Doris Roberts, the Emmy-winning character actress best known for her role as Ray Romano’s tart-tongued, interfering mother on the hit CBS series “Everybody Loves Raymond,” died on Sunday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 90.Ms. Roberts died in her sleep, said a family spokeswoman, Janet Daily.
Originally trained as a stage actress, Ms. Roberts found particular acclaim on the screen, often playing mothers and grandmothers who radiated dyspeptic wisecracking warmth: Over time, she did duty as the mothers of Tony Danza, Billy Crystal, Bette Midler and Marlo Thomas, among many others.
In the 1980s, she was known for her portrayal of Mildred Krebs, the irreverent secretary on “Remington Steele,” the comic detective series starring Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist.But she was most renowned as Marie Barone, the overbearing matriarch on “Everybody Loves Raymond,” originally broadcast from 1996 to 2005 and still seen round the world in syndication.
On “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Marie Barone, played by Ms. Roberts, gave marriage advice.Credit…CreditVideo by widdlwichard
“I can’t go anywhere without being recognized from the sitcom,” Ms. Roberts told the magazine Today’s Woman in 2008. “For example, while filming ‘They Came From Upstairs’” — shot in New Zealand and released in 2009 as “Aliens in the Attic” — “a lovely older couple from Siberia came up to me and announced that they watch ‘Raymond’ every night!”
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Doris Roberts and James Coco received Emmy Awards for their roles in a 1982 episode of the television series “St. Elsewhere.”Credit…Associated Press
Viewers particularly cherished Marie’s satisfyingly caustic onscreen banter with Peter Boyle, who played her long-suffering, equally dyspeptic husband, Frank.
Ms. Roberts was also awarded an Emmy in 1983 for a guest appearance on the NBC medical drama “St. Elsewhere.” In that episode, first broadcast in 1982, she played one half of a homeless couple, opposite James Coco.But despite that accolade, she was cast overwhelmingly in light fare, a predicament that sometimes rankled.
“I won an Emmy for a dramatic role on ‘St. Elsewhere,’” Ms. Roberts told The Los Angeles Times in 1991. Since then, she continued: “I have yet to be given a dramatic role in this town. Comedy is what they put me in.”Doris May Green was born in St. Louis on Nov. 4, 1925, the daughter of Larry Green and the former Ann Meltzer. Her father left the family when Doris was a child, and she was reared in the Bronx by her mother. She later took the surname of her stepfather, Chester Roberts.
Ms. Roberts briefly attended N.Y.U. before studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in Manhattan. She later trained at the Actors Studio, where her cohort included Anne Bancroft, Martin Balsam and Marilyn Monroe.She made her Broadway debut as a young streetwalker in a 1955 revival of William Saroyan’s comedy “The Time of Your Life” that starred Franchot Tone, Gloria Vanderbilt and John Carradine.
Her other Broadway credits include “Marathon ’33,” a 1963 play written and directed by June Havoc; Neil Simon’s comedy “Last of the Red Hot Lovers,” which opened in 1969 and ran for 706 performances; and two plays by Terrence McNally, “Ravenswood” and “Dunelawn,” staged together in 1974 under the rubric “Bad Habits.”
Doris Roberts in Los Angeles in 2003.Credit…Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
For “Bad Habits,” Ms. Roberts won an Outer Critics Circle Award.Ms. Roberts was originally cast as Bea Arthur’s friend Vivian in the 1970s Norman Lear sitcom “Maude,” but she was replaced by Rue McClanahan after producers concluded that her screen persona resembled Ms. Arthur’s too closely.
She had recurring roles on several television series, including “Soap” and “Angie”; starred in many TV movies; and played guest roles on a spate of series, among them “Naked City,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “All in the Family,” “Cagney & Lacey” and “Murder, She Wrote.”Her films credits include “The Honeymoon Killers” (1969), “A New Leaf” (1971), “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” (1974) and “Hester Street” (1975).
