Ray Romano

Ray Romano
Date of Birth	December 21, 1957 in Queens, New York, U.S.
Date of Death
Character	Ray Barone
First Appearance	Season 1 Episode 1 "Pilot"
Number of episodes	210 (all episodes)

Raymond Albert "Ray" Romano (born December 21, 1957) is the comedian and actor who plays the lead male role of Ray Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond. Ray, who holds multiple roles within Hollywood as a stand-up comedian, screenwriter and voice actor, is best known for his roles on Everybody Loves Raymond and in the Ice Age film series. He recently starred in the TNT comedy-drama Men of a Certain Age, before starring in Parenthood also in Vinyl and Get Shorty.

Biography

Ray was born in Queens, New York of Italian descent, the son of Lucie, a piano teacher, and Albert Romano (11/7/1925–3/11/2010), a real estate agent and engineer. Ray grew up in the Forest Hills section of Queens. He has a brother named Richard A. Romano and another brother, Robert. Romano attended elementary and middle school at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Forest Hills. After transferring from Archbishop Molloy High School, Romano graduated from Hillcrest High School in 1975. He was in the same high school class as Fran Drescher and later appeared on Drescher's sitcom, The Nanny, as an old classmate. Before getting into show business, Ray briefly attended Queens College, City University of New York, in Flushing, Queens, where he studied accounting. Romano quit after gaining only 15 credits in three years, but he would later return, however, making it to the Dean's List for three years.

Career and personal life

Ray's early comedy career started when he competed in the Johnnie Walker Comedy Search in 1989. His career included many outlets, such as Comedy Central, where he had been a recurring guest voice on the show Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. He also was a contestant on Star Search in the stand-up comedy category. He originally was cast to play Joe (originally named Rick) on the NBC television sitcom NewsRadio, but was fired and replaced by Joe Rogan. He then appeared on Late Show with David Letterman doing his stand up routine which formed his ties with CBS. Shortly thereafter, in September 1995, he became the star of his own show, Everybody Loves Raymond on CBS, that featured a cast and format more suitable to Romano's brand of humor.

Ray and Kevin James, who in real life are close friends, both starred in the 2006 salesman comedy, Grilled, as two guys of the same meat packing profession who are both very desperate to land a big sale. Ray was featured on a 2000 episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, on which he won US$125,000 for the NYPD's D.A.R.E. Unit. His older brother, Richard Romano (born in 1956), is a sergeant with the NYPD, and he also has a younger brother, Robert Romano (born 1965). Ray married his wife, Anna, on October 11, 1987. They met while working at a bank together. They have four children: one daughter, Alexandra (born 1990), and three sons: twins Matthew and Gregory (born 1993), and Joseph Raymond (born February 16, 1998). His on-screen daughter for Everybody Loves Raymond was named after his real-life daughter. Also, in the series pilot, Ray and Debra's twin boys were named after Gregory and Matthew, Romano's real twin sons, but Romano felt it was too weird to have all his TV kids have the same names as his real kids, so they changed the twins' names to Geoffrey and Michael on screen.

In 2001, Romano was named one of E!'s top twenty entertainers of the year. That same year he was featured with his brother (a teacher at a school in Long Island) on a New York Police Department recruiting poster. In 2004 he became the highest-paid television actor in history for his role of Raymond on CBS's Everybody Loves Raymond. It was later revealed on E! that he had broken another record by his show having the highest revenue at US$3.9 billion.

On December 13, 2003, Romano was featured as a special guest star, sending a birthday card to Bob Barker in his eightieth-birthday bash on the twenty-seventh "Million Dollar Spectacular" special of the long-running daytime CBS series The Price Is Right.

Selected Filmography

Movies

• 2002 - Ice Age
• 2004 - Welcome to Mooseport
• 2006 - Ice Age: The Meltdown
• 2009 - Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
• 2012 - Ice Age: Continental Drift
• 2014 - Rob the Mob
• 2016 - Ice Age: Collision Course
• 2017 - Big Sick
• 2019 - The Irishman

Television

• 1996 - Everybody Loves Raymond
• 2009 - Men of a Certain Age
• 2012 - Parenthood
• 2016 - Vinyl
• 2017 - Get Shorty

Guest Appearances

• Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist
• Cosby
• The Nanny
• Saturday Night Live
• Becker
• The Simpsons
• The King of Queens
• Til Death
• Kevin Can Wait

Everybody Loves Raymond Appearances

Appeared in all 210 episodes. (see complete list of episodes)

Gallery

Ray and his daughter Ally in Ice Age: Continental Drift.

Trivia

• Ray's daughter Alexandra Romano was her nickname Ally where she named after Ray Barone's daughter Ally Barone (played by Madylin Sweeten).
• Went to high school with actress Fran Drescher. He guest-starred on her TV show The Nanny playing the same character he plays on Everybody Loves Raymond.
• Was once planning on becoming an accountant.
• Used to deliver futons.
• Met his wife when they worked at the same bank.
• Romano competed in the World Series of Poker in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2015.
• He originally was cast to play the electrician Joe (originally named Rick) on the American NBC television sitcom NewsRadio, but was fired and replaced by Joe Rogan.
• He often collaborates with his good friend and fellow comic Kevin James. Even James' show, The King of Queens was a spin-off of Raymond.
• Romano lived at home with his parents until he was 29 years old. He met his wife while he was still living there.
• Is an avid golfer.
• He currently has a net worth of $130 million.
• He won a Cable Ace Award for Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (for "Best Animated Programming Special or Series") in 1995 as one of the writers, shared with the rest of the writing crew.
• He absolutely despised the title of his show, Everybody Loves Raymond. Everyone else who worked on the show wanted that to be the title. He wanted to change the title from the beginning all the way to the end.
• His son personally coined the term for his book, Everything and a Kite. He thought such a phrase was so inspired, he encourages people to have it catch on and become a popular mainstream idiom.
• In real life, he is the eldest sibling. His brothers Richard and Robert Romano are both younger as well as shorter.
• Actress Sarah Clarke called working with him on his TV show Men of A Certain Age, one of the crowning touches of her career.
• Is 6'2" and Roman-Catholic.
• Is Italian.
• Ray's real life brother did not like the way he was portrayed on Everybody Loves Raymond.
• He has four children.
• His wife Anna Romano is a breast-cancer survivor. After she recovered, she and Raymond have gone on to speak about breast-cancer awareness.
• He started a sketch group with four of his friends; the group used to perform comical improvisations in front of live audiences, which gave Romano a taste for stand-up comedy. The group was called: No Talent, Inc.
• Ray’s introduction to stand-up comedy was Bill Cosby’s ‘To Russell, My Brother Whom I Slept With’. Cosby’s organic sense of humor greatly appealed to Romano and piqued his interest in an acting career. Romano personally presented Cosby with the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award in the 2003.
• Knows how to spin a basketball on his finger.
• Does a killer moonwalk.
• Considered the late Doris Roberts his acting mentor and best friend.

External links

• Ray Romano on Ray's Official Website
• Ray Romano on IMDb
• Ray Romano Club on Instagram