Did any Everybody Loves Raymond cast members make it to 100?
What did Doris Roberts have to say about her onscreen husband upon his passing?
Keep watching for the details about these sadly departed sitcom stars.
Peter Boyle played Frank Barone throughout the run of Everybody Loves Raymond. Frank
was a lovable curmudgeon who was fond of blurting out a certain catchphrase.
"Holy crap!"
But to get to that point, Boyle had to endure a hectic audition process
involving a changed location, trouble with parking, and missing identification for his
family. When he finally walked in the room, he remembered being "grouchy."
As he recalled in an interview with the Television Academy,
he barked at creator Phil Rosenthal and ended up getting the job because he was in character.
Besides Raymond, Boyle is probably best known as the tap-dancing monster in 1974's
Young Frankenstein. He passed away in December 2006 after suffering from both heart disease
and multiple myeloma. He lived an exciting life,
which included a stint as a monastery student and John Lennon serving as the best man
at his wedding. After he died, Brad Garrett, who played his son Robert, told CBS News,
"I've lost an amazing friend and colleague. Being able to share nine
years with Peter on Raymond and witness his talent and humanity was an honor."
And his onscreen wife Doris Roberts shared,
"It's like losing a spouse."
"He was a gentle man, a very brilliant man, a very smart man, a very well-read man,
a very sensitive man."
As Marie Barone, Doris Roberts was the nosy mother across the street who was always ready
to annoy Ray and his wife Debra. Roberts had a hand in creating her own character,
as she fleshed out Maria as a three-dimensional person
rather than just a stock sitcom type. As she told the Television Academy,
"It's wonderful writing, but I also credit myself for what I did.
Because she is a virago if you play her that way, as written. She is a control freak,
she's a pain in the neck, and I've raised the area of the anatomy about that."
Roberts was determined to make audiences laugh, and she succeeded. She enjoyed a long career
stretching back to the 1950s. Besides Raymond, her most memorable role was probably Clark Griswold's
mother-in-law in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. In 2016, she passed away in her
sleep from natural causes at the age of 90. Her onscreen daughter-in-law Patricia Heaton tweeted:
"My wonderful TV mother-in-law and ELR nemesis
Doris Roberts was a consummate professional from whom I learned so much. She was funny
and tough and loved life [...] It truly was a privilege, Doris. I love you and miss you."
Meanwhile, Ray Romano revealed to Inside Edition that he got together with Heaton and
some writers of the show to honor Roberts as they drank and ate pizza in her honor.
Character actor extraordinaire Fred Willard had a recurring part on Everybody Loves Raymond
as Hank MacDougall, Robert's father-in-law. Hank was known as a religious man who was
strict and stiff. Willard felt constricted by that uptight personality and eventually
asked for more to do. As he recalled in a Television Academy interview,
"I wanted to cut loose. [...] They gave me some wonderful lines, and lo and behold,
I was nominated for an Emmy three years in a row."
In one particularly memorable episode, after Hank discovers that his wife Pat
is secretly a smoker, he admits to having an obsession with fireworks.
Willard passed away in 2020 at the age of 86 from natural causes, shortly before the
premiere of his Netflix sitcom Space Force. His Space Force costar Steve Carell tweeted,
"Fred Willard was the funniest person that I've ever worked with. He was a sweet, wonderful man."
And Phil Rosenthal tweeted,
"Our beloved friend and one of the world's funniest people has passed.
Rest In Peace Fred. We all love you."
"That's right!"
Prolific character actor Charles Durning recurred on Raymond as Father Hubley, the priest that the
Barones turned to in times of need. In one of his most memorable appearances, in the two-part
episode "The Wedding," he officiated Debra and Ray's nuptials in a flashback and then presided
over their renewal ceremony in the present day. He was reportedly dubbed "the king of
character actors" for his versatility, as he moved easily between the likes of Dog Day Afternoon,
The Muppet Movie, and even a Shania Twain music video. He also received two back-to-back
Oscar nominations, for 1982's The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and 1983's To Be or Not to Be.
When Durning was 21 years old, he was part of the force that landed
on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. He later told The Washington Post that
he didn't like to think about what he witnessed that day, as he explained,
"I'd like to have a decade of my life back.
I dropped into a void for almost a decade. It's your mind that's hard to heal. There
are many horrifying secrets in the depths of our souls that we don't want anyone to know about."
Durning passed away on Christmas Eve in 2012 of natural causes, at the age of 89.
Katherine Helmond had a recurring part on Raymond as Debra's mother Lois.
In an interview with the Television Academy,
Helmond revealed that she'd suggested details about her character to the show's writers
based on an actual couple who were completely self-absorbed to the detriment of their own child.
Thankfully, the writers loved the idea, so they incorporated her suggestion into the show, as
Debra's family's indifference served as a perfect comedic contrast to Ray's over-involved parents.
Helmond also starred in the Terry Gilliam films Brazil and Time Bandits,
and she's probably best known as Mona Robinson,
Angela's boy-crazy mother on Who's the Boss? She passed away in 2019 at the age of 89
of complications from Alzheimer's disease. Patricia Heaton memorialized her by tweeting,
"Katherine Helmond was such a class act and incredibly down to earth.
She was terrific as my mother on Everybody Loves Raymond and I looked up to her as a role model."
