Ray Romano, Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts and the rest of the Barone family stole our hearts from 1996 until 2005 — but even though you watched the series all the time, we bet you never knew these fun facts about the show!
Ray Romano wasn’t a big fan of show’s title
“It invites hatred. It came about from a sarcastic comment my brother made, who is a police officer. And he said, ‘look what I do for a living, and look at Raymond — yeah, everybody loves Raymond.’ So we used it as a working title. And it just grew on CBS, and we couldn’t get rid of it,” Ray said in a previous interview.
Everybody Loves Raymond was created after Ray Romano performed stand-up on the Late Show with David Letterman
“I was doing stand-up for 12 years. Then I did a David Letterman spot. And a week later, the Letterman producer, Rob Burnett, called me and said we’re interested in trying to develop a show just based on what they saw, my stand-up, which was me talking about my family. And we said fine,” Ray once explained of the series’ beginnings.
Ray Romano is three years older than Brad Garrett
Brad — who portrayed Ray’s older brother, Robert, on the show — was only 36-years-old when the series first aired in 1996, while Ray was age 39 at the time. Ray is now 58-years-old and Brad is 56.
Ray Romano was the highest paid TV actor during Seasons 8 and 9 of the comedy
Cha-ching! Ray was allegedly earning between $1.7 and $1.8 million per episode during the show’s last two seasons. His $50 million paycheck in 2004 and 2005 helped him surpass Frasier star Kelsey Grammer as the highest paid TV actor at the time.
“From the first day of rehearsal, I sobbed the whole day, and then when we got to the taping of the show, I lost my voice, and we couldn’t do it,” Patricia once shared. “Yeah, actually, we were ready to film. When we were ready to film the episode, literally, as we were ready to be introduced, Patty, in the beginning of the day, her voice was hoarse, so we waited, we waited. At showtime, the voice was gone. We had to send the audience home and do it the following week,” Ray added. So funny!
Ray and Debra’s onscreen daughter, Ally, and twin sons, Geoffrey and Michael, are real-life siblings
Madylin Sweeten (Ally) is the older sister to brothers Sullivan Sweeten (Michael) and Sawyer Sweeten (Geoffrey). In April 2015, Sawyer sadly passed away at age 19.
“I believe over 100 women read for this part. And, at that time, I was directing a play and I didn’t have any time,” the late actress previously said in a 2002 interview. “They said I had an appointment at CBS at 3:30 on a Monday. I said, I can’t… They said, yes, we talked to your producer. You’re going in 3:30 on Monday afternoon. And I did. And here I am, six years later.”
Peter Boyle was in a bad mood when he auditioned for the role of Frank
On the day of his big audition, Peter had trouble getting into the studio lot! “We couldn’t get a parking space,” the late actor once recalled. “Then when we finally got all of that worked out, we went to the office — and they said, no, the auditions are being held in another place… I was enraged.”
