own personal journey to the top -- a wild, unlikely, and occasionally tortuous trek that found Boyle aggressively defining and redefining himself, and struggling constantly with a number of inner demons. Born October 18, 1935, in the hamlet of Northtown, PA, Boyle graduated from La Salle College and joined the Christian Brothers monastic order, under the name "Brother Francis." He prayed endlessly and earnestly until he developed callouses on his knees, but could never quite adjust to the monastic life, which he later declared "unnatural," with its impositions of fasting and celibacy. Dissatisfied, Boyle dropped out and headed for the Navy, but his brief enlistment ended in a nervous breakdown. With no other options in sight that piqued his interest, Boyle opted to pack his bags and head for New York City, where he worked toward making it as an actor. It made perfect sense that Boyle -- with his distinctively stocky frame, bald pate, oversized ears, and bulbous nose -- would fit the bill as a character actor -- more ideally, in fact, than any of his contemporaries on the American screen. He trained under the best of the best -- the legendary dramatic coach Uta Hagen -- while working at any and every odd job he could find. Boyle soon joined a touring production of Neil Simon's Odd Couple (as Oscar Madison) and moved to Chicago, where he signed on with the sketch comedy troupe The Second City -- then in its infancy. Around 1968, Haskell Wexler -- one of the most politically radical mainstream filmmakers in all of Los Angeles (a bona fide revolutionary) -- decided to shoot his groundbreaking epic Medium Cool in the Windy City, and for a pivotal and notorious sequence, mixed documentary and fictional elements by sending the members of his cast (Verna Bloom and others) "right into the fray" of the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots. Boyle happened to still be living in Chicago at the time of the tumult, which dovetailed rather neatly with Wexler's production and brought Boyle one of his first credited Hollywood roles -- that of the Gun Clinic Manager in the film. Unfortunately (and typically), Paramount cowed when faced with the final cut of the film -- terrified that it could incite riots among its youthful audience -- and withheld its distribution for a year. In the interim, Boyle landed the role that would help him "break through" to the American public -- the lead in neophyte writer-director John G. Avildsen's harrowing vigilante drama Joe (1970). The film casts Boyle as a skin-crawling redneck and bigot who wheedles an Arrow-collared businessman (Dennis Patrick) into helping him undertake an onslaught of death against the American counterculture. This sleeper hit received only fair reviews from critics (and has dated terribly), and Boyle reputedly was paid only 3,000 dollars for his contribution. But even those who detested the film lavished praise onto the actor's work -- in 1970, Variety called the picture "flawed" but described Boyle as "stunningly effective." Film historians continue to exalt the performance to this day. Innumerable roles followed for Boyle throughout the '70s, many in a similar vein -- from that of Dillon, the slimy underworld "friend" who betrays career criminal Robert Mitchum by handing him over to death's jaws in Peter Yates' finely-wrought gangster drama The Friends of Eddie Coyle, to that of Wizard, a veteran cabbie with a terrifying degree of "seen it all, done it all" jadedness, in Martin Scorsese's masterful neo-noir meditation on urban psychosis, Taxi Driver (1976), to Andy Mast, a sleazy private dick, in Paul Schrader's Hardcore (1979). In 1974, however, Boyle broke free from his pattern of creepy typecasting and temporarily turned a new leaf. He unveiled a deft comic flair by playing the lead in Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks' daffy spoof of old Universal horror pictures. The film's two comic highlights have Boyle and Gene Wilder (as the grandson of Dr. Victor Frankenstein) soft-shoeing to "Puttin' on the Ritz," and Boyle and Gene Hackman (as a hapless, bearded blind man) farcically sending up the gothic cabin scene from Mary Shelley's novel in a riotous pas de deux. Boyle's subsequent forays into big-screen comedy proved decidedly less successful on all fronts, however. He played Carl Lazlo, Esquire, the solicitor of Bill Murray's Hunter S. Thompson, in producer/director