Her Who's the Boss? co-star Tony Danza later noted that their show
could never be resurrected in the wake of her passing, as he told Good Day New York,
"[We] can't reboot [Who's the Boss?] because we've got no Katherine Helmond,
that's why not. That's it."
Character actor Len Lesser had a recurring role on Everybody Loves Raymond as Garvin,
best friend of Ray's ornery dad Frank. Fans will surely remember the way Garvin always pumped his
hands in the air and shook them in excitement any time he saw Ray and shouted his catchphrase:
"Hey, Ray's here! Ha ha!"
Lesser was also famous for his recurring appearances on Seinfeld as Jerry's Uncle Leo,
a character who shared a lot of DNA with Garvin.
"Uncle Leo?"
Lesser was a prolific actor besides those two roles, having appeared in iconic films like
The Outlaw Josey Wales and on TV shows like Boy Meets World. He died in 2011 at the age of 88
of cancer-related pneumonia. His daughter Michele told CNN that he passed peacefully, as she noted,
"He was a great grandpa, and an amazing father.
He had a heart of gold — and a sense of humor of platinum."
In the third episode of the first season,
iconic sitcom star Jean Stapleton stopped by Everybody Loves Raymond to play Ray's Aunt Alda,
Marie's sister. She was there for a funeral at which Ray was meant to deliver a eulogy,
and he found himself nervous to speak in front of her. Stapleton was of course best-known for
playing matriarch Edith Bunker on the classic sitcom All in the Family. In an interview with
the Television Academy, she called that show a "marvelous collaboration." She revealed that
the actors were allowed to dispute the writing of their lines if they felt out of character,
which can be a rarity in the industry. According to her, the directors told them,
"You are in a free theater. Enjoy it and relish it while you have it."
Stapleton passed away in 2013 at the age of 90 from natural causes. Dick Van Dyke,
who starred opposite her in the 1971 film Cold Turkey, called her "such a sweet lady" on Twitter
and shared a video of himself singing the All in the Family theme song in her honor.
And Norman Lear, creator of All in the Family, told CNN,
"No one gave more profound 'how to be a human being' lessons than Jean Stapleton."
Phil Leeds memorably played a Satanist in 1968's Rosemary's Baby,
and then decades later he recurred on Everybody Loves Raymond as Uncle Mel, brother of Frank.
Leeds had a long and prolific career in Hollywood, but he was never the most famous star, and he
seems to have had a good sense of humor about it. As he told the Los Angeles Times in 1995,
"Here's how I describe myself: I am the guy who people say,
'Here comes what's-his-face.' No one ever knows my name, just my face."
In a lovely nod to Leeds' contribution to film history, he once made a cameo that referenced
his most iconic role in a Rosemary's Baby-themed episode of Roseanne. In 1998, he passed away from
pneumonia at the age of 82. At the time, he had a recurring part on Ally McBeal as Judge "Happy"
Boyle. The seventh episode of that show's second season was dedicated to him, as the characters
gathered to remember the departed judge. Three years before his death, he told the L.A. Times,
"I'll never retire. Time doesn't hang heavily on my hands. I'm very comfortable,
I don't need the money, but as they say, you gotta use it or lose it. I keep the blood flowing."
Prolific actor Robert Culp was best known for his lead role in the 60s show I Spy, in which he
starred alongside Bill Cosby. The secret agent series was groundbreaking for its depiction of
inter-racial relations. Some stations refused to even air it, so controversial was the idea of a
Black man working with a white one at the time. In an interview with the Television Academy,
Culp revealed that he was willing to defer to Cosby for how to handle the racist backlash
to the show, and that he followed his lead when the comedian essentially declared that
the show was their statement. However, it wasn't all tense, as Culp also noted,
"I never had so much fun in my life.
Ever. Before or since. And I've had a lot of fun in this business."
On Everybody Loves Raymond, Culp played Debra's father Warren, alongside Katherine Helmond as
her mother. They made their first appearance in the Season 1 episode "The In-Laws," which
creator Phil Rosenthal told the Television Academy has "special meaning" to him,
as he was almost fired as showrunner during production. As Rosenthal raved,
"Katherine Helmond and Robert Culp played Debra's parents,
and they stayed with us for nine years, and they were fantastic."
The trailblazing Culp lived to be 79 years old
before he died in 2010 from injuries suffered in a fall.
Alongside his twin brother Sullivan, Sawyer Sweeten played Ray and Debra's twin sons
Geoffrey and Michael, while their sister Madylin played Barone daughter Ally.
The twins were only 16 months old when they joined the show,
and they grew up on screen. By the time the show ended in 2005, they were 10 years old and playing
full-fledged characters with their own storylines, but after the show ended, they stepped back from
acting. They attended the TV Land Awards in 2010 for an Everybody Loves Raymond reunion,
but otherwise, they went on to live private lives outside the public eye.
But in 2015, tragedy struck, as Sawyer killed himself just a few weeks before his 20th birthday.
Ray Romano mourned his passing as he told People Magazine,
"I'm shocked and terribly saddened by the news about Sawyer. He was
a wonderful and sweet kid to be around. Just a great energy whenever he was there.
My heart breaks for him, his family and his friends during this very difficult time."
And his sister Madylin wrote on Facebook,
"At this time I would like to encourage everyone to reach out
to the ones you love. Let them have no doubt of what they mean to you."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.