Holy crap! It seems like only yesterday When Everybody Loves Raymond premiered on Sept. 13, 1996, introducing audiences to Ray Barone (Ray Romano) and his dysfunctional family.
Airing for nine seasons from 1996 to 2005, CBS’ live-studio sitcom starred comedian Romano as the titular character, an Italian sports columnist living in Long Island with his wife (Patricia Heaton), three kids and meddlesome parents right across the street. The show went on to win 15 Emmy Awards, including two for outstanding comedy series and several for acting.
Although fans have missed the Barones’ weekly antics, the show lives on with all 210 episodes available to stream on Peacock and Paramount+ — a binge undertaken by Romano in April 2024, who watched and rated all the episodes for the first time since the series finale in 2005.
“I got on a little kick there. I hadn’t seen the episodes,” the actor told PEOPLE. “They took on a new look to me. I was appreciating them more. I was very hard on them back then … But you see when you’re removed from it a little, I felt like an audience member. And then I said, ‘Let me rate them.’ I rated them, and I was hard on some.”
Whether you’re a newbie to the series or a longtime fan interested in catching up with the stars who brought the Barone family to life on-screen, here’s what the Everybody Loves Raymond cast is up to now.
Ray Romano as Raymond Barone
Romano — in the role of sportswriter Raymond Barone — kept the laughs coming through interactions with his overbearing parents and put-upon wife, Debra (Heaton). The role earned him one Emmy and a handful of nominations, however, he’s admitted that not every episode was award-worthy.
“When you do 210 episodes, you’re going to have episodes that you think are brilliant and you’re going to have episodes that you think, ‘Wow, you know what? We kind of missed it on that one,” Romano told PEOPLE of his Everybody Loves Raymond rewatch. “Then you’re going to have episodes that are very good, great, and somewhere in the middle, you know what I mean? That’s just to be expected when you’re cranking an episode out every week.”
Following Romano’s run on the hit show, the Queens-born actor remained a fixture on TV, appearing on Men of a Certain Age, Parenthood, Vinyl, Get Shorty, Made for Love and Bupkis. He’s set to star alongside Lisa Kudrow, Linda Cardellini, Luke Wilson and more on the Netflix comedy series No Good Deed, slated for a 2025 release.
Romano also voiced Manny in the Ice Age film series and appeared in The Big Sick (2017) and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman (2019). Before his appearance in Greg Berlanti’s 2024 film Fly Me to the Moon, he wrote, directed and starred in 2022’s Somewhere in Queens, opposite Laurie Metcalf.
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He shares four children — Alexandra, Matthew, Gregory and Joseph — with wife Anna Romano (née Scarpulla).
Heaton played Debra on the sitcom, a hard-working mom who just couldn’t see eye to eye with her in-laws, though she had a soft spot for her brother-in-law, Robert (Brad Garrett). She won back-to-back Emmys for her performance in 2000 and 2001.
After Raymond‘s end, Heaton joined actor Kelsey Grammer on Fox’s Back to You before finding a new home on the small screen as an overworked mom on ABC’s The Middle, then as a mom pursuing medical school on CBS’ Carol’s Second Act, which inspired the title of her 2020 book, Your Second Act: Inspiring Stories of Reinvention.
Since 1990, Heaton has been married to British actor David Hunt, with whom she has four sons.