Art Linson's Where the Buffalo Roam, the pirate Moon in Mel Damski's dreadful swashbuckling spoof Yellowbeard (1983), and Jack McDermott, a Jesus-obsessed escaped mental patient with delusions of healing, in Howard Zieff's The Dream Team (1989) -- all of which received lukewarm critical reactions and flopped with ticket-buyers. (Though it went undocumented as such, the Zieff role appeared to pull heavy influence from Boyle's monastic experience). A more finely tuned and impressive comic role arrived in 1992, when Boyle teamed with Andrew Bergman for an outrageous bit part in Bergman's madcap farce Honeymoon in Vegas. As Chief Orman, a moronic Hawaiian Indian who bears more than a passing resemblance to Marlon Brando, Boyle delighted viewers, and caught the attention of critics. Many read the role as less of an homage than a dig at Brando, who had viciously insulted one of Bergman's movies in the press. For many viewers, this ingenious sequence made the entire film worthwhile. On the whole, the actor continued to fare best with big-screen dramatic roles throughout the '80s and '90s. Highlights include his role as Detective Jimmy Ryan in Wim Wenders' film noir Hammett (1982); Commander Cornelius Vanderbilt, the assistant of South-American explorer William Walker, in Alex Cox's 1987 biopic Walker; and Captain Green in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992). In 1996, Boyle transitioned to the small screen for a permanent role as Frank Barone, the father of comedian Ray Romano's Ray Barone, on the hit CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. The series brought the actor his broadest popularity and exposure, especially among younger viewers -- a popularity not only attested to by the program's seemingly endless syndicated appearance on local stations and cable affiliates such as TBS, but by its initial series run -- it lasted nine seasons. Tragically, Peter Boyle died of multiple myeloma and heart disease almost exactly one year after Raymond took its final network bow, and shortly after his appearance in the holiday film The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. He passed away in New York's Presbyterian Hospital, on December 12, 2006, only two months after his seventy-first birthday. Alongside his film and television work, Boyle occasionally acted on Broadway, off-Broadway, and repertory stages, in such productions as Carl Reiner's The Roast (1980), Sam Shepard's True West (1982), and Joe Pintauro's Snow Orchid (1982). Boyle met journalist Laraine Alderman in the early '70s, while she was interviewing Mel Brooks for Rolling Stone. They wed in 1977, with former Beatle John Lennon as Boyle's best man; the marriage lasted until Peter's death. The Boyles had two daughters, Lucy and Amy, both of whom outlived their father.

Trivia: Raised in Woodland Hills, CA, and the son of a hearing aid specialist who worked in geriatrics and a full-time housewife, Garrett began performing stand-up at various Los Angeles Comedy Clubs upon graduation from high school. Spending six weeks at UCLA before his fateful appearance on the Tonight Show, the young comedian later felt the wrath of that show's grudge after telling a joke that the talent booker had warned him against. Garrett has since never been invited back. Nevertheless he continued on strongly, opening for Frank Sinatra and soon finding roles in such popular television shows as Roseanne, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Seinfeld, and perhaps most famously, Everybody Loves Raymond. Offering his voice to numerous animated features since his breakout in the early '80s, Garrett voice acted in family films like Casper (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), Ratatouille, Tarzan II, Garfield, Tangled, and Finding Nemo. Garrett has also appeared in several movies, like Music and Lyrics, The Pacifier, and Night at the Museum.

Trivia: Moved with his family to Riverside, California when he was 6 months old and was cast in Everybody Loves Raymond less than one year later.Perhaps best known for his role Geoffrey Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.Starred, as on-screen siblings, with his sister Madilyn and identical twin brother Sullivan on Everybody Loves Raymond.Made his feature film debut playing Young Frank in the 2002 comedy Frank McKlusky, C.I.Name "Sawyer" originates from Middle English and means "sawer of wood."

Trivia: Born in the Midwest and educated in the military, actor Fred Willard has proven his talent for improvisational comedy on the stage, television, and the big screen. His characters are frequently grinning idiots or exaggerated stereotypes, but Willard's skillful timing has always added a unique spin. An alumni of Second City in Chicago, he's worked with many of the biggest-named comedians of his time. His early TV credits include a regular stint on The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour, a supporting part on the sitcom Sirota's Court, and the role of Jerry Hubbard, sidekick of TV talk-show host Barth Gimble (Martin Mull) in the satirical Fernwood 2Night. He went on to appear in subsequent incarnations of Fernwood and continued to work with Mull and his gang for the next few decades. In the early '80s, he hosted the actuality series Real People and co-hosted the talk show Thicke of the Night. Some of his small, yet memorable, performances in feature comedies included President Fogerty in National Lampoon Goes to the Movies; the garage owner in Moving Violations who's mistaken for a doctor; the air force officer in This Is Spinal Tap; and Mayor Deebs in Roxanne. Doing a lot of guest work on television, he was also involved in Martin Mull's The History of White People in America series and was the only human actor amid a cast of puppets on the strange show D.C. Follies. In the '90s, he worked frequently in the various projects of fellow satirists Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, and the like. He was travel agent Ron Albertson in Waiting for Guffman, TV announcer Buck Laughlin in Best in Show, and manager Mike LaFontaine in A Mighty Wind. He also appeared in Eugene Levy's Sodbusters, Permanent Midnight with Ben Stiller, and showed up in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. On television, he picked up a regular spots on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Roseanne (as Martin Mull's lover), and Mad About You, along with voice-over work on numerous cartoons. He also received an Emmy nomination for his role as Hank McDougal on Everybody Loves Raymond. Since 2000, he has shown up in quite a few mainstream commercial films, including The Wedding Planner, How High, and American Wedding; but he also played Howard Cosell in the TV movie When Billie Beat Bobby. Projects for 2004 include Anchor Man: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.IHe also joined up with his Mighty Wind and Waiting for Guffman castmates again in 2006 with For Your Consideration, a satire of Hollywood self importance injected with Willard's trademark clever silliness. The next year he appeared in the spoof Epic Movie, as well as the romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman. He was in the Pixar sci-fi film WALL-E, and had a role in the 2009 comedy Youth In Revolt. In 2012 he starred in Rob Reiner's The Magic of Belle Isle opposite Morgan Freeman.

Trivia: A beloved comedic actress whose breakthrough performance in the Mary Tyler Moore Show helped convince a disgruntled Ted Knight to stick with the series despite disappointment with his character, Georgia Engel's golden comic talents are only matched by her unmistakable blonde locks and remarkable zeal for her craft. A native of Washington, D.C., who studied her craft at The University of Hawaii, Engel appeared in Milos Forman's Taking Off and Jacques Deray's The Outside Man before joining the cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in a one-time role that was quickly expanded when producers made note of her comic abilities. Engel remained with the series until the end of its run in 1977, during which time she was nominated for two Emmy awards for her winning performances. If subsequent appearances on such short-lived sitcoms as The Betty White Show and Goodtime Girls found Engel's career floundering somewhat in the late-'70s/early-'80s, post-Mary Tyler Moore era, a six-year stint in the popular television series Coach in the early '90s found her back in top form. Of course that was only the beginning to Engel's comeback period, and following the cancellation of Coach in 1997, her success carried over into the new millennium with a recurring role on Everybody Loves Raymond. Minor voice work in Dr. Dolittle 2 preceded a return to the big screen in the 2002 comedy The Sweetest Thing, after which she made an appearance in theater opposite I Dream of Jeannie's Barbara Eden in The Odd Couple: The Female Version.

Trivia: Chris Elliott may have been born with a funny spoon in his mouth -- he's the son of Bob Elliott, the more deadpan half of the famous comedy duo Bob and Ray -- but he's developed his own offbeat brand of humor and gained his own substantial cult following. Elliott began his show business career as a standup comic, but he first gained public attention as a writer and performer on Late Night With David Letterman, helping that show define a new age of ironic comedy, and winning two Emmys as part of Letterman's writing team. Elliott played the sarcastic firebrand to Letterman's perturbable Midwestern reserve. He starred in sketches as the Panicky Guy, the Fugitive Guy, and the Guy Under the Seats, a character who lived in a cramped passageway underneath the audience, and would occasionally interrupt the show to chat with Letterman. As a result of Elliott's growing popularity on Late Night, his acting career took off. Or, to be more precise, he got bit parts in Michael Mann's Manhunter, James Cameron's The Abyss, and the Francis Ford Coppola segment of New York Stories. Elliott also went on to star in two hilarious, but little-seen half-hour comedy shows for Cinemax. FDR -- A One Man Show featured Elliott playing Chris Elliott, a pompous egomaniacal actor portraying FDR in a one-man show of tremendous historical inaccuracy, while Action Family economically combined satire of TV police dramas with a satire of a typical living room family sitcom. Around this time, Elliott published a Mommy Dearest-style mock exposé about his childhood, Daddy's Boy: A Son's Shocking Account of Life With a Famous Father, which featured chapter-by-chapter rebuttals from his father, Bob, and a foreword by David Letterman.In 1990, Elliott, with help from talented collaborators like David Mirkin, Bob Odenkirk, and Adam Resnick, starred in a bizarrely funny sitcom, Get a Life. The character Elliott played, Chris Peterson, a 30-year-old paperboy, was not a far cry from his previous television personae. Peterson was a dimwitted, balding, doughy, sarcastic, celebrity-worshipping dolt, with a hilariously high degree of self-regard. He was an utter failure who somehow convinced himself he was doing great. Bob Elliott played Chris Peterson's father on the show. The mucky mucks at the fledgling Fox network didn't understand the show, and were hoping Peterson would be cuddlier. Elliott would later remember a network exec optimistically comparing the character to "Tom Hanks in Big." The show had disastrous ratings. Despite support from savvier TV critics, Fox gave up on the show quickly, and canceled Get a Life after two seasons. The show had gained a passionate cult following and some episodes were eventually released on DVD and syndicated briefly on the USA Network. Get a Life was later recognized for its influence on other, more successful programs, including The Simpsons and South Park.Elliott also had key supporting roles in the smash hit Groundhog Day, opposite Bill Murray, and in the unsuccessful rap mockumentary CB4 with Chris Rock. In 1994, he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live. Despite the addition of other talented comic actors (Randy Quaid, Michael McKean, and Janeane Garofalo), it was a dismal season, and Elliott was put off by the lack of collaborative spirit among some of the long-term cast members. He moved on after one season.This was also the period of Elliott's greatest professional disappointment -- the failure of the feature film he co-wrote and starred in, Cabin Boy. His frequent collaborator Adam Resnick co-wrote the film, and, at the urging of producer Tim Burton, also directed it. Letterman makes a brief, but very funny cameo appearance. The film has developed a small cult following, particularly among devotees of Get a Life, but it was a box-office flop. While the filmmakers themselves have acknowledged that Cabin Boy fell short of their expectations, Elliott was stung by the viciousness of the reviews. Elliott went through a creative dry spell after this, appearing in a recurring role in the Tea Leoni sitcom Flying Blind, and gaining more national visibility as a spokesman for Tostitos snack chips. He also continued making guest appearances on a variety of sitcoms. Since then, Elliott has appeared in supporting roles in a number of silly comedies (Snow Day, sequels to The Nutty Professor, and Scary Movie) and has developed a fruitful relationship with the Farrelly brothers, appearing in Kingpin, Osmosis Jones, and, most notably, in their smash hit, There's Something About Mary. He was also heard as the voice of Dogbert on the short-lived animated series, Dilbert, and he was a regular on the appropriately named, ill-fated Steven Weber series, Cursed.